NFL Week 13 – Industry Expert Grading

With such a high-scoring Week 13 in the NFL, you likely scored a lot of points in your DFS lineups this week. Unfortunately scoring a lot of points doesn’t always guarantee success when there are so many players that produce big numbers, especially when it is a lot of the chalk plays. That was the case this week where the experts’ grades where some of the highest we have handed out all season, but you still needed to get the best of the best players to bring home the money. We’ll see below which experts were the best of the best this week.

At quarterback you either needed to go high or low to hit on the right selection as the position with every “Highly Touted” and “Suggested” play receiving, at least, a “B” this week while the middle picks only came up with one “C” and two “F” plays. Running back did not perform as well with no “A+” plays in the list, but with plenty of solid plays as the top six all received, at least, a “C” grade or better. The list of wide receivers had most of the best plays this week such as Antonio Brown, Brandon Marshall, Odell Beckham Jr. and Allen Robinson. While the tight end position was boom or bust this week with three strong “A+” plays to choose from, but it also had three “F” plays that you were hopefully able to avoid.

Be sure to check out the season long scores for all of the experts that we are tracking at the NFL Industry Expert Grading page.

On to the Week 13 grades, class is in session!

Week 13 Consensus Recap

Each week I will recap the top consensus picks that were posted to review how they graded out. The Industry Consensus picks had one of its highest DailyOverlay scores all season at 3.88, but in a week with so much scoring and with so many experts doing well that was still only good enough for 16th place out of 26 experts graded this week.

Quarterbacks

Highly Touted
A+ – Cam Newton – He did not disappoint in a prime matchup
A+ – Tom Brady – Good for about 300 yards and 2-3 TDs every week
B – Ryan Fitzpatrick – Piled up the yardage to go along with 2 TD passes

Recommended
C – Andy Dalton – Didn’t need to do much in Bengals rout
F – Jay Cutler – Only 200 yards and no TD passes against the 49ers
F – Ryan Tannehill – Only completed nine passes for less than 100 yards

Suggested
A+ – Marcus Mariota – Showed off all his skills through the air and ground this week
A – Ben Roethlisberger – Just another big day for Big Ben

Running Backs

Highly Touted
A – DeAngelo Williams – Had 165 total yards, but needed a TD for the A+
C – Jonathan Stewart – Another solid game with 20+ carries for J-Stew
C – Doug Martin – Finally got back in the end zone on his way to a good game

Recommended
B – David Johnson – Had 24 touches and showed he can be the lead back for the Cardinals
B – Shaun Draughn – Scored a TD and continues to rack up the receptions
C – LeSean McCoy – Has had exactly 112 rushing yards in 3 out of his last 5 games, must be his favorite number

Suggested
A – Thomas Rawls – Matchup doesn’t seem to matter for Rawls who put up 100 yards and a score
F – Adrian Peterson – Not his day as Vikings fell way behind
F – CJ Anderson – Started off strong, but injury derailed his day
F – Ronnie Hillman – Got 19 carries, but didn’t do much with them

Wide Receivers

Highly Touted
A+ – Odell Beckham Jr – Now has over 100 yards with a TD in 3 straight games
B – Danny Amendola – Solid game with 7 catches, a TD, and even a pass completion
D – Alshon Jeffery – Had 12 targets, but only caught 4 of them

Recommended
A+ – Antonio Brown – Only thing he didn’t catch was the goalpost
A – AJ Green – Had his first 100+ yard game since Week 8 and has now scored in 2 straight games
B – Eric Decker – He didn’t score!?! But he did have 8 catches for 101 yards
C – Julio Jones – The targets were there with 17, but the elite production and TDs aren’t coming right now
F – Brandon LaFell – Seems to be stuck on 4 catches per game and still hasn’t scored this season
F – TY Hilton – Experts expected much more from Hilton than 3 catches for 36 yards

Suggested
A+ – Brandon Marshall – Two big games in a row for Marshall who has scored in 5 straight games
A+ – Allen Robinson – Got all the targets with Allen Hurns out and put up a huge 3 TD day
B – DeAndre Hopkins – Only 9 targets, but good things happen when the ball goes his way
B – DeVante Parker – Has now scored in 2 straight weeks
D – Larry Fitzgerald – The targets and catches are there, but the yardage and TDs are missing
F – Jarvis Landry – Went from 13 catches in Week 12 to only 2 catches this week, didn’t see that coming

Tight Ends

Highly Touted
A+ – Greg Olsen – Chalk play at TE had a strong game

Recommended
A+ – Delanie Walker – Had 92 yards and a score which equals an A+ at the TE position
C – Julius Thomas – TD catch saved his day
F – Travis Kelce – Only targeted a season-low 3 times

Suggested
A+ – Scott Chandler – Did his best Gronk impersonation for a fraction of the cost
F – Jordan Reed – Limited to only 3 catches for 33 yards
F – Jacob Tamme – Only had 4 targets

Head of the Class for Week 13

Each week I will highlight a few of the top experts for the week. Here are the experts that deserve a “gold star” for Week 13 based on their cumulative grades for all players they touted this week.

#1) Rotoballer (Score: 6.25) finished in the top spot in Week 13 after a 2nd place finish last week. They received an “A+” grade on 5 out of their 8 selections. Players that came through were Tom Brady, Cam Newton, Antonio Brown, Delanie Walker and Scott Chandler.

#2) Moxyball-Matt (Score: 5.38) pulls into the second spot this week. He had 5 picks that received an “A” grade or higher out of 8 selections. He had some consensus picks such as Odell Beckham Jr, Ben Roethlisberger and Greg Olsen, but also hit on an off the radar play with Russell Wilson.

#3) DK Playbook – Geoff Ulrich (Score: 5.23) rounds out the top three this week with 8 out of 22 selections receiving an “A+” grade. Key selections included Tom Brady, Cam Newton, Brandon Marshall, Allen Robinson and Delanie Walker.

Study Time for Week 13

If we are going to give a gold star to the top experts of the week, we also need to determine which experts might need to put in some extra study time to pull up those grades. Here are the Week 13 experts that didn’t make the grade this week.

• FantasyPros (Score: 2.50) struggled this week with 8 “F” grades out of 22 selections. They were let down by players such Jay Cutler, Ryan Tannehill, Brandon LaFell and Travis Kelce.
• Razzball (Score: 2.67) finished near the bottom for the 2nd straight week receiving 3 “F” grades out of 9 selections. Players that didn’t perform for them this week were Ryan Tannehill, Brandon LaFell and Martellus Bennett.

Extra Credit for Week 13

In this section, I will look to give some extra credit to experts that received an A+ grade on a player that they recommended when very few other experts did. With only three low owned “A+” grades this week, I have also added in the “A” grades that were not selected by many experts. Week 13 extra credit goes to the following…

A+ – Javorius Allen (DailySportsGeek-Scott, ESPN–Matthew Berry, DailyRoto-Mayo)
A+ – Doug Baldwin (FantasyPros, VenoDFS-The Cap Room)
A+ – Jeremy Maclin (DailySportsGeek-Scott)
A – Martavis Bryant (DailyRoto, DailyRoto-Mayo)
A – Russell Wilson (RotoGrinders-Consensus, Moxyball-Matt)
A – Zach Ertz (FantasyPros)
A – Matt Forte (DK Playbook-Levitan, DK Playbook-Jennings, VenoDFS-Rob Veno, VenoDFS-The Cap Room)
A – Brandin Cooks (DailyRoto-Mayo)
A – Benjamin Watson (DailyRoto-Mayo)
A – Blake Bortles (VenoDFS-Rob Veno, VenoDFS-The Cap Room)

Overall Leaderboard

To see the full leaderboard through Week 13 head over to the NFL Industry Expert Grading page. Note that we have dropped Rotowriters and DFSManCave off of the leaderboard since we have not tracked their picks for numerous weeks now.

#1) Moxyball-Matt (Score: 3.51) moves into first place in the overall standings thanks to their strong 2nd place finish for Week 13. Moxyball-Matt has been near the top of the leaderboard all season.

#2) VenoDFS-Derek (Score: 3.39) also makes a big jump this week into 2nd place in the overall standings with a solid 9th place showing in Week 13.

#3) VenoDFS-Rob Veno (Score: 3.38) drops out of the top spot down to third this week with his first poor week since we have been tracking his picks by finishing 22nd in the Week 13 standings.

#4) RotoCurve (Score: 3.26) makes an appearance back into the top five pulling into the 4th spot with a strong 7th place ranking in Week 13.

#5) Rotoballer (Score: 3.24) catapults up the leaderboard into 5th place with back-to-back finishes in the top two of the weekly standings. Everyone at the top of the leaderboard needs to step up their game to stay ahead of this up and comer.

As for the Industry Expert Consensus picks, despite another below average showing this week they still moved up in the overall standings slightly to 16th place out of 28 experts listed. The good thing about the Industry Expert Consensus picks is while they will seldom be at the top of the standings for a given week they are also assured of rarely being at the bottom of the standing either.

Let’s see who can make the grade in Week 14!

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