NFL Week 16 – Industry Expert Grading

With the holidays, there were only 20 experts who had selections for Week 16. Those experts faired pretty well directing us to the Blake Bortles to Allen Robinson connection and gave us two solid highly touted running backs in Adrian Peterson and David Johnson. While there were a few other strong plays sprinkled in, there were also a lot of off the radar picks that came through with big games. Check out the Extra Credit section below to find out which experts called some of these less obvious plays. With Week 16 in the books, we are down the final week of the regular season where we will crown our top DFS experts for the NFL season.

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 16 grades, class is in session!

Week 16 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 a decent week finishing in the middle of the pack in 11th place out of 20 experts graded this week.

Quarterbacks

Highly Touted
A+ – Blake Bortles – Right on cue Bortles threw for 4 TD passes and over 350 yards

Recommended
B – Russell Wilson – Solid game for Wilson with 2 TD passes
D – Cam Newton – First dud game for Newton in December, rushing score saved him from an “F”
F – Ben Roethlisberger – Had the matchup and motivation but failed to deliver

Suggested
A – Ryan Fitzpatrick – Yet another solid game for Fitzpatrick with almost 300 yards and 3 TD passes

Running Backs

Highly Touted
A – Adrian Peterson – First game over 100 rushing yards since Week 12, plus a TD
B – David Johnson – Another solid game for Johnson with a rushing TD and 88 receiving yards

Recommended
A+ – DeAngelo Williams – The only effective Steeler on Sunday with 100 rushing yards and 2 TDs
F – Doug Martin – Had 17 carries and a rushing TD, but only 55 total yards and two fumbles

Suggested
C – Karlos Williams – Filled in well for LeSean McCoy with 97 total yards and a TD
D – James White – Scored again, but only had 5 catches for 28 yards
F – Charcandrick West – Had a good matchup, but only had 62 yards on 14 carries

Wide Receivers

Highly Touted
A+ – Allen Robinson – Big game for Robinson with over 150 yards including a long TD reception
D – Antonio Brown – Everything pointed to a big day for Brown, but only had 7 catches for 61 yards

Recommended
A+ – Doug Baldwin – Only 1 TD catch, but still had 118 receiving yards to go with it for another A+ grade
A+ – Rueben Randle – Long TD catch paid-off his salary
A – DeAndre Hopkins – Brandon Weeden at QB still no problem for Hopkins
C – Kamar Aiken – Caught all 8 targets, but no Hail Mary this week to boost his overall numbers
F – Martavis Bryant – Entire Steelers passing game struggled

Suggested
A+ – Brandon Marshall – Just another 100+ yard day with a couple TDs for Marshall
C – Jeremy Maclin – Has scored in 4 of his last 5 games
C – Sammy Watkins – Solid game, but no TD for the first time in five weeks

Tight Ends

Highly Touted
F – Julius Thomas – Only 2 targets as everything went to the WRs

Recommended
B- Rob Gronkowski – Had 86 receiving yards, but no TD to go with it
F – Greg Olsen – Limited to 4 catches for 40 yards

Suggested
B – Kyle Rudolph – Off course Rudolph comes through on Christmas weekend
F – Will Tye – Needs to score to have value, didn’t score this week
F – Gary Barnidge – Only 3 catches each of the last 2 weeks

Head of the Class for Week 16

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 16 based on their cumulative grades for all players they touted this week.

#1) VenoDFS-The Cap Room (Score: 6.40) finished in the top spot by a wide margin this week receiving 5 “A+” grades out of 10 selections. The top selection included Blake Bortles, Allen Robinson, Allen Hurns, Doug Baldwin and Brandon Marshall.

#2) SportsBlog (Score: 5.60) comes in second place this week with 4 out of 5 selection receiving a grade of “B” or better. They were led by the Blake Bortles to Allen Robinson connection in addition to an off the radar selection of Jermaine Kearse.

#3) RotoCurve (Score: 4.82) rounds out the top three this week with 4 “A+” grades out of 11 total selections. They received “A+” grades from Blake Bortles, DeAngelo Williams, Allen Robinson and Rueben Randle.

Study Time for Week 16

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 16 experts that didn’t make the grade this week.

• Moxyball-Matt (Score: 2.00) who has been one of our leaders in the overall standings struggled this week with 6 grades of a “D” or “F” out of 8 selections. They were let down by players such as Mike Evans, Julius Thomas and Will Tye.
• VenoDFS-Rob O’Connor (Score: 2.33) another top five experts for the season also had a down week with only 11 of his 15 picks receiving a grade of “C” or lower. Some of the picks that didn’t come through this week included Ben Roethlisberger, Doug Martin, Cameron Artis-Payne and Julius Thomas.

Extra Credit for Week 16

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. Week 16 extra credit goes to the following…

A+ – Drew Brees (DailyFantasySportsRankings, Moxyball-Marcel)
A+ – Michael Floyd (DailyRoto, FantasyPros)
A+ – Allen Hurns (Moxyball-Marcel, VenoDFS-The Cap Room)
A+ – Keshawn Martin (Moxyball-Marcel)
A+ – Frank Gore (FantasyPros, VenoDFS-Rob O’Connor)
A+ – Javorius Allen (FantasyPros)
A+ – Travis Kelce (FantasyPros)
A+ – Tim Hightower (ESPN-Matthew Berry)
A+ – Brandin Cooks (VenoDFS-Rob Veno)
A+ – Julio Jones (VenoDFS-Derek)

Overall Leaderboard

To see the full leaderboard through Week 16 head over to the NFL Industry Expert Grading page.

#1) VenoDFS-Derek (Score: 3.61) strengthens his lead over the field with a strong 6th place showing in Week 15 when some of the other top experts slipped a little bit. VenoDFS-Derek will look to hold onto the top spot in the final week of the NFL season.

#2) Moxyball-Matt (Score: 3.39) was able to hold onto second place in the overall standings despite a poor Week 16. Matt will need a big Week 17 to try to take over the top spot in the overall standings.

#3) Moxyball-Marcel (Score: 3.37) closes the gap between second and third place this week thanks to a strong 5th place ranking in the Week 16 weekly standings. He will look to overtake fellow Moxyball writer Matt in the final week of the season.

#4) RotoGrinders Consensus (Score: 3.28) remains in fourth place in the overall standings with a solid 8th place ranking in Week 16 and will look to hold off the competition to remain in the top five.

#5) RotoCurve (Score: 3.26) jumps back into the top five with their 3rd place showing in the Week 16 rankings. RotoCurve is still in striking distance of second place in the overall standing if they can put together a great Week 17.

The Industry Consensus picks hold steady again this week in the overall standings remaining in 16th place out of 28 experts listed. Only one week left for the Industry Consensus picks to try to break into the top half of the overall standings.

Let’s see who can make the grade in Week 17!

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