Fantasy Football 2006: Draft Tip #3

Tip #3: Beware the Experts. (Part 1)

You have probably noticed that the Fantasy Football magazines have started to appear. Each one providing their prodigious prognostications, along with a bunch of generally useless information (come on now do I really need to be told for the 9th season in a row to draft running backs in the first round?).

The heart of these publications are the player rankings and cheat sheets. But how does the expert advice from these various knowledgeable sources stack up against each other. One would expect things to be fairly consistent across all the publications; after all they're all ranking the same players with the same stats, Right?

Well, let's look at two of the first Fantasy Football magazines to hit the stands, NFL.com's Fantasy Football 2006 Preview and ESPN.com's Fantasy Football 2006.

Wide Receivers:

• NFL.com's top 10 receivers rank 7, 2, 5, 1, 11, 10, 4, 17, 3, and 14 respectively in the ESPN publication. That's not too bad (OK, maybe a little) but what about when you get through the top tier receivers and are looking for a #2 or #3?
• ESPN's #13, 15, 21, 24, and 29 receivers rank 38, 30, 59, 62, and 63 respectively in NFL.com's list. Likewise, NFL.coms #14, 16, 17, 20 and 21 WRs come in at 23, 25, 30, 47, and 39 in the ESPN list.
  

Defenses:

• OK everyone knows Chicago has a great D and Oakland doesn't. But what about the rest. Well the agreement here is no better than it was on the WRs. ESPN's #4 defense only comes in at #18 on the NFL.com list. Additionally, #6, 8, and 12 on the ESPN list show up as #15, 17, and 24 on NFL.com.
• Not to be outdone, NFL.com's #4 D comes in at #28 (#28?) on the ESPN list. Likewise #7, 8, and 10 on the NFL.com list don't even make it into the top 17 over at ESPN.

This should bring about questions such as:

1. Why the differences?
2. How do I know if I am ending up with a top-level starting player or Defense rather than one that should spend the season in the free Agent pool?
3. How many of these magazines do I have to buy at $7.99 or more to get a good idea what the real story is?

The answer to question #3 in none. We'll tell you why and provide answers to the rest (and more) in Part 2 of "Beware of the Experts"