Results of the Experts Draft

Hey all,

The experts draft was last night and the results can be seen here

As you can see it’s probably the best collection of the so-called experts.

Each day I will be publishing the experts reactions to their draft based on questions that I asked them. Today we feature defending champion, Chris Liss from Rotowire.com (see his team here.

Me: You decided to take two TE (Keller and Gates)? What was your thinking here?

Liss: It was the 13th round, so I just took the best player available. We can also use TE at the flex during bye weeks, so maybe if I’m desperate, and Keller has a good matchup, I’ll do that. Or maybe I’ll drop him.

Me: You took Schaub and Cutler on back to back picks? How much of this was done with trading in mind? What was your thinking?

Liss: I was going to take Schaub and Ahmad Bradshaw, who I like a lot. But I have Bradshaw in three other leagues, so if he does well, I’ll be happy anyway. And I thought it would be fun to fuck everyone over who was still waiting on a quarterback. Maybe some trades will come out of it, but just as likely one of those guys will get hurt or be terrible, and I’ll be glad I had two. Actually, it won’t matter because at least 3-5 waiver wire QBs will probably finish in the top 10.

Me: Including your team, what players were the steal of the draft and reach of the draft?

I hope people call my picks the reach of the draft. Last year someone called Michael Turner who I drafted with the last pick of the second round the reach of the draft, so it’s a huge blessing to be tabbed for that, given how clueless everyone in expert leagues is. Hopefully, that’s not the case here because I think Berry reached for Roddy White at 18. I like White just fine, but where’s the upside? It’s a run-heavy team that just added an elite red-zone target in Tony Gonzalez. Greg Jennings, Steve Smith, Kevin Smith and Pierre Thomas, who were still on the board, were better choices in my opinion. Berry doesn’t deserve the benefit of my calling out his reach, but I had to pick someone.

As for the steal, I like Rashard Mendenhall in Round 9 by Erickson. Mendenhall’s essentially in the same situation as Donald Brown who went three rounds earlier.

Anyone Can Be an Expert!!!

Well at least in fantasy football…

So a couple weeks ago, I announced our Facebook Experts League field…

Matt Berry, Nate Ravitz from ESPN
Andy Behrens, Brandon Funston from Yahoo
Jay Clemons, SI.com, FSTA Fantasy Football Writer of the Year
William Del Pilar, founder of KFFL
Ryan Houston, founder of Fanball
Chris Liss, Jeff Erickson from Rotowire
John Hansen, fantasyguru.com

and one qualifying member from our Facebook app.

In order to be a qualifying member you need to have created at least two leagues on our fantasy football app on Facebook that have at least 10 players in them…

If you qualify and are interested in beating the experts send me a note on Facebook by midnight EST tonight…

Draft is tomorrow (Tuesday) at 7 PM EST/4 PM PST.

Fantasy Football Goes Mobile

So as I mentioned I’ve been playing fantasy football since before the Internet. We used to keep score via spreadsheets and each week had to wait or the USA Today to publish their weekly stats. If the commissioner of the league was out of contention, often the stats wouldn’t get done for weeks at a time and the league became a mess.

Enter the Internet and web based commissioner services. And once what was a bunch of nerd huddled around a spreadsheet became an industry that every major media entity is trying to get a piece of. Technology in the late 90′s and early 2000′s totally revolutionized the world of fantasy sports.

Now mobile has the chance to repeat history.

At Citizen Sports, we have always aimed to bring fantasy sports to users where they are already spending time. We were the first company to launch a full fledged fantasy football commissioner product on Facebook last season and this season we’ve extended that functionality to the iPhone.

Our iPhone application now available for free in the iPhone store. For those of you in leagues on our Fantasy app on Facebook, you will be able to manage your roster, view live scoring and track all your player news on your iPhone via our app.




For those of you who aren’t in a league in our Facebook league you can still enter your players from any league you are in, on any service. You can then track the scoring and news of those players real-time.

Probably the coolest feature on the application is the way we have used the iPhone’s push notification system. Once you have set up the application you will receive push notifications on any new news on your players or any scoring updates on your players. Imagine Sunday morning, tied up at church or shopping with the girlfriend. A push notification shows up on your phone with news that Adrian Peterson has been scratched due to an accident slipping on a banana peel in the locker room. You open the app, go into your roster and sub Chester Taylor in for him in your starting lineup. Then go back to saying Our Father or telling your girlfriend how nice her new dress looks on her without missing a beat.

Just download the app, so your reason for losing this year isn’t your commitment to God or your girlfriend.

Four Points or Six Points… That is the question…

So I’m in this sort of strange league. It’s with fraternity brothers (yes MIT has fraternities and they are very popular) and I’ve been in the league for 18 years. We’ve been playing fantasy football since you had to manually calculate points using the newspaper box scores.

Anyways, this league has some, let’s just call them, eclectic rules. Over the years we’ve tried hard to make QB’s as valuable in fantasy as they are in the real world and after 18 years we have definitely accomplished that.

How, you ask?

Well, first off our thresholds for scoring are a joke. A QB receives zero yardage points until he gets to 150 yards and doesn’t get significant bonuses until he goes over 200 yards at which points his points can go through the roof. We award six points per each TD pass and the clincher is we are forced to start two QB’s. Take a look at the marginal difference between the number two QB and the number 20 QB (10 teams in the league) and you will understand how we have finally accomplished this.

We actually do an auction format where everyone has $20 total to spend on their team and the minimum a player can go for is $.05. For the first time, this year the two most expensive players were QBs – Tom Brady for $7.35 and Drew Brees for $6.55.

At first I thought that this scoring system was stupid but the more I’ve been involved with it (this will the third season), I think it might actually be better than standard scoring because of the great value it gives the QB (arguably the most important position in real football)…

Anyways, the point of this babbling was to get some feedback from you guys on what you think the best fantasy scoring system is, starting with the simple question… four points or six points… what is the right number for TD passes?

Play Fantasy Against the “Experts”

In the old days, experts leagues were easy. I mean there weren’t very many so-called fantasy experts and all of them knew each other so they’d always help each other out by being in their company’s expert league. I remember my first ever expert’s league was shortly after we founded PROTRADE at an FSTA show.

I had played fantasy for 14 some odd years at that point but believe it or not had never done a draft – always having played in auction leagues (don’t get me started about how much better those are). Anyways, to make a long story short, my draft was far from pretty. We’ll call it the Mike Anderson fiasco and that league was against the likes of a pre-ESPN Matt Berry, a pre-ESPN Nate Ravitz, Yahoo’s Brandon Funston, etc, etc, etc.

Anyways, regardless of the result, the experience of getting to compete in a league with these so-called experts was a blast and something that not many people get to do. Over the years many of them have become my friends and I enjoy being in fantasy leagues with them. The reality of it though is that as much as these self-proclaimed experts know there are plenty of you guys out there that know as much and probably win as much in fantasy football as these guys do.

One of our goals at Citizen Sports has always been to make the fantasy experience all about the fan so again this year we are opening up the opportunity for one fan to compete against the experts. I’ve lined up a killer field this year again… from the guys you see on TV, Berry and Ravitz to the guys you hear on the radio John Hanson and Chris Liss, to the guys you read online like Brandon Funston, Andy Behrens and Jeff Erickson. We even have the reigning FSTA Fantasy Football Writer of the year Jay Clemons from SI.com.

All you have to do to be eligible is create at least two leagues on our fantasy app with at least 10 people in each league. We’ll draw a random fan from all of those that qualify and invite you in to the draft.

Until then happy drafting.

Rotowire is King…

… or at least Chris Liss is for now.

Last year in our inaugural year as a fantasy football company, we hosted an experts league on our Facebook app for some of the top guys in the field. Karabell, Berry, Funston, Liss, Erickson, Rosenthal, Hanson, Schatz, Carroll, Sabino, myself and one lucky Facebook user competed for 16 weeks to determine the number one Facebook Fantasy Football expert.

In a very tight league, the championship game pitted myself against Chris Liss of Rotowire. Liss’ team pulled off a narrow victory and as his prize, the Rotowire draft guide is now my Facebook profile pic

We’re starting up the experts league again this year and will have one space reserved for a Facebook user who exemplifies the ideals of Citizen Sports (creates lots of league on our application). Also, we have a few spots open for “experts” so contact me if you have an expert you want to see compete or if you consider yourself an expert and want to compete against the best.

Welcome Back, Mr Bundchen

As a Patriots fan the return of Tom Brady is the most exciting story line of the 2009 football season and as we sit on the precipice of the official beginning of the 2009 fantasy football season (the day we launch our fantasy app on Facebook), I am of the opinion that his return may also be the most exciting story line of the fantasy football season.

I participated in an experts league a month and a half ago and was able to snag Brady in the 4th round. Crazy value, I say.

I anticipate though that Brady’s average draft position will vary more than any other player this season. I think the 4th round is too late and great value but the first round is certainly too early. Or is it?

So the question for all of you is in a 12 team league with no PPR and 4 points per TD passed where would you draft Brady?

How would that change if it was 6 points per TD passed?

Kyle Orton to the Rescue

Really?

That’s what it’s come to… Two things happened to me when I was drafting my team in the Celebrity League. Billy Beane took Jay Cutler out from under me forcing me to go in another direction at QB. And Phil Gordon challenged me to a $1000 bet, on my team versus his team (best record and he wins if we tie)

A third of the way into the season I sit at 3-2 and Gordon is 1-4, but my team is really hanging on by a thread. In fact this week with injuries to Kitna, Griese and Hasselbeck, I’m pinning my hopes on Kyle Orton at QB.

It’s a sad place to be but at least I’m not 1-4.

Scouring the Waiver Wire

So last week, I reported in who the most added players were on Fantasy Football 2008 and as you remember I said it would be interesting to see which of theses guys would be on the most dropped list this week. Well the answer is…

Chansi Stuckey

Actually to me this is interesting and fun because Chansi is emblematic of the whimsical nature of fantasy football. Last week’s darling, Chansi’s team now has a buy and he is being cast aside by many teams needing someone else to fill a bye week void.

So here’s our most added list this week:

1) Muhammad, M.
2) Fasano, A.
3) Moore, L.
4) Prater, M.
5) McClain, L.

Who’s your pick to win the Chansi Stuckey award for next week?

Sorry Brooklyn

Yes, for those of you who have asked (and believe it or not there were a few), I did beat Brooklyn Decker this week to narrowly avoid an 0-3 start. I survived some big-time mismanagement as I benched serious points from the likes of Ronnie Brown and TJ Housh in favor of sub par performances out of Sammy Morris and Lee Evans. I was actually saved when the Jets didn’t trot Brett Favre out for that last meaningless almost TD drive.

Anyways, enough of that. Everyone knows the first rule of fantasy football is no one else cares about YOUR fantasy football team.

One cool feature of our fantasy football app that many of you might not know about is the fantasy resource center. It has all the content and notes you need to make all of your important game day decisions. There’s even a great area that shows you what players are being most added and dropped by all the users across all leagues.

It definitely highlights how quickly fantasy fans can get swayed. The top five most added players this week in order are:

1. Brandon Lloyd
2. Eagles D
3. Ryan Longwell
4. Chansi Stuckey
5. Bo Scaife

With bye weeks galore, it will be interesting to see how many of these five are on the most dropped list next week.