Harry Simons of Torrance, Calif., is the champion of the Fantasy Index Open, and Andrew Luck was his MVP.
Wind the clock back to August, recall, and there were questions about Luck’s shoulder. He hadn’t thrown at all, and suggestions were increasing that he might begin the season on the PUP list. Simons had the foresight to leave Luck out of his top 20 entirely, probably his most important decision in outperforming a field of 560 fantasy pundits.
"I got lucky there," said Simons, a retired 64-year-old originally from Pennsylvania.
Most of the other finishers in the top 10 downgraded Luck, but left him in the teens. Had those contestants instead listed a quarterback along the lines of Blake Bortles in their top 20, they might have been the overall champion.
With the win, Simons wins a gigantic trophy from AffordableTrophies.com. They’ve been partnering with us on this competition for years. That company offers a wide variety of fantasy league awards, and their website.
Patrick Chance, a business consultant from Dallas, took 2nd. Like Simons, he earns a berth in the Experts Poll, competing in a similar contest against a field of 18 industry analysts.
Jeff LeBeouf from Crowley, La., took the bronze, followed by two New York entries with two of the better names: “Ezekiel’s Wet T Shirt Contest” and “Physically Unable to Perform.”
One other entry in top 10 gets style points for having a cool name: The “Lambeauners” from Pleasant Hill, Iowa.
A total of 560 were able to complete the process, putting in a top 20 at each of six different positions – QB, RB , WR, TE, PK and Def. (That's setting aside others who started entries but didn't list a full 20 at all six positions.)
To see how your own entry fared, click on the blue “Your Stuff” link at the top of the page. There should then be a “Fantasy Index Open” link near the upper right corner of the page, giving you your overall performance breakdown, including overall points and results at each position.
Scoring in this competition is complex. We score all 120 players ranked by each contestant. The higher you rank a player, the more he counts towards your score. Greg Zuerlein, for example, was the highest scoring kicker, with 158 points. If you ranked him 1st, that would be worth 3,950 points (25 x 158). If you ranked him 2nd, that would be worth 3,792 (24 x 158). Rank him 3rd and it’s worth 3,634 (23 x 158). Following that process for every player and every pick, and we get some sense of the overall quality of analyst.
Simon hit it big with Luck, but it’s not as if he won with that pick alone. He also was able to finish 8th at the running back position, and if we consider it a field of 560, he was in the top 25 percent at wide receiver and defenses. He finished above-average at tight end. His only below-average position was at kicker, where he got stuck holding a bunch of Luck-type guys – Cairo Santos, Caleb Sturgis, Dustin Hopkins, Nick Novak.
Chance’s 2nd-place entry finished 3rd at quarterback (he also left out Luck entirely) and 23rd in defenses, but was only slightly above-average at the running back and wide receiver positions. Chance finished 60th at tight end and 96th with kickers.
New Jersey can claim bragging honors this year, with three of the top 10 finishers.
With there being 560 entries, you need to crack the top 56 to claim to be in the top 10 percent. Finishing at 280th or above in any particular category was above average.
I put my own picks in there, and did better than most with Luck, ranking him 13th. That helped me finish 84th – top 15 percent. I finished in the top 90 with quarterbacks and tight ends, but only slightly above-average at running back, wide receiver and defense. I got shelled at kicker, finishing 434th – beating only about 20 percent of the viable entries. In the overall standings, I was at least able to finish 5 spots ahead of trivia maven Dennis Lyons of Elk Grove, Calif.
—Ian Allan