Can you believe we’re almost at the midway point of the fantasy football season? Since we’re close to halftime, let’s take a quick look back to see which experts nailed the most surprising studs from the first half of the season.  Whether these players can keep up their numbers is obviously more important to us, but that’s what Consensus Rest-of-Season Rankings are for (updated on Tuesday afternoons).
 
The most “unglamorous” stud running back in fantasy football has to be Fred Jackson. Maybe it’s because he plays for a team that hasn’t really been known for high powered offenses, or because the team plays for a city that isn’t known for being all that sexy (please, no hate mail. . . I happen to LOVE Buffalo wings and Niagara Falls). More likely, though, it’s because he’s an undrafted 30-year old RB from Coe College with a very unoriginal name. Only “John Smith” could be less exciting.
 
The staff at Chinstrap Ninjas (cool name, btw) were documented Fred Jackson fans. They had him as their #17 RB despite a consensus opinion of RB #26. If you followed their draft advice, Fred Jackson is likely on your team. Unfortunately for me, I fell for C.J. Spiller’s first round draft pedigree and assumed he’d pass up Mr. Unglamorous.
 
Is there any bigger surprise than Cam Newton’s ascension into the elite tier of fantasy quarterbacks? We all love QBs that can run (outside of the squinting we do every time they’re about to get popped), but did anyone think he’d be passing up a storm and putting up so many TDs?
 
Well, Smitty from FantasyFootballXtreme and Sigmund Bloom from FootballGuys were clearly sending smoke signals this Preseason. They both had Newton ranked as their #19 QB while the consensus opinion was QB #27. Following their advice would have landed you a QB2 with tons of upside…upside that starting paying dividends in week 1.
 
We have Smitty documented with the following preseason player note on our site, “Elite in the making, we don’t care what anyone says. Hate him all you want, we believe and we have made that clear this offseason.”
 
Let’s run through a few other surprise studs from the first half of the year and see which experts believed in them the most.
 
Matt Forte
Preseason ECR: RB #12
Best Rank: RB #3
Top Expert: Louis Tranquilli
Site: BFD Fantasy Football
 
Wes Welker
Preseason ECR: WR #19
Best Rank: WR #9
Top Expert: Smitty
Site: Fantasy Football Xtreme
 
Steve Smith (CAR)
Preseason ECR: WR #32
Best Rank: WR #18
Top Expert: Dave Baker
Site: FootballGuys
 
A.J. Green
Preseason ECR: WR #34
Best Rank: WR #19
Top Expert: Jeff Terfertiller
Site: FootballGuys
 
We have a lot of football left to play, but it’s clear these guys were on to something when they touted these players. We’re tracking the accuracy of the 73 experts we have draft rankings for, so we’ll have a full report card after the season is over. Until then, keep up with our Weekly Accuracy leader board.
 
It’s halftime in the MNF game and I need Ray Rice to score 10 points. Yes, that was a miserable first half to watch. Let’s hope for some fireworks in the 2nd half of the game (and the season)!
 
 
Photo Credit: Link 1 & 2