What an epic battle played out as part of USA Today’s Fantasy Football Week In America (FFWIA).  Sirius XM Fantasy Sports Host Ray Flowers, AKA, The Oracle took on The Machine, fantasy football software from Advanced Sports Logic, Inc. manned by RotoInfo columnist Josh Rabbitt.  The rules are that Josh uses The Machine to help him draft a team that is better than The Oracle’s.  To get help for your fantasy draft, visit: http://Ray.GetTheMachine.com.Click here for The Oracle's Column Special to USA TodayClick here to vote for who YOU think won at Fantasy Football Week in AmericaRay makes some good points, but is clearly clouded by his love of certain players and NOT their statistical likelihood.  So, let’s go to the numbers to see who really won the battle of brain vs. CPU. Below is a chart that shows the two drafts side by side.
BY THE NUMBERS
The MachinePPRRDThe OraclePPRRD
QBCam Newton3435Tony Romo3298
RBSteven Jackson2242M Lynch2291
RBLamar Miller1963Matt Forte2512
WRCalvin Johnson3091V Jackson2303
WRDanny Amendola2294V Cruz2304
FlexEric Decker2196Antonio Brown2105
TEGreg Olsen1679Kyle Rudolph14612
KMatt Bryant14715Greg Zuerlein13316
DTSeahawks15211Browns11215
TOTALS19861870
BNMiles Austin1887Chris Ivory1546
BNDanny Woodhead1408R Mendenhall1397
BNBrian Hartline16010Vincent Brown1359
BNK Moreno14212Michael Vick28910
BNJoe Flacco28613Ryan Broyles13311
BNGreg Little14114Michael Bush9113
BNBrandon Myers13716Coby Fleener11414
TOTALS11941055
  Ok.  So let’s talk a little bit of smack.  Strictly by the numbers.  Raw numbers.  The Machine had a better draft and picked BETTER players at 6 of the 9 starting positions that will outperform The Oracle’s team.  The differential is 116 pts or about 7 pts per week better.  Will this correlate into more wins.  We will see. What we do know is that The Machine calculates the players that you need to beat your opponent each week and determines what players to draft that will give you the best possibility to win each week, make the playoffs and win the championship.  So the who will win this cage match is long from over, but I don’t think it was quite the slam dunk that the so-called Oracle thought it was.  So, hope The Oracle does better on Thurs.  Game on.

The Machine 1, The Oracle 0

Rick Wolf, Co-Host of Colton & The Wolfman - Sirius XM Fantasy Sports Radio The Fantasy 100Rick Wolf is a leader in the fantasy sports industry. Wolf is a founding Board Member and one of only fifteen FSTA Hall of Famers including Bill James and Matthew Berry. Wolf’s career accomplishments include starting the fantasy sports division at SportsLine USA that became CBS SportsLine, incubating Rotoworld to become the #1 fantasy sports news site, and spearheading the sale of Allstar Stats/Rotoworld to NBC Sports in 2006.  With college friend and fellow Hall of Famer, Glenn Colton, the team has won 7 expert titles in baseball and football.Twitter: RickWolf1