Ask the Experts

October 30, 2014

Are offensive explosions good or bad for fantasy football?

ASK THE EXPERTS appears weekly from training camp through Super Bowl with answers to a new question being posted Thursday morning. How the guest experts responded when we asked them: Week 8 saw a lot of monster passing performances. Are such huge numbers good or bad for fantasy football?

SAM HENDRICKS

Great for fantasy football. If you are a fan of PPR, and I am, then you are a fan of the passing game. Love the aerial attacks. 3 yards and a cloud of dirt do not do it for me. I still watch them but give me a Brady versus Manning matchup any day.

Hendricks is the author of Fantasy Football Guidebook, Fantasy Football Tips and Fantasy Football Basics, all available at ExtraPointPress.com, at all major bookstores, and at Amazon and BN.com. He is a 20-plus year fantasy football veteran who regularly participates in the National Fantasy Football Championship (NFFC) and finished 7th and 16th overall (out of 228 competitors) in the 2008 and 2009 Fantasy Football Players Championship (FFPC). Follow him at his web site, www.ffguidebook.com.

MICAH JAMES

These increased passing and receiving numbers are the NFL's vision for the league, so fantasy owners better just get used to it, whether they like it or not. Gone are the days of drafting the workhorse running back and building around him - with rule changes and offensive game plans, the NFL has become a throw-it-often league, and I am glad. Unless you're still playing in standard scoring leagues, the emergence of two, sometimes even three or four, receivers on a high-powered offense gives fantasy owners more options for their lineup and that's never a bad thing.

James, the Fantasy Football MagicMan, currently hosts the weekly FFToolbox Fantasy Football Radio Show. In 2012, the FFMagicMan won the Fantasy Sports Trade Association’s Preseason Accuracy Rankings Challenge, and followed that performance with a Runner-Up finish in 2013. James posts his in-season rankings on the FantasyPros Experts’ rankings every week, and you can find his latest musings at ffmagicman.com. Follow him on Twitter at @FFMagicMan.

MICHAEL NAZAREK

This is good for fantasy football, as it gives owners more choices to start and remain competitive in their leagues when big injuries hit.

Nazarek is the CEO of Fantasy Football Mastermind Inc. His company offers a preseason draft guide, customizable cheat sheets, a multi-use fantasy drafting program including auction values, weekly in-season fantasy newsletters, injury reports and free NFL news (updated daily) at its web site. He has been playing fantasy football since 1988 and is a four-peat champion of the SI.com Experts Fantasy League, a nationally published writer in several fantasy magazines and a former columnist for SI.com. For more info go to www.ffmastermind.com. Nazarek can be reached via email at miken@ffmastermind.com.

JAMES SELTZER

I think high-scoring weeks are great for fantasy football. Who doesn't like when their team scores points?!? But seriously, fantasy football is supposed to be fun, and it is simply less fun when your players do not put up points. Does it stink to lose 150-149? Sure. But, on the whole, it is more fun when points are being scored. There is nothing more depressing than checking your fantasy scoreboard and seeing a bunch of single digit point totals. Fantasy football is based on points being scored (that is the entire point of the game right?), so in my mind; the more points, the better.

Seltzer is a writer of NFL content for Rotowire.com. Since 1997, RotoWire.com has been one of the leading fantasy sports resources on the web. Seltzer can be found on Twitter @JamesSeltzer975.

ALAN SATTERLEE

There's no doubt in my mind these big performances are fantastic for fantasy football. It's a stats driven game we play so bring on the offensive explosion – we are all trying to put up as many points as we can and more, as they say, is always better in terms of fantasy football. Now, what it means for the NFL and real football I'm not so sure. I personally think that the passing stats and defensive restrictions are getting a bit ridiculous. I like seeing defense matter in football and at some point numbers just can't keep going up.

Satterlee is Co-Owner and Chief Editor/COO of FantasyFootballWarehouse.com. FFW features comprehensive profiles for all the major 2013 skill-position rookies, its Trading Spaces series, the team Deep Dives, the Speed Bump competition plus draft strategies, rankings, projections and more. FFW runs in tandem with its dynasty site DynastyFootballWarehouse.com.

DAVID DOREY

The bigger the games the better for fantasy. And with passing games becoming so more productive, it always involves many more players that a rushing offense will. You just cannot have too much scoring and the more players that are fantasy relevant, the better it is for league parity and the ability to create a winning team beyond just owning the three or four major difference makers that exist every year.

Dorey is the co-founder and lead NFL analyst for The Huddle and author of Fantasy Football: The Next Level. He has projected and predicted every NFL game and player performance since 1997 and has appeared in numerous magazines, newspapers, radio and television.

ANDY RICHARDSON

I think it's a little too much. This isn't a new thing entirely; I remember lots of points explosions at times in the 80s, too. What I don't like is marginalizing running backs in fantasy the way they've been marginalized in the NFL, by putting so much more production in the hands of the quarterbacks and wide receivers. It just feels like you can get by with modest production out of running backs if you have a high-scoring quarterback and receiver -- and if you don't have those things, it almost doesn't matter if you have a top running back. I had leagues last week with scores of 160-140...sometimes I miss the 90-85 scores.

Richardson has been a contributor and editor to the Fantasy Football Index magazine and www.fantasyindex.com since 2002. His responsibilities include team defense and IDP projections and various site features, and he has run the magazine's annual experts draft and auction leagues since their inception. He previews all the NFL games on Saturdays and writes a wrap-up column on Mondays during the NFL season.

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