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Ask the Experts

Which veteran with a new team are you most interested in?

ASK THE EXPERTS appears weekly from training camp through the Super Bowl with answers to a new question being posted Thursday morning. How the guest experts responded when we asked them: Which veteran with a new team are you most interested in?

ALAN SATTERLEE

Brandin Cooks. I have heard a range of perspectives, including some suggesting Cooks could be (seriously) overvalued given previous stats showing how Tom Brady passes so much to his running backs and tight ends (and how few wide receiver touchdowns there have been -- no receiver had more than four receiving touchdowns last year for example). I am not buying that, and that’s not forward-looking in my opinion. Initial reports from Patriots’ camp noted how Cooks "lined up all over the field at Patriots offseason practices” and owner Robert Kraft saying how "the only player that could make an impact like that at wide receiver was Randy Moss." Fantasy football is about catching lightning in a bottle and Cooks could explode. He’s that talented. He’ll get quick passes that he can take to the house, score from long range and also do it with likely a lot of single-coverage. We have seen outlier anomaly seasons from elite talent playing with Brady before, like Rob Gronkowski’s 17 touchdowns in 2011 or Randy Moss’ 23 touchdowns in 2007. I want on board the potential Brady-Cooks magic to be created this season.

Satterlee is the Fantasy Football Insider for the Charlotte Observer and is syndicated in a few other newspapers in the southeast. Satterlee first started playing fantasy football in 1990.

SAM HENDRICKS

Marshawn Lynch. He has had a year off to rejuvenate. He is playing behind one of the better offensive lines in front of his hometown with a chip on his shoulder. Now for the possible negatives-he is 31 and coming off an injury riddled 2015 season. Does he have anything left in the tank? I like the mix with the Raiders and see his incentive-laden contract as motivation to be a top-10 running back.

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 25-year fantasy football veteran who participates in the National Fantasy Football Championship (NFFC) and finished 7th and 16th overall in the 2008 and 2009 Fantasy Football Players Championship (FFPC). He won the Fantasy Index Open in 2013. Follow him at his web site, www.ffguidebook.com.

DAVID DOREY

Brandon Marshall has been one of the most productive fantasy wideouts in NFL history. After a career-best year in 2015 with the Jets, Marshall’s stats fell off a cliff along with the entirety of the rest of the Jets. He’s now joined the Giants where he not only gets a huge upgrade at QB, but he won’t be the defenses primary concern for the first time in his career. Marshall still has gas in the tank for this 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.

MICHAEL NAZAREK

Alshon Jeffery is definitely an intriguing veteran on a new team. His talent could land him in the top-10 fantasy wide receivers for 2017, or he could struggle as an Eagle with a second-year quarterback in Carson Wentz targeting him, landing him outside the top 30. That creates a very interesting situation to watch throughout the summer and into the season.

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 newly re-designed 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. He's also won in excess of $20K in recent seasons of the FFPC High Stakes Main Event. www.ffmastermind.com. Nazarek can be reached via email at miken@ffmastermind.com.

IAN ALLAN

I am intrigued by Pierre Garcon landing in San Francisco. I don’t think he’s a great wide receiver, but I think he’s their No. 1 wide receiver. The other two receivers they signed are smaller, speedy deep threats – Marquise Goodwin and Aldrick Robinson. In Kyle Shanahan’s offense, everything tends to be built around getting the ball in the hands of the featured receiver. Julio Jones and Andre Johnson put up huge numbers under Shanahan. Santana Moss caught 93 passes in that offense. And Garcon caught 113 passes in his one previous year with Shanahan. Garcon is an older, declining player, but I think he could catch 85-plus passes this year, making him one of the most undervalued players in drafts, particularly in a PPR format.

Allan is a member of the Fantasy Sports Writers Association Hall of Fame. A co-founder of Fantasy Football Index in 1987, he generates most of the writing, player rankings and analysis for that publication. His work can be seen in Fantasy Football Index magazine and also at www.fantasyindex.com.

L.A. HALE

While I think that DeSean Jackson will be the missing puzzle piece that propels the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to an elite offense, Terrelle Pryor will have the best fantasy value of any veteran that changed teams this offseason. With Jackson and Pierre Garcon walking out the doors in DC; that leaves 214 targets on the table for Pyror to swoop up. Pryor had great stats (77/1007/4) on a Browns team that was a mess while still learning the wide receiver position, imagine what he can do with another year of experience and Kirk Cousins tossing him the ball.

L.A. Hale is the Founder and President of Fantasy Gives, a 501c3 charitable organization that provides financial support to non-profit groups through fantasy sports.

JUSTIN ELEFF

I take "most interested in" to mean something other than "most interested in OWNING," so to me the easy answer is Marshawn Lynch. Thirty-something running back who looked mostly finished the season before he retired for a year, now back (after 365 days of gorging on Skittles, no doubt) to play hometown hero (maybe) for the one team in sports with the most lunatics in the stands, only now those lunatics know their team is abandoning them after multiple lame-duck seasons? The Raiders were already the most interesting thing going in Roger Goodell's NFL in 2017, and Lynch's return is a giant bonus, the one new-season storyline with the most swing potential in recent memory. Tell me the Raiders wind up in the Super Bowl after Lynch leads the league in touchdowns, and that makes some sense to me. Tell me he looks very, very fat, disgruntled fans ride him mercilessly and someone (a fan, a stadium worker, Lynch himself, a certain debonair owner) eventually gets stabbed, and that makes even more sense. So, yup. "Most interested in" for sure.

Eleff hosts the Fantasy Index Podcast, available in the iTunes Store now. He has worked for Fantasy Index off and on all century.

JODY SMITH

We're hearing glowing reports of how great Adrian Peterson has looked during OTAs. If he's got anything left in the tank, Peterson could put up significant numbers in that high-octane New Orleans offense. I don't think he'll see too many targets in the passing game, but the Saints have one of the top run-blocking offensive lines in football and if Peterson gets 12-15 attempts per game, he can approach 1,000 rushing yards and should get ample opportunity to get some goal-line carries. I'm excited to see how the Saints backfield takes shape in August.

Smith the co-owner of Gridironexperts and a member of the Fantasy Sports Writers Association. Jody was named the Most Accurate Fantasy Football Expert by Fantasypros in 2012.

SCOTT SACHS

Martellus Bennett signed a big contract to join the Pack's highly rated receiving corps. He's an intriguing player to watch as there is certainly a bit of a question concerning his motivation now that he signed a megabucks deal. In 2016, Bennett was in a contract year at New England and was playing for a big payout. He also benefited greatly by having an elite quarterback in Brady on a team that features the TE, plus Gronk was hurt much of the year. Green Bay has been longing for a top-tier tight end ever since Jermichael Finley. Last season, the inconsistent Jared Cook flashed occasionally, but bolted for his own big payday, so there is a lot at stake for Bennett to be the dependable red zone option that Aaron Rodgers has been missing.

With two perfect seasons and multiple league championships to his credit, Sachs runs Perfect Season Fantasy Football, featuring LIVE Talk & Text Advice. He won the 2011 and 2016 Experts Auction League and also the 2012 Fantasy Index Experts Poll.

ANDY RICHARDSON

Two that leap out are Mike Gillislee in New England and DeSean Jackson in Tampa Bay. Gillislee is a better, more talented runner than LeGarrette Blount, and he should lead yet another Patriots division-winner in carries and touchdowns. Jackson goes to work with a good young quarterback on a team that might struggle to run the ball yet will face some sketchy defenses, most notably New Orleans twice.

Richardson has been a contributing writer 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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