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Ask the Experts

Who will be this week's (fantasy) Super Bowl MVP?

Hunt, Stafford and Ficken among favorites

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: Fantasy Super Bowl week! Who will hoist the MVP trophy on the most fantasy champions?

ALAN SATTERLEE

I think we see a continuation of Kareem Hunt dominating the 2017 fantasy playoffs. I was surprised to see Hunt so low (too low anyway) on almost everyone’s ranks last week. Like last week, Hunt is playing at home, in a very meaningful game as the Chiefs are fighting for their playoff life, Andy Reid has foregone the play-calling duties to OC Matt Nagy, plus Hunt is competing for both the Rookie of the Year Award and to win the 2017 NFL rushing crown. With two weeks to go, Hunt is only 21 yards behind LeVeon Bell for the 2017 rushing crown, and Todd Gurley is just 14 yards behind Hunt and 35 behind Bell. It is one of the most interesting sub-plots as we close out the 2017 season and either of these three could be the fantasy MVP. But for me, it’s Kareem Hunt for the money.

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.

IAN ALLAN

How about Sam Ficken? Greg Zuerlein was on pace to set a single-season scoring record for kicker. He had a great year, including 7 field goals from 50-plus, but mostly Zuerlein just attempted more field goals than anyone else (almost 3 per game). On Sunday the Rams will play the team that’s been allowing more field goals than anyone else; the Titans have allowed 19 field goals in their last five games. Ficken has never attempted a field goal in the regular season and can’t be expected to be as good as Zuerlein, but he’ll probably be just fine on most kicks. He’s hit 5 of 6 in the preseason the last two years; I remember watching him in August, wondering if Kansas City was thinking about keeping him rather than Cairo Santos. Risk involved, but Ficken might be the league’s highest-scoring kicker this week — coming in at just the right time to save some fantasy teams with the willingness to use a waiver-wire player in their championship games.

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.

MICHAEL NAZAREK

Kansas City rookie RB Kareem Hunt will run all over the place and score multiple times against the Dolphins at home this week.

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.

SCOTT SACHS

Have to think that the best option is players on teams that must win, combined with matchups. Hard to pick against the 2 headed monster in New Orleans, Ingram and Kamara. Kareem Hunt looks great at home against crappy Miami. All considered, the nod goes to Cam Newton. This past week he donned his Superman cape, putting the team on his back and threw for 4 scores. The Panthers' playoff destiny is in his hands and they have a home matchup against the woeful Bucs.

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

I think there will be some Lions and Chargers on the list -- and I certainly hope so, since I'm starting them. The Jets give up a ton of touchdowns; they're just not good defensively. Philip Rivers and his main targets should roll up the points. And the Bengals have really been gutted by injuries on that side of the ball, and they checked out mentally a few weeks back; should be doing a lot of matadoring on defense against the Lions. Stafford, Marvin Jones, maybe Tate and Ebron...those guys should be very solid.

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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