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: What advice would you give a friend on the eve of their fantasy draft?

MIKE NEASE

Last evening was the 34th annual draft in my dynasty league. Over the years, I have been in perhaps a couple hundred drafts or so. One consistent thread that binds all those drafts together is flexibility. You must have the ability to make decisions on the fly. When the clock is running down, you do not have time to research, or procrastinate. As each pick approaches, you absolutely must have 2-3 alternatives in mind. Count on the person drafting just before you to take that remarkable, unknown gem that you wanted to pick. It happens. Have an overall plan and follow it. Like a baseball pitcher who just gave up six runs, you must shake off your misfortune and continue drafting.

Nease is a member of the FSWA and has been playing the game since 1985, while also writing about it since 2001. He is a writer for Big Guy Fantasy Sports. Over the years he has sampled about all the playing scenarios that fantasy football offers, including re-drafter, keeper, dynasty, auction, IDP and salary cap leagues. You can contact Mike at mnease23@yahoo.com anytime and during the football season follow him @mikeinsights.

JUSTIN ELEFF

Am I in the league with this friend? Because I’m not above fibbing to improve my own chances — but assuming the goal is improving the friend’s chances instead, I’d say there is never a moment in this year’s drafts when you have to worry about what’s left at quarterback. In a league of any size in which teams start only one player at the position, you can let the other teams fire their shots and still wind up more than solid behind center. In a recent 10-team draft the first quarterback I took was the 13th one off the board; that was Drew Brees for some reason. My next pick was Philip Rivers. I came back at the end for Jameis Winston, and once his suspension ends I’ll essentially have three premium streaming options in-house every week. But even if your league is bigger, and your leaguemates take guys in exactly the right order, there are enough good QBs for the 12th or 14th guy off the board to be neck-and-neck with the sixth or seventh. So take a deep breath, load up on backs and receivers, grab a tight end you really like, and sit out that mid-draft run on Ben Roethlisberger and Matthew Stafford.

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

SAM HENDRICKS

If you are using average draft position (ADP) for your league draft make sure it is apples to apples. I.e make sure it is for the same parameters as your draft. Same number of teams. same starting lineup, same rosters and same scoring rules. And then....draft your breakout players a little early. So what I am saying is if you use ADP make sure it fits your league and then use it to draft your chosen studs before everyone else. I like the adage “ADP be damned.” Sticking with ADP often ends with you drafting an average team that you do not like. Trust me, I know from experience!

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.

ALAN SATTERLEE

My first and most obvious advice is to get a stud running back pronto in the draft. If you are drafting at the late middle of round 1 and take a wide receiver, just make sure you can then get Christian McCaffrey or Joe Mixon coming back. The second advice is to capitalize on the unbelievable amount of sleeper wide receivers to be had in the later rounds (TreQuan Smith as one example) and load up. For these picks really to add value though, you need to have drafted other positions. So, if you draft a ton of wide receivers in the middle rounds, these late round wide receiver gems won’t mean much to your roster. Lastly, and on a related note don’t take these dime-a-dozen wide receivers in the middle rounds (and I put Kelvin Benjamin or Allen Hurns in that list) -- take more QB, RB or TE. I said it, take more quarterbacks. Add a second high-end quarterback while the getting is good (again, especially over a dime-a-dozen wide receiver when tremendous sleeper receivers can be had late) and if you are so brazen punish the board and nab a third elite quarterback (say in rounds 11 and 12) and watch owners panic (something I love doing in MFL best-ball leagues).

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

Don’t rush to pick a quarterback. There are tons of good ones this year, so you should only take one if you both like the player and like where he’s being selected. There are definitely going to be some steals and deals at that position, so probably best to not be in the group who goes after guys like Rodgers, Wilson, Brady and Watson early. If you take one of those guys, it should be because you can’t believe how far he’s fallen.

Allan co-founded Fantasy Football Index in 1987. He and fellow journalism student Bruce Taylor launched the first newsstand fantasy football magazine as a class project at the University of Washington. For more than three decades, Allan has written and edited most of the content published in the magazines, newsletters and at www.fantasyindex.com. An exhaustive researcher, he may be the only person in the country who has watched at least some of every preseason football game played since in the early 1990s. Allan is a member of the FSTA Fantasy Sports Hall of Fame and the Fantasy Sports Writers Association Hall of Fame.

SCOTT SACHS

Make sure your running game is set before venturing into other positions. However, be prepared to pivot if your draft position is toward the end of the 1st round and the top receiver available has more value than the best available running back. For example, you have the 10th-12th pick, and Hopkins and Gronk are there, may want to grab one of them and take a running back like Freeman on the way back up. Also important to realize how ridiculously deep the receiver position is this year, so you can load up on other needs knowing you can still draft quality receivers later on.

With two perfect seasons and multiple league championships to his credit, Scott Sachs runs Perfect Season Fantasy Football, featuring live talk and text advice. Scott won the 2011 and 2016 Fantasy Index Experts Auction league, plus he was the winner of the 2012 Fantasy Index Experts Poll.

MICHAEL NAZAREK

Do not draft a qarterback early. There are plenty of solid ones on the board, so taking a combo of Matthew Stafford and Philip Rivers in the 9th/10th round is fine.

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.

DAVID DOREY

By the end of the third round, make sure you own two running backs and one wide receiver.

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.

SCOTT PIANOWSKI

Fade injury optimism. Don't draft into hurt players unless you're given a major discount. Injuries are going to find you in this game; don't seek those out, proactively.

Pianowski has been playing fantasy football for 20 years and writing about it for 17. He joined Yahoo! Sports in 2008 and has been blogging 24/7 on RotoArcade.com ever since.

ANDY RICHARDSON

Don't be too position-focused. Yes it's nice to come out of the first four rounds with two running backs and two wide receivers, but don't be afraid to have three of one and one of the other if that's where the standout talent is. Sometimes you have to take the plunge and make sure you have that running back or tight end. But getting the most great players is how you win these things, and lineup crunches tend to sort themselves out as the season moves forward. In short, don't pass up a great wide receiver for a good running back.

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.