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 lightly regarded tight end is going to come into some value the rest of the way?
MIKE NEASE
When you look at backup tight ends coming forward and finding success over the remainder of the season, I would roll the dice on Cameron Brate. Before O. J. Howard’s rise to fame, Brate was the starter in Tampa. Recently he has faded into the fantasy background a bit. Over the last two weeks though he has begun scoring at a good clip and should continue to do so during Howard’s absence. After four games there are only 10 tight ends scoring in double figures. In choosing injury replacements, you may have to make a waiver wire move more than once to find someone that will adequately contribute to your team scoring.
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.
SCOTT PIANOWSKI
The Cardinals haven’t been peppering Ricky Seals-Jones with targets, but he did gain 52 yards on his two grabs last week, and he had a 35-yard score in the previous game. Most importantly, Sam Bradford is out and Josh Rosen is in, and that gives the Arizona offense a chance. The Cardinals are getting spotty play from their receivers, and they’re reluctant to throw the ball to David Johnson (as baffling as that is). Seals-Jones is one of my favorite penny stocks; look for RSJ on the ticker.
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.
SAM HENDRICKS
Has to be Tyler Kroft. Last year when Tyler Eifert went down the Bengals' fourth-year tight end stepped in and up with 42 catches, 404 receiving yards and a whopping 7 TDs. Cincinnati seems to have their offense in high gear so Kroft should be able to up his game and help himself out as he works for a new contract in 2019.
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.
IAN ALLAN
I think Josh Rosen is pretty good. I think he’ll help Arizona’s offense. And with that in mind, I think there’s some chance Ricky Seals-Jones will develop into a viable tight end — maybe putting up top-15 numbers at the position during the season half of the season. Seals-Jones creates some matchup issues, with more ability to get downfield than other tight ends.
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.
ALAN SATTERLEE
That’s a tough one. I’m not sure there are a lot of lightly regarded backup tight ends that really hold a ton of promise at this point. It may take an injury really for an opportunity to present itself. Demetrius Harris (Kansas City) comes to mind, mainly as he has intriguing raw talent and he plays in an exceptional offense that also heavily utilizes the tight end. If Travis Kelce were to miss time, Harris would likely be a hot waiver-wire addition. In more present waiver-wire scouring, I really thought the Titans’ Jonnu Smith would be doing more than he is -- which is pretty much nothing. Smith though also plays in a tight-end friendly offense but in three games without Delanie Walker he has just one reception. Still, with deep rosters I still think Smith is worth a speculative hold given his measurables and it would only take one big game for him to instantly re-emerge prominently on the fantasy landscape.
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.
ANDY RICHARDSON
I'll take a shot on C.J. Uzomah. Slight risk is that the Bengals also have Tyler Kroft, and they could kind of share that role. But Uzomah might be better, and he'll definitely be on the field more as the preferred blocker. Looking down the road, I'd pick up Ed Dickson in the next week or two. He's eligible to come off the non-football injury list after Week 6, and I think he's better than Nick Vannett; should be the starter in Seattle once he's available.
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.