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Ask the Experts

Which new coaching hire interests you most?

LaFleur, Kingsbury and Arians earn nods

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 new coaching hire interests you most for next season?

SAM HENDRICKS

Kliff Kingsbury at Arizona. He may not have NFL experience but he does have the QB-whisperer touch at the college level and has a lot of pluses with the Cardinals. He has a solid running back in David Johnson and a quarterback in Josh Rosen who he can cultivate. He seems like a perfect Sean McVay disciple, so I am hopeful for big things in 2019. Or 2020...

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

Freddie Kitchens wasn’t hired per se but steps up into the Head Coach role in Cleveland. He was a quarterback for Alabama and brings a wealth of position coaching experience. The Browns offense ran through him after they fired Hue Jackson and the team responded very well. They have a great nucleus with Baker Mayfield, Nick Chubb, Jarvis Landry and David Njoku. They were 5-2 to end the season and Mayfield has proven to be the real deal. This won’t be as “start over” as the other coaching changes.

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.

MATT SCHAUF

I’m all set to draft some Bruce Arians Bucs. He has coached seven of his past nine offenses to top-14 finishes in yardage, across three different franchises. He inherits an offense with loads of available talent, as displayed in the 2018 numbers. And that came with neither quarterback performing quite well enough to even hang on to his starting job. We could see top-6 fantasy performers from Tampa at quarterback, running back and tight end, plus a 2nd top-20 wideout. Even Ronald Jones has a shot to parlay that offense and his wildly disappointing debut into intriguing draft-day value.

Schauf is a senior analyst with DraftSharks.com. He has been covering fantasy football since 2002, producing content for outlets such as Sporting News, Rotoworld, Athlon and Football Diehards before landing with DS. Draft Sharks has been online since 1999 and is a 4-time winner in the FSTA’s annual fantasy football projections accuracy contests.

IAN ALLAN

Bruce Arians has a good track record. He knows how to put together good offenses. So I am intrigued by what he might potentially do in Tampa Bay. They’ve got a plenty of offensive weapons, particularly pass catchers — Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, Adam Humphries, O.J. Howard, Cameron Brate. My main concern is that Arians’ system tends to call for quarterbacks to hold the ball a little longer and attempt more high-risk throws. Jameis Winston in that kind of system might turn the ball over too often to ever quite get over the hump.

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.

MICHAEL NEASE

When Matt LaFleur was named coach of the Green Bay Packers recently, many were surprised. However, LaFleur is the prototypical new NFL coach. He is young, only 39, and although he has not been a head coach, he has progressed up the ranks and has a solid offensive background. The key to his success in Green Bay will be his forming a solid relationship with the 35-year-old Aaron Rodgers. Last year we saw the McCarthy-Rodgers partnership self-destruct, taking the entire team down with it. Looking ahead a few years, LaFleur appears to be a good choice to groom the aging Rodgers eventual successor.

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 @mike-insights.

ALAN SATTERLEE

I am particularly intrigued by seeing Bruce Arians back. He had five very successful seasons at Arizona (13-3 in one season and his worst season was 7-8-1) with fairly successful offenses. He has a lot to work with in Tampa and I think all the Bucs’ skill players move up a fair bit. Winston is a great sleeper, Evans is locked in as an elite target, Godwin is a solid pick, OJ Howard should be a prime tight end target and Ronald Jones will at least need to be a must watch to see if he can show anything this spring and summer under Arians.

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.

SCOTT PIANOWSKI

While I'm still leery on Jameis Winston, I know the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have interesting pieces on offense. New coach Bruce Arians looks like an upgrade there. It will be interesting to see how Arians works with third-year tight end O.J. Howard; Arians traditionally hasn't used tight ends much, but he's never had one this uber-talented. Good coaches generally work talent-into-scheme, not the other way around.

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

Kliff Kingsbury stands out because he's taking over the offense with the most room for improvement. David Johnson is an elite running back and Larry Fitzgerald and Christian Kirk can maybe be a very good receiving duo. Can Kingsbury develop Josh Rosen? Remember how lost Jared Goff was as a rookie before dismissing a significant Year 2 leap from Rosen. If he can, there will be plenty of value in the players I just named. If not... I'm also interested in Adam Gase taking over the Jets. I don't like the hire, but have to concede that the man either brings something strong to the table as far as potentially developing Sam Darnold, or he's a great interview. For the Jets' sake, I hope my concerns are mistaken.

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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