ASK THE EXPERTS appears weekly from training camp through the Super Bowl with answers to a new question being posted Thursday morning. This is our final question of the season. How the guest experts responded when we asked them: What is your preliminary top 10 (standard scoring) for the 2019 season?
MICHAEL NAZAREK
1. Saquon Barkley, NYG. He's healthy and caught a whopping 91 passes his rookie season. He totaled 2,000+ yards with 15 scores too. He passes Gurley due to Gurley's knee issue.
2. Alvin Kamara, NO. This kid totaled nearly 1,600 yards, 18 TDs and caught 81 passes in a pseudo time-share (last 12 games) with Mark Ingram last year. If Ingram leaves in free agency, Kamara could easily be the No. 1 overall pick in 2019 due to his scoring ability.
3. Christian McCaffrey, CAR. He totaled nearly 2,000 yards and scored 13 times in 2018. He's healthy and should lead the team with double-digit scores again in 2019, making him a top 3 choice.
4. Ezekiel Elliott, DAL. The best pure runner in the top four, and Elliott upped his passes caught to 77 from just 26 in 2018. Unfortunately, he scored just 9 times in 2018, so he needs to pick it up in that area for non-PPR leagues.
5. Todd Gurley, LAR. He had another phenomenal season, but his knee issue made him a shell of himself in the NFL playoffs, and that is a big concern for 2019. The fact C.J. Anderson could be re-signed to share time is the other issue.
6. Tyreek Hill, KC. He showed he can carry a team as the clear No. 1 wide receiver, producing a big 87-1479-13 stat season in 2018. He may not catch as many passes as other elite wideouts, but the fact he scored 23+ non-PPR points in five games makes him the top receiver to pick entering 2019.
7. Davante Adams, GB. Mr. Consistency in 2018, Adams stepped up his game to produce a gaudy 111-1,386-13 stat season as the clear No. 1 for the Packers. He scored in every game he played but 4 in 2018.
8. DeAndre Hopkins, HOU. With a full season of a healthy Deshaun Watson, Hopkins produced a stunning 115-1,572-11 stat season, and Watson often struggled early, so expect even bigger numbers from Hopkins in 2019.
9. Melvin Gordon, LAC. He scored 14 times in 2018 and totaled nearly 1,400 yards of offense despite missing 4 games due to knee issues. He also caught 50 passes, so the only issue here is the fact he usually misses a few games each year due to injury.
10. James Conner, PIT. Replacing LeVeon Bell, he was the No. 6 running back in non-PPR systems in 2018, so assuming Bell leaves Pittsburgh, there is little reason to believe Conner won't produce another big season as the bellcow back for Pittsburgh.
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.
MICHAEL NEASE
1. Todd Gurley
2. Christian McCaffrey
3. Saquon Barkley
4. Alvin Kamara
5. Ezekiel Elliott
6. Melvin Gordon
7. LeVeon Bell
8. Patrick Mahomes
9. DeAndre Hopkins
10. Antonio Brown
I am certain this will be a very fluid list with players moving up, down, on and off many times before we really draft.
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.
MATT PRICE
1. Todd Gurley
2. Ezekiel Elliot
3. Alvin Kamara
4. Saquon Barkley
5. Christian McCaffrey
6. DeAndre Hopkins
7. Davante Adams
8. Michael Thomas
9. Tyreek Hill
10. Melvin Gordon
Price is a Senior Writer for Dynasty League Football. He also hosts the DLF Dynasty Podcast and the Dynasty Game Night podcast. DLF was started in 2006 to provide the first dynasty-focused website to a small niche community of dynasty players. The site continues to be one of the leading sources of analysis, rankings and projections to that same growing community.
IAN ALLAN
Saquon Barkley or Ezekiel Elliott, I think, will be the top player on my board. Then I will be thinking about Patrick Mahomes. Typically, you don’t want to select a quarterback with a top-10 pick, but Mahomes looks like a pretty safe choice to throw 40-plus touchdowns. After those three, I see a half-dozen running backs who look pretty similar: Dalvin Cook, Alvin Kamara, Todd Gurley, Christian McCaffrey, Melvin Gordon and James Conner. As poorly as Gurley played in the postseason (and with the Rams likely re-signing C.J. Anderson) I think Gurley belongs in the second tier of running backs, rather than up with Barkley and Elliott. I see four wide receivers worth consideration late in the first round, and not much difference between DeAndre Hopkins, Tyreek Hill, Davante Adams and Michael Thomas. Ten others who made my rough draft list: Joe Mixon, Nick Chubb, David Johnson, LeVeon Bell (in right situation), Travis Kelce, Zach Ertz, Odell Beckham, Julio Jones, Antonio Brown and Andrew Luck.
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
1. Saquon Barkley
2. Christian McCaffrey
3. Ezekiel Elliott
4. Todd Gurley.
5. Alvin Kamara
6. LeVeon Bell
7. DeAndre Hopkins
8. Melvin Gordon.
9. Davante Adams
10. Michael Thomas
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
1. Todd Gurley
2. Saquon Barkley
3. Christian McCaffrey (love him PPR more)
4. Ezekiel Elliot
5. Alvin Kamara
6. Melvin Gordon
7. DeAndre Hopkins
8. Davante Adams
9. LeVeon Bell (depending on where he goes)
10. James Connor
Honorable Mention: Michael Thomas, Antonio Brown, Julio Jones, Joe Mixon
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
1. Saquon Barkley
2. Alvin Kamara
3. Todd Gurley
4. Ezekiel Elliott
5. David Johnson
6. DeAndre Hopkins
7. Antonio Brown
8. Melvin Gordon
9. Julio Jones
10. James Conner
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
1. Todd Gurley
2. Saquon Barkley
3. Ezekiel Elliott
4. Alvin Kamara
5. Christian McCaffrey
6. DeAndre Hopkins
7. Michael Thomas
8. Nick Chubb
9. Melvin Gordon
10. Davante Adams
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.
ANDY RICHARDSON
1. Saquon Barkley. No reason Year 2 won't be even better. Clear No. 1 if PPR scoring.
2. Ezekiel Elliott. Maybe a safer pick for the No. 1 spot (especially with this being standard scoring), but won't be as big in the passing game.
3. Todd Gurley. How much do we dock him for his disappointing finish? He carried teams for most of the season.
4. Alvin Kamara. Assumption is that Mark Ingram signs elsewhere, and his 2019 complement won't be as good.
5. Christian McCaffrey. Proved me wrong last year, and I don't see anything changing this year. I suspect many will rank him 2-3 spots higher.
6. DeAndre Hopkins. This is where the first wide receiver should probably go.
7. Michael Thomas. And this is the 2nd.
8. Melvin Gordon. Probably the only other running back I'm taking in the first round.
9. Davante Adams. Feels high, but he's the guy Rodgers trusts.
10. Tyreek Hill. Some bust weeks, but the booms win matchups.
Other notes: LeVeon Bell isn't a first-rounder to me no matter where he signs. ... Next two running backs are James Conner and David Johnson. With Conner, I could see Pittsburgh using more of a committee with Jaylen Samuels. Johnson, just too much uncertainty with that team. ... I'd consider Patrick Mahomes in round 2.
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.