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 is the preseason's most important training camp battle?
SCOTT PIANOWSKI
I realize the Buccaneers have mediocre depth at running back, but now that Bruce Arians is in town, I want to see if there’s any potential feature back here. Peyton Barber would need a lot of volume to be a fantasy factor, but maybe he’ll get it. Just by showing up, he was the RB26 in standard scoring last year. Ronald Jones had a washout rookie year, but he can’t be that bad — and we can’t draw too many assumptions from someone who touched the ball just 30 times. It’s also possible Tampa Bay will add a back of note; Duke Johnson, unhappy in Cleveland, would be a natural fit for this roster.
Pianowski has been playing fantasy football for over 20 years and writing about it for 18. He joined Yahoo! Sports in 2008 and has been blogging 24/7 on RotoArcade.com ever since.
ALAN SATTERLEE
Seeing who is going to replace Antonio Brown in the Pittsburgh starting lineup is one of the more interesting and fantasy-impactful camp battle stories of the year. There’s a lot of fantasy points to be had for someone with Ben Roethlisberger on the other end after he led the NFL in passing last year with over 5,100 yards. In particular, I look forward to seeing James Washington in year two and whether he can win the job (and whether he will fly up boards or continue to be had at what I think are reasonable prices). I also am interested to see Diontae Johnson in an NFL uniform. Conversely, I just can’t really get into Donte Moncrief (but will try to keep an open mind through camps and preseason). A close second battle to me is seeing if Ronald Jones can unseat Peyton Barber for the starting running back job in Tampa Bay.
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 SACHS
The Philadelphia Eagles running back battle follows the current NFL trend of no longer spending big bucks for proven top talent. Instead, teams are trending to drafting second- and third-rounders as their featured running backs. The Eagles jettisoned Jay Ajayi, traded for bruising Jordan Howard, drafted Miles Sanders, re-signed Darren Sproles and kept around Wendell Smallwood and Corey Clement. Not sure the current preseason hype over Sanders is justified, high draft pick or not. He's good-sized, but wasn't a big threat in the passing game in school.
Sachs runs Perfect Season Fantasy Football, offering LIVE Talk & Text consulting. He has multiple league championships including two perfect seasons. Sachs is a past winner of the Fantasy Index Experts Poll and a 2-time winner of the Experts Auction League.
IAN ALLAN
I think there’s going to be a good second wide receiver in Pittsburgh. JuJu Smith-Schuster will be their No. 1 option, but I’m confident some other receiver on that roster will also post viable numbers. I think it will be James Washington. He was mostly a disappointment as a rookie, but I expect he’ll have a better grasp now of what it takes to be successful at the NFL level. I think he’ll know the offense better. But I can’t guarantee Washington will fill that role. Donte Moncrief could also make a run at it. Moncrief has been a disappointment in recent years, but he’s been stuck on lesser teams. I will be very interested when the Steelers take the field in the preseason to see whether it’s Washington or Moncrief who’s getting the reps with the first-unit offense (and whether one looks better than the other). I think the Steelers will use Eli Rogers in the slot, so the loser of the Washington-Moncrief battle could be a lightly used fourth receiver in that offense.
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 the early 1990s. Allan is a member of the FSTA Fantasy Sports Hall of Fame and the Fantasy Sports Writers Association Hall of Fame.
SAM HENDRICKS
Of the nearly 25 fantasy football significant training camp battles I can think of two that interest me the most. First, who will be No. 1 wide receiver for the Giants who steps in and attempts to fill the OBJ shoes. The veteran in Golden Tate or the potential young stud who has waited in the wings, Sterling Shepard. Either one can be fantasy gold and the other could be shunned. Next up is the San Francisco running back battle. Tevin Coleman comes from Atlanta on a prove-it deal, while Jerick McKinnon wants to prove his injury last year was a fluke and he still warrants his big contract. Throw in the capable replacement Matt Breida and you have a potential RBBC monster or a stud RB ready to run with a high-powered offense led by a resurgent Jimmy Garoppolo and coached by Kyle Shanahan. Both battles will be fun to watch.
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
The most interesting training camp battle is in Pittsburgh where James Washington and Donte Moncrief look to fill in the gaping hole left behind by Antonio Brown. While neither will be as productive as Brown was, this is still one of the top passing offenses in the NFL with Ben Roethlisberger joining the 5,000-yard club last year. Both players should figure in and there is still the rookie Diontae Johnson as well hoping to contribute. But this offense can easily produce a fantasy WR3 or even a WR2 if they settle on just one player to take over for Brown.
Dorey has been dealing out all the rankings and projections for The Huddle since 1997 and wrote up a preview of every game for the last 21 years. His specialty is schedule strength and he’s been in countless magazines, podcasts, and radio shows. He is the author of Fantasy Football: The Next Level.
ANDY RICHARDSON
San Francisco has three potential starters at running back, and I think they'd prefer to ride one of them, at least until he gets hurt and they have to replace him. Tevin Coleman was the one they paid most recently, but they also spent big on Jerick McKinnon a year ago, and Matt Breida has played well for them the last two years. Coleman is being selected first in most leagues, and that's fair, but I'm very interested in Breida, who might be better. And I can't even rule out McKinnon. It's a situation that we'll need to watch unfold in the exhibitions.
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.