Ask the Experts

September 05, 2019

Who will meet in Super Bowl LIV?

Surprise teams? Er, no

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: Who will meet in Super Bowl LIV?

SAM HENDRICKS

I hate to say it but it will be a rematch of last year's Super Bowl. Pats vs. Rams but this year the Rams will win it. New England makes it simply because they do it year in and year out. Don't bet against them being there until they have missed a few in a row. Los Angles gets the nod because no one else looks that strong. My apologies to Eagles and Saints fans but I do not see anyone else taking down the machine that is the Rams....unless of course Gurley is out long-term with a knee issue that could flare up anytime. In which case can the Saints finally get in, or will Philadelphia cobble together enough and have Wentz stay upright long enough to get in?

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

Super Bowl LIV will be an exciting one between the two teams that belonged there last year. New Orleans and Kansas City. Imagine! Both teams return intact from the 2018 Conference Championships that either team could have won (and should have, depending on who you ask). Both teams feature great quarterbacks and receivers. The defenses of each are good enough to make it if only because their offenses place opponents into bad situations. Looking forward to it!

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.

IAN ALLAN

I like what the Eagles are doing. I like their depth. It just comes down to Carson Wentz: can they keep him healthy, and can they get him to play like he did in 2017? If they can check those boxes, I think they could lift the trophy. I’ll go with them to win it all, with Kansas City coming from the AFC side.

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.

MICHAEL NEASE

Looking ahead to prognosticate the Super Bowl LIV participants five months ahead of when it is to be played, I must use my crystal ball. All it shows are some fantastic demonstrations of reflected light. So I smash that darn crystal ball and go to my backup plan, a wild-assed guess. It clearly tells me that the Rams and Kansas City will meet. Both teams are loaded with talent on both sides of the line of scrimmage. While there are certainly many valid contenders, these two are my choices.

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.

JUSTIN ELEFF

Kansas City is an easy call; I come into this season believing defenses around the league will find it impossible to stop the best offenses, and something tells me Andy Reid will have his team in 2007 Patriots mode, looking to hang 50 points on every opponent. The other side is more interesting. Tough to dismiss the Rams or Saints, but again I think offenses are at an enormous advantage, and what I want most in January is a quarterback I trust to go out and score-score-score until the game is won. In the NFC that means Carson Wentz, Matt Ryan or maybe Aaron Rodgers, but only one of them looks certain to me to be in the playoffs in the first place. So the big game is KC-Philly.

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

MICHAEL NAZAREK

The two best teams in the NFL will play in the Super Bowl this season... Kansas City and New Orleans.

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 mobile-friendly 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.

ANDY RICHARDSON

I can't help the feeling of dread that last year was Kansas City's year. The fact that they didn't get there, with a stupid offside factoring in, might haunt them for years. I do think it takes a pretty big leap of faith to put anyone but Kansas City and New England in the AFC Championship. I fear the game might be in New England, and we'll get the Patriots in the Super Bowl again. In the NFC, it took a miracle (almost) for the Saints not to get to the Super Bowl. They should take care of that this year. Saints-Patriots.

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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