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 big-name wideout will turn things around the rest of the way?
ALAN SATTERLEE
Dante Pettis has been very unproductive thus far in 2019, coming in as just the 86th best fantasy receiver in PPR scoring though Week 6. It’s been quite the sophomore slump for a player who really found his groove down the stretch last season (Pettis was the No. 11 receiver over a five-week stretch last year over weeks 12-16). Still, there’s no reason why Pettis can’t step it up. The talent is still there (he averaged a healthy 17.3 yards per catch with five touchdowns as a rookie), he’s not injured and it’s all systems go for his star quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo and on a team that is going to be fighting for the playoffs down the stretch. Pettis comes off his best game of the season with six targets and 45 yards -- I think Pettis is a decent buy-low candidate.
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.
MICHAEL NAZAREK
Keenan Allen. With Hunter Henry back, teams will no longer be able to double him moving forward, so I think he's a great buy low candidate right now.
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.
IAN ALLAN
I still think Davante Adams can be a top-5 receiver in the second half of the season. It’s just a matter of him getting his toe healthy. He’s shown he can do it (in the monster game against the Eagles). He’s really the only receiver in that offense where there’s battle-tested rapport that’s been built with Aaron Rodgers over the years. I expect Adams to catch plenty of balls and see lots of looks in the red zone before the season is over.
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.
SCOTT PIANOWSKI
I'm still plenty interested in Robert Woods. Most of his stats are right in line with where he was last year, the touchdowns just don't line up. Jared Goff might be closer to average, but they have Sean McVay pulling the strings. I still want Woods on my season rosters, as a locked-in starter.
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.
MICHAEL NEASE
Back at fantasy draft-time, DeAndre Hopkins was a consensus Top-3 wide receiver pick. Now, after playing six games, he only ranks 25th in wideout scoring, averaging 15.5 points per game. That is only about 2/3 of the points we all expected from him. Instead of playing like a first rounder, he is well below the early scoring pace of two dozen other receivers. With Watson playing well at quarterback, I anticipate that the Watson-Hopkins connection will start to produce and Hopkins' owners will rejoice.
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.
DAVID DOREY
I like T.Y Hilton to come through with a better performance the rest of the way. He started the year out hot with four scores in his first three games but then was injured and had a bye. Jacoby Brissett is playing well and the schedule is kind with the next six weeks containing the Steelers, Dolphins and Texans twice. The Colts are running well enough to demand respect and teams cannot load up on Hilton as much.
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.
JUSTIN ELEFF
Odell Beckham Jr. is healthy, and that’s really all I need to know. The guy is too good not to step way up from here, and even if being a Baker Mayfield believer looks a lot like being a Baker Mayfield apologist right now, I do believe. Give Freddie Kitchens & Co. this bye week to get things figured out. They will.
Eleff hosts the Fantasy Index Podcast, available in the iTunes Store now. He has worked for Fantasy Index off and on all century.
ANDY RICHARDSON
I'm not giving up on JuJu Smith-Schuster. Yes he misses Ben Roethlisberger, but I think he is still a really talented guy. The Steelers have had a couple of games recently where they could emphasize the run. I think there will be weeks upcoming where they have some ability and need to pass the ball, and he will be productive. Maybe he won't live up to his lofty draft status, but I think he'll be a quality starter and go-to guy in some upcoming matchups.
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.