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Ask the Experts

Are running QBs a fantasy must-have?

Jackson, Allen highlight new wave of runners

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: Many of 2019's best quarterbacks are runners. Should fantasy teams make sure they have such a player going forward?

MICHAEL NEASE

The running quarterback adds an element of escape to counter the charging defenders, as well as compensating less than stellar blocking. The only downside is that running quarterbacks seem more prone to injury. While we have seen guys like Cam Newton, RG III and Colin Kaepernick suffer career-wise from injuries, others like Russell Wilson and Lamar Jackson have a talent to avoid hard hits. The running quarterback brings an excitement to the game itself. Personally, I see the quarterback who is unable to run becoming obsolete, much like the fullback position. The league has for the most part gone for adding a wide receiver or tight end and doing without the extra blocker. Fast-paced offenses are in and the fans love it.

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.

MICHAEL NAZAREK

I just think it's a momentary trend. The NFL is cyclical, and based upon the talent at quarterback entering the league. The NFL will adjust whether it be running quarterbacks or pocket passers. There is no way that you can just say that runners will rule when you have great passers like Tua Tagovailoa about to enter the league. Make no mistake. He is a pocket passer, and only runs when he needs to run.

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.

SAM HENDRICKS

Running quarterbacks are also more likely to get injured due to their running. I say pick a quarterback who your predictions (based on current league scoring rules) show as the most valuable. Do not bias your picks so that you get a mobile quarterback; instead get whomever will score the most points based on your scoring system. But.....if he is a scrambler you might want/need to have a decent QB2 because of a higher chance of injury. On the other hand if you go with a stud pocket passer I would be more willing to forgo a QB2 (bye week backup) and add another RB/WR/TE as a flex fill-in. So given the choice between two quarterbacks with similar X values I would make the differentiator (tiebreaker) a pocket passer over a running quarterback (assuming they are predicted to score about the same) because of the higher potential for injury with a scrambler. One may also make the point that mobile quarterbacks are less likely to get injured in the pocket due to their mobility.....I need to see more data on that.

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.

JUSTIN ELEFF

It’s not a false trend, but there is a false element to it: but for Cam Newton, the running guys have stayed unusually healthy this season, while several throw-first-and-second guys have not. You could have made good money betting that Deshaun Watson and Kyler Murray would be 100 percent at this point in 2019 while Matts Ryan and Stafford — and more mobile throwers like Patrick Mahomes and Ben Roethlisberger — would miss time. The right approach will always be that if you grab a runner for his upside, you be sure to pair him with a quality non-runner just in case. If that means spending a pick in the middle rounds on a backup, so be it. We’re talking about the highest-scoring position in most formats.

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

IAN ALLAN

Rushing production is one of the components. If you’ve got a guy running for about 25 yards per week, that’s like getting an extra 50 passing yards in typical fantasy formats. And there are some quarterbacks who’ll help themselves along by scoring a good chunk of their teams’ rushing touchdowns — Deshaun Watson, Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson. When you have a completely immobile quarterback who has to do everything with his arm (like Eli Manning and Philip Rivers for most of the last 15 years) he’s facing an uphill battle the way most fantasy leagues are scored.

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

For me, Russell Wilson is the sweet spot - a quarterback who can run, but isn't defined by running. He's very good at avoiding the big hits, the kill shots that can ruin a season. I find it highly ironic that in a year where so many mobile quarterbacks are thriving, we've also seen an unusually high number of quarterback injuries - but generally it has been non-running quarterbacks getting hurt. I wish Lamar Jackson the best health possible, because what he's doing is a video game. Add it all up and I feel like the world is changing, but Wilson incorporates both styles of play better than anyone else I see.

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

Well running quarterbacks never go out of fashion, though its hardly a new phenomenon. I won a title in 2006 with Michael Vick and his 1,039 rushing yards and again with Vick in 2010 in Philadelphia when he had 676 rushing yards and 9 rushing TDs. Steve Young was a phenom back in the day with his extra rushing yards not to mention Randall Cunningham, Steve McNair, Cam Newton and Russell Wilson. You want to make sure you aren’t going to catch a drop off but for 2020 I certainly intend to give added weight to Josh Allen and maybe DeShaun Watson (he’s someone who I would expect to see a continued decline in rushing) while Kyler Murray and of course Lamar Jackson are going to provide tremendous rushing benefit and be elite fantasy prospects (Jackson likely Top 2 in QB rankings for 2020).

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.

DAVID DOREY

Running quarterbacks have always existed. They seem more prevalent now but they always start their careers running and within a few years, they always run less. The only running quarterbacks now that have success are Russell Wilson (who rushes less), Lamar Jackson (the new Michael Vick but without the canine baggage), Deshaun Watson and Kyle Murray (the rookie). You could maybe throw Josh Allen into that mix. But that is only five of 32 starters. And just as notable is that the college ranks send over usually just one rookie that runs a lot and has a real shot at being a starter.

There has long been plenty of rushing quarterbacks in college. But they haven't translated as well into the NFL. In the past, Cam Newton ran a lot in his early years. Tyrod Taylor. Robert Griffin III. Colin Kaepernick. Alex Smith. Tim Tebow. Vince Young. But the only ones that had longer notable careers and still ran were just Michael Vick, Cam Newton, Russell Wilson.

You don't have to have a running QB to be successful. But it helps. You don't need a running back that catches a lot of passes. But it helps. The only caveat to this "more of the same" message is that Lamar Jackson is having enough success that other teams will be more likely to use a running quarterback. They may be more willing to bring in a rookie that runs and let him run. Jackson seems like he could reset what the NFL thinks about the position. But we thought the same thing with Michael Vick. And Cam Newton. But most running quarterbacks have shorter careers or they evolve into more passing and less rushing. And they do add a new, exciting aspect to offenses and that's always great for fantasy football.

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

Best pick I made this season was Josh Allen. He doesn't need to have a great matchup and doesn't need to have a good day throwing it. That rushing production and the touchdowns he's running in give him a nice 20ish-point floor most weeks. For somebody like Philip Rivers or any pocket passer to get there takes a lot of work and some good fortune. I understand that running quarterbacks have been around for a while and sometimes these guys get hurt. But I'm never going to have a fantasy roster without one of them; they're harder to come up with during the season than pocket passers.

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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