ASK THE EXPERTS appears weekly from training camp through the Super Bowl. This is our final question of the season. How the guest experts responded when we asked them: What is your preliminary Top 10 for the 2020 season?

MICHAEL NAZAREK

Top 10 for PPR leagues:

  1. Christian McCaffrey. He totaled nearly 2,400 yards and scored 19 times in 2019. Best of all, he caught an amazing 116 passes! He is clearly the top running back in the NFL.
  2. Michael Thomas. Thomas gets the nod over all the other running backs. Why? In PPR systems, he scored a whopping 375 points on a gaudy 149-1,725-9 stat line. Yes, even if Brees retires, the Saints would re-sign Bridgewater, keeping Thomas in this slot.
  3. Ezekiel Elliott. Still the best pure runner in the league, but Elliott's passes caught slipped to 54 from 77 in 2019. That said, with no contract concerns, Elliott jumps into the No. 3 spot.
  4. Saquon Barkley. He slipped in 2019 due to a significant ankle injury, but once he was healthy, he ended the season with three 20-plus PPR games. Remember, he totaled 2,000-plus yards and 15 scores in his rookie season.
  5. Dalvin Cook. For much of 2019, Cook was neck and neck with McCaffrey for the top spot, but he slowed down in the second half due to injury and missed the final few weeks of the season. Compared to Elliott, his durability is a concern, pushing him behind Zeke.
  6. Derrick Henry. While he only caught 18 passes in 2019, he totaled a whopping 1,745 yards and scored 18 times. That makes him a solid top-6 pick, provided the Titans re-sign him.
  7. Aaron Jones. He piled up more than 1,500 total yards and scored a shocking 19 times in 2019. That put him at No. 2 in running backs with 318 points, so why is he this low for 2020? Jones was up and down last season, as he scored 10 PPR points or less in 5 games.
  8. DeAndre Hopkins. While he still broke the 100-catch barrier in 2019, his 104-1,165-7 stat line was a significant drop from 2018. Still, I like him as the No. 2 wide receiver since he's still the clear No. 1 in Houston and his talent should create a rebound season.
  9. Davante Adams. Mr. Consistency in 2018, Adams suffered a serious toe injury early in 2019, but rebounded to be the No. 3 wide receiver over the second half of the season behind Thomas and Robert Woods. He should maintain that momentum in 2020 should he stay healthy all season.
  10. Alvin Kamara. This kid totaled nearly 1,600 yards, 18 TDs, and caught 81 passes in 2018, but slipped to only 1,330 yards, 6 TDs, and 81 catches (again) in 2019. That said, he still finished as the No. 9 running back in fantasy. His yardage and most certainly scores are likely to rebound, keeping him in the top 10 in PPR for 2020.

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.

MICHAEL NEASE

Picking my Top 10 seven months before the 2020 season even starts is kind of like pulling names out of a very small hat. First I eliminate every player, except for running backs and receivers. I love Jackson and Mahomes, but there are more important needs to address at the top of the draft than quarterbacks. Here are the players who I see at the top right at the moment.

  1. Christian McCaffrey
  2. Saquon Barkley
  3. Ezekiel Elliott
  4. Michael Thomas
  5. Dalvin Cook
  6. Alvin Kamara
  7. Austin Ekeler
  8. DeAndre Hopkins
  9. Chris Godwin
  10. Julio Jones

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.

IAN ALLAN

Saquon Barkley, Michael Thomas, Christian McCaffrey, Ezekiel Elliott, Dalvin Cook, DeAndre Hopkins, Chris Godwin, Patrick Mahomes, Nick Chubb, Aaron Jones, Derrick Henry, Tyreek Hill, Davante Adams, Joe Mixon, Alvin Kamara, Deshaun Watson, Lamar Jackson, George Kittle, Travis Kelce, Amari Cooper, Mike Evans, A.J. Brown, Courtland Sutton, Zach Ertz.

I pulled out the names of all of the guys I might consider in the first or second rounds of a 12-team PPR draft. I don’t see a strong No. 1 overall player. Saquon Barkley is definitely one of the candidates, but that probably will be a lesser team. Michael Thomas caught a ton of balls last year; the Saints won’t necessarily have Drew Brees back, but Thomas was productive last year even when they were going with Teddy Bridgewater. Christian McCaffrey put up monster numbers last year, but he’ll be playing in a completely different offense. Scoring systems typically tend to work against quarterbacks, but there are three I think should be part of the discussion as early picks (and I went with Patrick Mahomes as my top guy at that position). Lamar Jackson was great in 2019, but with him being a wildly unconventional player, I’ve got him as the No. 3 quarterback for now, behind Deshaun Watson.

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.

DAVID DOREY

  1. Christian McCaffrey
  2. Ezekiel Elliott
  3. Dalvin Cook
  4. Derrick Henry
  5. Michael Thomas
  6. Nick Chubb
  7. Saquon Barkley
  8. DeAndre Hopkins
  9. Aaron Jones
  10. Julio Jones

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.

ALAN SATTERLEE

  1. Christian McCaffrey
  2. Saquon Barkley
  3. Ezekiel Elliott
  4. Michael Thomas
  5. Lamar Jackson
  6. Dalvin Cook
  7. Derrick Henry
  8. Alvin Kamara
  9. Devin Singletary
  10. Chris Godwin

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.

ANDY RICHARDSON

  1. Christian McCaffrey. Some regression is likely in a new offense, but would take some guts/insanity to pass on him for anyone else in drafts.
  2. Saquon Barkley. Down the stretch, a healthy Barkley showed what he can do. Fantasy difference-maker, even on a likely poor team.
  3. Ezekiel Elliott. I suspect Elliott will be a bigger part of the passing game in Mike McCarthy's offense, and there's no concerns over contract or durability.
  4. Michael Thomas. The gap between him and the rest of the wide receivers is significant. He's the only one I need to select this early.
  5. Dalvin Cook. Healthy for most of last season, and such a huge part of the run and pass game, I'm comfortable selecting him here.
  6. Alvin Kamara. He'll score more touchdowns, while continuing to be a huge part of the passing game. For now I'm assuming Drew Brees is back for one more year, and this is a high-powered offense again.
  7. Joe Mixon. Cincinnati's offense should be better in 2020, even with the likelihood of a rookie quarterback. Mixon looks like a guy with the potential to step up.
  8. Derrick Henry. Presuming he stays in Tennessee, he can win rushing titles and fantasy leagues. But the team will need to be careful not to overwork him, and I think they'll add a viable passing down complement.
  9. Lamar Jackson. When push comes to shove, maybe I won't select a quarterback here. But another 1,000 rushing yards from Jackson seems very possible, making him the kind of difference-maker at quarterback worth selecting early.
  10. Aaron Jones. Will be either him or a wideout at this point. Jones won't score 19 touchdowns again, but he should again be the offensive centerpiece on a high-powered offense whose quarterback must be respected.

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.