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 your favorite league modification to address the possibility of players missing time due to COVID-19?

JODY SMITH

Flexibility is definitely key here. I'm in favor of adding several rounds to each draft to expand rosters. Not only will this allow drafters to try to target their own backups, but it will also add more strategy as players like Tony Pollard become potential difference-makers late in the draft. It's also imperative to add a COVID IR designation that will mirror the NFL's three-week plan. Starting off with a couple of these IR slots is a good idea but be willing to expand that number if there is a big influx of positive cases in-season.

Smith’s work can be seen at FantasyData.com.

SAM HENDRICKS

I understand that COVID-19 is a game changer and adapting for the possibility of players missing time is important. I think a combination of options such as expanded rosters and team QBs and PKs will help much of the impact. Another option might also be an extra flex starter (RB/WR or TE) but then one of the flex players is dropped (not used). So instead of starting 2 flex players you actually start 3 flex players but the computer only uses your best two. Clearly a form of best-ball but it might alleviate the last-second drop of a player due to testing or precautions.

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 and 2018. Follow him at his web site, www.ffguidebook.com.

MICHAEL NAZAREK

I'd have to say expanded rosters. Instead of a normal 20-round draft, I would propose 22 rounds. With regard to waiver wire claims, I'd go first-come, first-served after an initial round all the way up to the start of the games for that week.

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 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 nearly $30K 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

There will be positive tests. Notable players will miss time — maybe a whole bunch of them. With that in mind, I would be willing to consider the possibility of adding an injured reserve rule. That is, if a player on your fantasy roster tests positive for COVID-19, getting placed on the NFL’s IR list, then you can also similarly place him on IR for fantasy purposes, replacing him with a free agent pickup (obtain via the usual player allocation system). This might create some additional hassles (is such a feature available on the website? And what happens when somebody isn’t paying total attention, with a player coming off IR and causing one of our franchises to have too many players on his roster?). But those headaches might be preferable to the dynamic of a bunch of really good players getting released because teams can’t afford to wait three weeks for them to return. I’m still mulling this one over in my head. I’m not sure how I would vote for such a proposal.

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

This is shaping up to be one of the weirdest NFL seasons that I can recall. Yes, there have been games lost by players due to holdouts and labor disputes, but there are seemingly more questions than answers about the 2020 season ranging from whether it will even happen to what nuances will be required if indeed it is played, in full, or in part. The COVID-19 positive tests being treated as an IR matter is critical for fantasy league management. That way we will not have to alter our way of playing greatly. We deactivate and activate players just like any IR transaction. It leaves no doubt about what a player's playing status is from week to week until they return to action.

Nease has written about fantasy football since 2001 and has played the game since 1985. Mike is a senior staff writer at Big Guy Fantasy Sports. In 2018 and 2019 he won the championships of four experts' leagues: FF Webmasters, FanEx Analysis Draft, FanEx Auction league and also the FanEx Main Event. He also won the Couch Tomatoes Auction league in 2018.

JUSTIN ELEFF

I’m taking a head-in-the-sand approach here, not because I’m any kind of coronavirus denier but because I don’t believe an NFL outbreak would be a discrete one-player-here-or-there problem. Either the league will manage to enforce such rigid and draconian precautions that only a very few guys miss time — in which case the virus will just be a nuisance, not requiring any new rules — or football won’t work at all and we’ll all be waiting for spring (even if “spring” means 2022 or something). Isolated cases are just not what I’m worried about.

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

A big one (which a couple of large, national competitions I enjoy do not use) is an open waiver wire on weekends. If they still want to have their blind-bid waiver runs on Wednesday and Friday nights for the strategic, equitable distribution of players, that's fine. But then I think from say noon Saturday through early kickoffs Sunday, there has to be a way to add players to cover surprise inactives due to positive tests. I think Team PKs also might be appropriate -- we're drafting these guys primarily based on the team around them anyway (if we're doing it right, that is), and if your kicker tests positive Sunday morning, I don't think you should be screwed or forced to carry his backup. Might make sense to have that apply to quarterbacks, too.

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.