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 is on your Do Not Draft list this season?
DAVID DOREY
One player that I do not have on any of my teams is absolutely Tom Brady. Yes, he joined the Buccaneers where the best pair of wideouts he's ever played with are. And sure, he's been likely to throw for around 30 touchdowns per season while playing with much less for the last several years in New England. But he adds almost nothing as a rusher of course, and more than anything - he is 43 years old. I don't care what his exercise regimen is or that he has some scientific diet. He is 43 years old and doesn't have the arm strength he once had. He is trying to learn a new offense, with new players, during a pandemic, for the first time in decades. Behind what was one of the worst offensive lines last year. One of his saving graces with the Pats is that they gave him a stellar offensive line every year. I just do not believe he can meet expectations or even last the season.
Dorey co-founded The Huddle.com in 1997. He's ranked every player and projected every game for the last 23 years and is the author of Fantasy Football: The Next Level. David has appeared on numerous radio, television, newspaper and magazines over the last two decades.
SAM HENDRICKS
Lamar Jackson. It is not that I do not want the Ravens quarterback; I do. I just will not pay the premium (in draft capital) that he is going for in most leagues. I have seen him go as high as 9th (a first-round pick); WOW! Too rich for me. Especially when I rank Patrick Mahomes slightly higher than Jackson, but neither appeals to me in the 1st or 2nd round. I suggest waiting on the position; Ryan, Brady and Brees will all be available in the seventh round. Take your chances with them and a running back from round 1 rather than Jackson or Mahomes and James White or Jordan Howard later.
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
This is an easy one: Todd Gurley. Bottom Line: Bad knees. Fantasy hint: Avoid Gurley and draft Ito Smith late.
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
Probably more so than any other component, Cleveland’s passing game: Mayfield, Beckham, Landry, Hooper — I’ve drafted about 6-8 teams, and I don’t have any of those guys on any of them. I’m of the school of thought that Kevin Stefanski will try to do some of the same things he did in Minnesota, with a run-oriented offense. I think they’re going to pound it, with Nick Chubb leading the way (and Kareem Hunt mixed in). The Vikings last year ranked 6th in rushing but bottom-10 in passing. I’m expecting the same kind of trends and results with the Browns.
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.
JUSTIN ELEFF
The easy answer for me is Lamar Jackson. Understand: I love the guy. He’s as exciting as anyone to watch, and no one mixes determination to be great with quite the same frankness about owning every loss. I’ll be thrilled if/when he eventually gets over the postseason hump. But give me the fury Patrick Mahomes is about to unleash on the league (yet again) instead — I think 40 TD passes is significantly too conservative an expectation. So it’s Mahomes if I’m taking any quarterback early in any draft, and if not I’ll load up at other positions and come back much later for a couple of serviceable passers with upside, be they Stafford or Roethlisberger or Jones or whomever. Jackson is great, but especially with the current groin issue he’s just at the wrong intersection of price and value. You can’t win last year’s league this year.
Eleff hosts the Fantasy Index Podcast, available in the iTunes Store now. He has worked for Fantasy Index off and on all century.
SCOTT SACHS
Tyrod Taylor is barely serviceable. In my mind, the Justin Herbert over/under to play or start is Week 3, same as Baker Mayfield was with Taylor starting ahead of him in 2018. Unpopular opinion: Joe Mixon is not a top tier running back this year. He's very good, I can't argue that, but I believe the Bengals will be trailing in a majority of their games making them more pass-oriented. Their offensive line is suspect, too. Finally, anyone from Chicago or Denver. Chicago is too unsettled at quarterback and has average offensive talent. Denver has great on-paper talent, but hiring Pat Shurmur as Offensive Coordinator is a major mistake.
Sachs runs Perfect Season Fantasy Football, offering LIVE Talk & Text consulting. He has multiple league championships including 2 perfect seasons. Scott is a past winner of the Fantasy Index Experts Poll and a 2-time winner of the Experts Auction League.
SCOTT PIANOWSKI
I don't like proactively drafting wide receivers in their first season with a new team, so you can count me out on DeAndre Hopkins. The Texans would pepper Hopkins with targets weekly, but Arizona's offense is likely to be more focused on spreading the ball around. And obviously onboarding could be tricky this year, the unique challenges of preparation given the current worldwide health situation. Sticking with this new guy in town theme, you can also count me out on Stefon Diggs; he's renowned for his angelic route running, but Josh Allen still is more athlete than reliable quarterback.
An FSWA award-winning writer (with nominations in four sports) and podcaster, Scott has been with Yahoo Sports since 2008. On the rare occasions when the computer is turned off, he enjoys word games, poker, music, film, game theory, and a variety of condiments. He lives in suburban Detroit.
ANDY RICHARDSON
With the possible exception of Damien Harris, who's come very cheaply (for a potential starting running back) to this point, there are no Patriots on any of my teams. I'm not entirely sure how interested they are in winning this year. They've shed a ton of defensive talent (free agency and opt-outs). They've added nothing in the way of notable receivers, and the ones they have are either old and likely to get hurt (Julian Edelman) or unproven (N'Keal Harry); the depth chart is really hazy. Maybe Cam Newton is a top-10 quarterback, but the fact that he's basically playing on a minimum deal and no one else wanted to sign him speaks unfavorably of his health. It just doesn't look good, and I think the floor is lower on all these guys than I personally want to invest in.
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.