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 rookie wideout will have the best career?
SCOTT SACHS
I'm convinced that CeeDee Lamb is on the verge of stardom. Like anything, it comes down to timing and opportunity. Lamb is in a loaded offense where he is not the focal point, so there's no added pressure. Most of the skill players are at an age where they could play together for multiple years. So far, Lamb has shown weekly improvement, with a strong chance to break out this week in a home game against the Browns' Swiss cheese pass defense. Dallas assigned CeeDee Lamb the coveted jersey No. 88 for a reason. If he stays primarily in the slot for a year or so, he has the potential to launch an Antonio Brown type of career.
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.
JUSTIN ELEFF
On the basis of what the player can do and nothing else, my vote might go to Chase Claypool — basically another DK Metcalf, but more refined than Metcalf was a year ago, and with a willingness to work that draws praise from all corners. The problem is that Ben Roethlisberger is 38, and after last season it’s hard to trust that the Steelers will have much of a successor in place when Roethlisberger hangs it up. So give me CeeDee Lamb, on the other end of 27-year-old Dak Prescott and with much of what he showed at Oklahoma already on display in Dallas. Lamb belongs, clearly, and is going to belong not only for the rest of 2020, but for all of the 2020s.
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
In the preseason, the three selected in the top 20 generated the most buzz — Lamb, Jeudy, Ruggs. I haven’t seen anything to suggest any of those players are going to bust. But there are another 10 rookies receivers who all look like they’re going to have solid careers. Definitely Claypool, Aiyuk, Reagor, Jefferson, Higgins, Pittman, Edwards and Gabriel Davis. I would expect that at least a couple of those later-round receivers will end up being better than any of those three who were chosen in the top 20. Claypool is a physical freak. With Aiyuk, I like that he’s working with Shanahan.
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
Without a doubt, have to like CeeDee Lamb the most of the rookie wideouts. He's already become an integral part of the Cowboys offense and more importantly, they like to throw the ball -- a lot. Add in he has the best quarterback of the rookie wideouts and he'll get to grow and flourish with Dak Prescott. This was a gifted class and certainly many will end up as stars, but none of them have as advantageous of a situation as Lamb.
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.
ANDY RICHARDSON
It sure looks like the Cowboys got a good one in CeeDee Lamb. Once upon a time I was a Packers fan, and that part of me wishes Green Bay had traded up for Lamb or one of the other first-round wideouts rather than a quarterback. In Dallas, you wonder if he'll ever be a true go-to guy with Cooper and Gallup there too. But he's a talented guy who should be productive for a lot of years. I'm also impressed by what I've seen out of Justin Jefferson, who could be the No. 1 in Minnesota in a couple of years. Coming into the season I was a big Jerry Jeudy fan, and still am. But the quarterback and offense concern me; he might labor for a while on lesser offensive teams.
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.