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 will be 2021's Comeback Player of the Year?
JUSTIN ELEFF
I’m going with McCaffrey on this ... just not the McCaffrey you think. Because while I do think Christian will be great again (and I see Saquon Barkley has been eating his yogurt), every league has an owner who remembers the Adrian Peterson “Call Me Maybe” season. The CMCs and CGMs are still going in the first round. What you want is what the great Gene McCaffrey calls a Last Year’s Bum — someone who’ll deliver the numbers you expected in 2020, but whose actual 2020 was sufficient to knock him down several draft pegs. Zach Ertz has too little left in the tank; Dak Prescott did too much in his limited run. The name to remember come August — and please do remember I said so — is Courtland Sutton. All-Pro ability, reputation in full retreat. I hear you objecting that the QB situation in Denver is a mess, but it was in 2019 too. Now he’s 25 years old and won’t be among the first 25 receivers taken. Gimme.
Eleff hosts the Fantasy Index Podcast, available in the iTunes Store now. He has worked for Fantasy Index off and on all century.
DAVID DOREY
So many players were injured last year and most should return to form in 2021. Christian McCaffrey, Michael Thomas, Saquon Barkley, Dak Prescott, Joe Mixon, etc. The Comeback Player of the Year will be a surprise. Jameis Winston. He could end up taking over in New Orleans with a great offense already around him and that makes it all easier. He's had a year to sit back under Drew Brees and reassess and learn more of his weaknesses. It all depends on where he ends up, but he threw for over 5,000 yards in 2019 and was undone only because he threw so many interceptions. We'll see if he gets a chance to show that he's matured and improved.
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.
IAN ALLAN
Saquon Barkley and Christian McCaffrey. These guys are both still really good players. I expect they’ll bounce back in 2021, putting up the kind of numbers that everyone was expecting from them last year. Of the two, McCaffrey looks like the better choice right now. He’ll definitely be a more productive pass catcher, and the Panthers seem to have a more innovative and dynamic offense. (The head-coaching jobs are filling up, so it’s looking for now like Carolina will get to have offensive coordinator Joe Brady for another year — that would be a plus.) And he’s not coming off a major injury. With Barkley, he’s got to work his way back from a torn ACL. But I have a lot of confidence in both of these backs. (I expect both will be in my top 5 at the position.)
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.
ANDY RICHARDSON
I'm going to steer away from players who were hurt all season in favor of guys who played most of the year but just underachieved. There are two that I haven't given up on: Carson Wentz and Sam Darnold. I'm not sure where they'll be next year -- if Philadelphia, unable to move Wentz and his contract, will have him in the lineup or not, and if the Jets' new decision-makers will go with Darnold (who I suppose hasn't been good enough yet to have anywhere to come back from) or draft Justin Fields. But I do think they'll be Week 1 starters somewhere next year. With Wentz, bad as everything was in Philly this season, I think the talent is there to put up strong numbers (fantasy and otherwise) running an offense next year. With Darnold, I see no reason why he, freed of Adam Gase, can't emerge as a quality NFL starter, ala Ryan Tannehill. Both are longshots, but to me those are the kind of players to monitor in the offseason, ones who will be ignored by most but could be quality starters.
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.