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 2021 season?

MICHAEL NAZAREK

  1. Christian McCaffrey. I know he only played 3 games in 2020, but keep in mind he totaled nearly 2,400 yards and scored 19 times in 2019! He also caught an amazing 116 passes. When healthy, he is still clearly the top RB in the NFL.
  2. Dalvin Cook. He proved he can get the job done in 2020, and he only missed one game. He totaled a gaudy 17 scores with 1,900-plus total yards and 44 catches. With the Saints quarterback situation uncertain, I'd take Cook before anyone but CMC right now.
  3. Derrick Henry. While he only caught 19 passes in 2020, he totaled a whopping 2,141 yards and scored 17 times. Nothing will change with Henry in Tennessee, so I take the safe route and go with him as a top 3 PPR pick.
  4. Davante Adams. Even though he missed two games, he still led the field by 30+ points in PPR formats at wideout. As a result, he vaults into the top 4 on the strength of his consistency and stability as the lead wide receiver for the Packers with Aaron Rodgers set to return.
  5. Alvin Kamara. He rebounded with nearly 1,700 total yards and 21 shocking scores with 83 more catches. The issue here is who will be his QB? If it's Jameis Winston, then his value could climb higher. If it's Taysom Hill, the bottom could fall out with Hill stealing goal-line carries and targeting Kamara less in the passing game.
  6. Ezekiel Elliott. In the first five games of 2020 with Dak Prescott healthy, he was the No. 2 RB, then the bottom nearly fell out once Prescott was injured. Assuming Prescott is healthy and starts in 2021 as a Cowboy, then Zeke is a top 6 pick.
  7. Tyreek Hill. After an up and down career, Hill really stabilized in 2020, totaling a sweet 87-1,276-15 stat line, while also adding another 13-123-2 rushing stat line. He should continue to produce nicely in 2021.
  8. Stefon Diggs. Diggs was even better as a Bill in 2020 than he ever was as a Viking, catching an amazing 127 passes for 1,535 yards and 8 scores. He's a solid bet to match those stats with an even better chance at an uptick in scores in 2021.
  9. Travis Kelce. Let's see, he not only led the TE PPR category in 2020 by 32+ points, but totaled a shocking 105-1,416-11 stat line. He also produced only one game of less than 10 PPR points. 'Nough said.
  10. Saquon Barkley. He missed nearly all of 2020 with a torn ACL and struggled through an ankle injury in 2019, so if you want to take a pass on him here, I understand. That said, he's still the same back that totaled 2,000+ yards and 15 scores in his 2018 rookie season.

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

With my list, I’m assuming we’re not using a Superflex format, so no quarterbacks would be in my top 20. Great as guys like Mahomes, Rodgers and Allen might be, you look at the quality of quarterbacks who’ll be selected in the fourth, fifth and sixth rounds, and the numbers suggest the correct way to build a team will be to instead start with the elite players at the other field positions. I don’t see a ton of difference between the top six running backs, and I think Davante Adams can also be in the top-of-the-draft discussion.

In order: McCaffrey, Adams, Cook, Kamara, Jo.Taylor, Barkley, Chubb, Kelce, Hopkins, Diggs. I would put an honorable mention grade on 11 other players (and with no QBs in here either): Ekeler, T.Hill, Akers, Henry, Montgomery, Waller, Jacobs, K.Allen, M.Thomas, Metcalf, Jefferson.

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.

SAM HENDRICKS

Here is my baker's dozen:

  1. Christian McCaffrey
  2. Dalvin Cook
  3. Alvin Kamara
  4. Saquon Barkley
  5. Derrick Henry
  6. Ezekiel Elliott
  7. Tyreek Hill
  8. Davante Adams
  9. Austin Ekeler
  10. Travis Kelce
  11. Aaron Jones
  12. Nick Chubb
  13. DK Metcalf

Honorable mention: Jonathan Taylor.

Yes, 7 of the top 10 and 10 of the top 14 are still RBs in a PPR format. Running back early and often in 1st and 2nd rounds of 2021.

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.

JUSTIN ELEFF

  1. McCaffrey
  2. Cook
  3. Henry
  4. Kamara
  5. Taylor
  6. Chubb
  7. Adams
  8. Akers
  9. Barkley
  10. Kelce

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

  1. Derrick Henry
  2. Dalvin Cook
  3. Ezekiel Elliott
  4. Alvin Kamara
  5. Davante Adams
  6. Jonathan Taylor
  7. Saquon Barkley
  8. Travis Kelce
  9. Stefon Diggs
  10. Tyreek Hill

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

I've come around to the idea that a too-heavy workload one year has ramifications in years to come. We saw it with Christian McCaffrey, and it has me wary of certain running backs who have also been heavily used the last year or two. It's difficult, though, to actually drop these players from the top spots. Heavily used is what we're looking for when it comes to selecting players to lead fantasy teams, after all. But might be nice to have a later pick in 2021, so you can select the 10th and 15th best players rather than the 1st and 24th. On the bright side, at least my top 2 weren't heavily used in 2020.

  1. McCaffrey
  2. Barkley
  3. Kamara
  4. Cook
  5. Henry
  6. Elliott
  7. Kelce
  8. Adams
  9. Taylor
  10. Akers

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.