Ask the Experts

July 22, 2021

Which training camp storyline is most interesting?

Quarterback questions prevail

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 training camp storyline are you most interested in?

SAM HENDRICKS

The fact that 8 of the 32 NFL teams (25%) arguably have competitions/questions for the most important position in football (quarterback) is intriguing to say the least. Top of that list is Green Bay and whether Aaron Rodgers will play. Everyone is watching that closely. My gut feel is, to quote Will Shakespeare, "Much ado about nothing." So my interest is with the Jaguars and Urban Meyer. I love the running back competition: Will it be the undrafted 2020 workhorse, James Robinson, or the first-round pick Travis Etienne? Honorable mention goes to the tight end battle there too. No fantasy value but I am still rooting for Tim Tebow!

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.

JODY SMITH

The New Orleans quarterback situation will have a major impact on the early part of all drafts. If Jameis Winston wins the job will he be able to avoid turnovers and keep the job without losing valuable red-zone snaps to Taysom Hill? And if Hill retains the job, how will that impact Alvin Kamara and Michael Thomas?

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

IAN ALLAN

The two up-in-the-air franchise quarterbacks lead the way. Aaron Rodgers and Deshaun Watson are among the top half-dozen players in the league, and it’s possible they’ll play for new teams. With Rodgers, I expect he’ll be back and starting for the Packers, but that’s not certain. (And if he does return, do the hard feelings spill over into the locker room?). With Watson, I don’t think he’ll play for Houston again. And I don’t think he’ll play for any team before at least mid-October. With 20-plus civil cases pending against him, he could be parked indefinitely on the league’s Exempt List, probably followed by a lengthy suspension. But if Watson is eventually playing for some team, he could put up top-5 numbers in the second half of the season.

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 NAZAREK

I am really excited about seeing Matthew Stafford play in that high-powered Rams offense. I recently drafted him as my starter in a best-ball league, and am looking forward to watching him hopefully succeed and make the playoffs for the first time in quite a while in 2021.

Nazarek is the CEO of Fantasy Football Mastermind Inc, celebrating 25 years online! His company offers a preseason draft guide, customizable cheat sheets, a multi-use fantasy drafting program including auction values, weekly in-season newsletters, injury reports and free NFL news (updated daily) at its web site, www.ffmastermind.com. 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. Nazarek can be reached via email at miken@ffmastermind.com.

AARON BLAND

Perhaps my Florida Gators upbringing has made me a bit biased, but I am completely fascinated to see what Urban Meyer brings to the NFL game. Will NFL players respond to his Jedi mind tricks? His spread-option tendencies will have to be dialed back for the pro game, which leaves a ton of unanswered questions on the fantasy front. Will it be a run-heavy offense with James Robinson and rookie Travis Etienne, or will Meyer allow Trevor Lawrence to air it out? Heck, we even have a Tim Tebow storyline. This uncertainty will likely lead to at least one of the skill players (perhaps Robinson) dropping too far in drafts and becoming a steal. It's an interesting enough situation to even make you consider watching Jaguars preseason action in the hopes of getting some answers before your draft.

Bland, a fanatical fantasy football player since 1992, has been a contributing expert to Fantasy Football Index since 2018 and appears regularly as a guest on the Fantasy Index Podcast. He is the Managing Editor at yourulz.com, a fantasy sports platform launching in 2021 that allows live in-game substitutions in every sport.

ANDY RICHARDSON

If Aaron Rodgers were actually to be traded to a place like Denver, it would be fascinating, dramatically altering the championship aspirations of both the Packers and Broncos in one fell swoop. It's hard for me to believe it could happen, but smart, connected observers apparently think it might. Next to Rodgers, I'm very interested in what's going to happen in San Francisco, at a variety of positions. Could be either Jimmy Garoppolo or Trey Lance at quarterback, and Raheem Mostert or Trey Sermon at running back. Even the wide receiver depth chart is a little hazy. Should be very interesting.

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.

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