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: With six teams on byes, who's a good fill-in that might be available in many leagues?
SAM HENDRICKS
I never thought I would say his name again but Rashaad Penny. Seattle plays New Orleans at home on Monday night. Chris Carson is out and Alex Collins is banged up. Penny should be coming off IR and Pete Carroll has talked his progress up the past few weeks. Penny is definitely a lesser player who COULD be a great fill-in this week.
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.
PAUL CHARCHIAN
Last time we saw Marquez Callaway he was hauling in an improbable Hail Mary from Jameis Winston. Normally that kind of big game (4-85-2) sends fantasy players racing to the waiver wire, but because of the Saints' bye last week, he's only 34% owned. Callaway has a juicy matchup with a floundering Seattle secondary. Seattle has allowed the sixth-most yards to wide receivers, 196 per game. It's usually opposing top outside receivers who damage the Seahawks (Justin Jefferson, Julio Jones, Deebo Samuel, Diontae Johnson), and until Michael Thomas comes back, that's Callaway.
Charchian is the CEO at GuillotineLeagues.com. Guillotine Leagues are a new way to play in which the lowest-scoring team each week gets chopped from the league, and all the players go to the waiver wire. Charchian was inducted into the Fantasy Sports Hall of Fame in 2013.
DAVID DOREY
Week 7 loses Dak Prescott, Josh Allen, Justin Herbert, and Kirk Cousins to their byes. Guys that should be available include Sam Darnold at the Giants No. 28 passing defense, and Tua Tagovailoa hosting the Atlanta defense. Neither may be all that pretty, but the matchups are good and should offer at least moderate to high fantasy points.
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
I’m a D’Ernest Johnson fan. I’ve re-watched the Dallas game from last year, with him coming off the bench to carry 13 times for 95 yards. He wasn’t just running through pickup truck holes in that game. He created some of those yards on his own. He seems to have some vision and elusiveness. He’s not Nick Chubb or Kareem Hunt, but I think he’s going to be their featured back tonight, and with how the Browns stick with the run, I think he’s got a chance to be a top-15 running back this week.
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.
AARON BLAND
James Conner is lightly owned yet seems to rack up lots of touches in blowouts. With Arizona facing lowly Houston, Conner could easily see 15+ touches after the Cards jump out to a big lead.
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.
SCOTT PIANOWSKI
I understand the Colts treat Jack Doyle like the team mascot for some reason, but I can't let go of the idea that Mo-Alie Cox could be a fantasy staple with just a little more volume. In Week 7, he's a proactive play for me, even if I'm clinging to the chances of a goal-line flip. If the Colts could ever find 80 or so seasonal targets for MAC, I'm thinking he could bust into the Top 10 at a very weak position.
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
All of my quarterbacks seem to be on byes, including one league where I foolishly backed up Josh Allen with Kirk Cousins. So I'm picking through the likes of Mac Jones, Tua Tagovailoa, and a guy I've trashed for the past year, Jimmy Garoppolo. But with Trey Lance hurt and the 49ers facing the Colts (who are banged up in the secondary), Garoppolo is my Flavor of the Week quarterback. He should play close to full-time in a decent matchup, and knows he's basically auditioning for his next job whenever he steps on the field the rest of the way.
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.