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 young backup might see an expanded role down the stretch?
DAVID DOREY
Dontrell Hilliard has already started getting a heavier workload and being successful with it. There's no chance of unseating Derrick Henry of course, but the Titans won't have him down the stretch and Hilliard could lock down the No. 2 spot that hasn't found a good match in Jeremy McNichols or Darrynton Evans. The Titans want to avoid overworking Henry for the sake of his health next year and could use at least incrementally more from a No. 2 back. Hilliard is looking at a fairly advantageous stretch of the schedule to showcase what he can offer.
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
Alex Collins hasn’t done much recently. Since that 100-yard game he had against the Steelers, he’s averaged 34 rushing and 6 receiving yards in his last five games, with no touchdowns. So I’m thinking the Seahawks might take a look at DeeJay Dallas at some point before the year is through. Seattle signed Adrian Peterson to its practice squad on Wednesday, so I think it’s not satisfied with what it's getting 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.
SCOTT PIANOWSKI
I don't have a great answer for this question as intended, so I'm going to cheat a little bit. I love what Pat Freiermuth could do down the stretch, with an expanded role and Eric Ebron no longer in the way. I grant you Pittsburgh's offense looks broken, but Freiermuth's catch radius and touchdown equity could make him a league-tilter in the final quarter of the year.
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.
SAM HENDRICKS
Tony Pollard is my choice. Not that Dallas is out of the playoff picture but they could easily look to lighten Ezekiel Elliott's load over the coming weeks while saving him for the playoffs. He already has flex appeal just as the low man in a time-share at Dallas. A rest for Zeke means more touches and more fantasy points for Pollard and a possible bigger role in any playoff run.
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.
ANDY RICHARDSON
A problem is that so many teams sitting at 5-6 or 5-7 are still in the hunt for playoff spots, so you won't see a lot of youngsters stuck into lineups for a couple of weeks yet. But I think reality of being eliminated might start to hit for the Seahawks and Falcons, among others. So why send out guys like Alex Collins and Mike Davis when you can instead start seeing more out of DeeJay Dallas or Qadree Ollison? You'd like to think Houston or Jacksonville would do the same, but logic escaped Houston in particular with building their roster -- a bunch of veteran running backs, which makes no sense. But maybe they start throwing lots of balls to Nico Collins, seeing if he can be a future No. 1 for them. It would make sense, even if it's optimistic to think it will happen. Similarly, maybe Amon-Ra St. Brown in Detroit, but they simply might not be good enough (and he might not be good enough) for there to be any actual solid production.
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.