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: Imagining one draft for the entire postseason, who should be the top pick in a playoff fantasy league?
SAM HENDRICKS
Top quarterback or top running back. Allen or Lamar or Barkley or Gibbs. Tough call. My gut says go with Josh Allen despite projections for Jackson scoring 10 FP more than Allen. I think it is the Bills year. And Baltimore will have to play in Buffalo. The Bills have a ton of sneaky receiving options (Amari Cooper, Keon Coleman, Khalil Shakir and two tight end sets with Dalton Kincaid and Dawson Knox). Plus James Cook out of the backfield and Josh Allen rushes. It just feels like Allen is the way to go.
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 30-year fantasy football veteran who participated 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.
DAVID DOREY
Top pick has to be Josh Allen. He keeps getting closer to the brass ring and he's the heart and soul of the Bills and runs when he cannot throw. Saquon Barkley is a very close second, and either player is a must-have if possible. But Barkley has a bye but Allen does not.
Dorey co-founded The Huddle.com in 1997. He's ranked every player and projected every game for the last 26 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 like Jalen Hurts. I want that fourth game. There are three candidates with a good chance, I think, with Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson being the others. But I like Hurts’ path a lot more than theirs. I expect they’ll be going head-to-head in the divisional round, which is kind of a 50-50 type deal, and then the survivor would have to win at Arrowhead, which is probably less than a 50-50 proposition. (I think KC will be heading back to the big game.) With the Eagles, I am more comfortable seeing them beating the Packers and Bucs, and I think they’re going to have a real nice chance of winning in Detroit in the NFC Championship game. They’ve got a much better defense than the Lions.
Allan co-founded Fantasy Football Index in 1987. Since that time, he’s written and edited most of the content published in the magazines, newsletters and at www.fantasyindex.com. Allan is a member of the FSGA Fantasy Sports Hall of Fame and the Fantasy Sports Writers Association Hall of Fame.
JASON WOOD
The key to playoff fantasy is making sure your key players actually play multiple games. Any fantasy playoff list has to first start with your expectations for the ultimate outcome. I predict the Bills and Eagles will make the Super Bowl, giving each team four games.
That gives me a short list of Josh Allen, Saquon Barkley, Jalen Hurts, and A.J. Brown as legitimate options. And of those I’ll choose Saquon because there's more running back scarcity in the playoff pool than quarterback scarcity.
Wood is Senior Editor at Footballguys.com and has been with the company since its start in 2000. For more than 20 years, Footballguys has provided rankings, projections, and analysis to help fantasy managers dominate their leagues.
KEN HOLIZNA
The obvious answer to me appears to be Lamar Jackson, especially in 6 points per TD leagues. The Ravens will be playing the extra wildcard game and should be in the Super Bowl. Even with Flowers most likely not playing in the wildcard game, Flowers has only accounted for four of Lamar’s 41 TDs. All of the AFC playoff teams are vulnerable against the pass and teams will have to load up to stop King Henry. Lamar is the best player in the NFL this season, but I think Allen is the most valuable player to his team this year. With that said Lamar’s play in the postseason may make MVP voters look silly.
Holizna is a 29-year fantasy football enthusiast and founder of Faith-Family-Fantasy Football in 2019, a family-friendly, faith-based, G-rated fantasy football platform. Rankings contributor to the 2023 Fantasy Index magazine. Find him on Twitter @holihandicapper
SCOTT PIANOWSKI
I don't want the No. 1 pick this year, that's for sure. You could go a lot of different paths. Ultimately it probably comes down to which mobile quarterback you feel best about right now, Josh Allen, Jalen Hurts or Lamar Jackson. Even with Baltimore slotted as a No. 3 seed, I will side to Jackson -- I think this is the year he finally has some playoff success.
Pianowski has been with Yahoo Sports since 2008, covering a variety of sports. 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. Pianowski was inducted into the FSWA Hall of Fame in 2021.
ANDY RICHARDSON
The problem is deciding whether Buffalo or Baltimore is going to win their likely second-round matchup. If you're confident in that winner, you know you're getting at least three games out of Josh Allen or Lamar Jackson, and a fourth if they can go into Kansas City and win, which is certainly possible this year. I'd like to go with Allen, but Lamar seems just as likely. So might be better to go to the NFC, and Philadelphia. I don't know if they're winning in Detroit, but if they just make it to that game, which they should, you get three games from Jalen Hurts and Saquon Barkley, which is the ceiling for Patrick Mahomes and Jahmyr Gibbs. Speaking of Gibbs, 2-3 games like what he's done the past couple of weeks would be pretty awesome. Push comes to shove, I think I'd go Hurts or Barkley, who I'm pretty confident are getting at least three games.
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 writes a weekly gambling newsletter, Index Bets, during the NFL season and also previews all the games on Saturdays and writes a wrap-up column on Mondays.