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 offseason storyline intrigues you most?
DAVID DOREY
I'm interested to see what happens with the Jaguars, who relatively imploded this season and parted ways with HC Doug Pederson after three seasons. There's plenty of talent there -- Trevor Lawrence, Travis Etienne, Tank Bigsby, Evan Engram, and the rookie Brian Thomas Jr. who still looked great despite the messy situation that he fell into. The right new coaches and maybe beefing up the offensive line through the draft and free agency could pay some surprisingly good dividends. Those personnel were Top-10 in passing for 2023, Top-5 for tight ends, and Travis Etienne was No. 3 as a fantasy back. It all fell apart but can be reassembled even better with the right coaching staff and some health for 2025.
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.
MIKE NAZAREK
I have Aaron Jones in a dynasty league, so I am very interested to see where he lands since he's a free agent after the season is over. He just turned 30 years old, but I do believe there will be a market for him if the Vikings choose not to re-sign him.
Nazarek is the CEO of Fantasy Football Mastermind Inc, celebrating 29 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 website, 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 $36K in recent seasons of the FFPC High Stakes Main Event. Nazarek can be reached via email at miken@ffmastermind.com.
JASON WOOD
I’m always locked in on the coaching changes, particularly when good teams lose good coordinators to head coaching jobs. The biggest thing I’m keyed on is whether Ben Johnson takes a head job and how the Lions adjust to his departure.
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.
SCOTT PIANOWSKI
I have no idea how the Vikings play the Sam Darnold situation. He had so many outstanding weeks, but he was terrible in the biggest game of the regular season -- the blowout loss at Detroit -- and then somehow worse in the playoffs against a Rams defense that had horrible metrics. Who is the real Darnold? There are several QB-needy teams out there. Also, the Vikings can't be sure of when J.J. McCarthy will be ready -- or what McCarthy really is, to begin with (he didn't throw the ball much at Michigan). So many plausible paths to choose from, and we always care about the pointman in a Kevin O'Connell offense.
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
While the head coaching job of the Cowboys no longer has the cache it once did, I think it's still a compelling hire, both given the team's history and the talent that is in place on that roster. The get your popcorn appeal of Jerry Jones hiring Deion Sanders would be high, and apparently Jones going all out to lure Bill Belichick to the team before he even coaches a game at North Carolina is not out of the question. I'll be very interested to see what Dallas does. The other intriguing situations, for me, involve both New York teams. Since I think Aaron Rodgers is either retiring or definitely gone from the Jets regardless, you've got two teams desperate to find a starting quarterback for next year. They might even be competing for the same names. I'm looking forward to see how those situations play out.
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.