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 rookie are you most looking forward to seeing on the field?
JASON WOOD
Travis Hunter is the easy answer. After being told the last few months he would primarily concentrate on offense, we get reports that he’s played more practice reps on defense in the first week of camp. I’m fascinated to see if he can effectively play two positions at the NFL level.
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.
TOM KESSENICH
Right now it's Omarion Hampton. With Najee Harris' status so clouded in mystery, Hampton has an opportunity to take the Chargers' starting running back position and truly make it his own. Harris won't go away if he can return to the field, but if Hampton impresses early in the preseason he will have the chance to stake a claim to being LA's true three-down workhorse RB and relegate Harris to more of a backup option, thus making Hampton a value pick at his current ADP.
Kessenich is the Director of High Stakes Contests for SportsHub Games. He runs the NFFC, NFBC and NFBKC and is a fantasy sports Hall of Fame inductee.
SAM HENDRICKS
Travis Hunter. Any time you trade up aggressively from 5 to 2 in the first round it gets mY attention. I am interested to see how the dual-threat experiment is going to play out. Hunter is the best wide receiver of his class but can he show it if he shares time on the field as a defensive player? Speaking of which if your league has IDP categories make sure he is going to get credit for those, too. In which case, the sky's the limit. Until he goes down with injury for playing 95% of the snaps...very interested to see how the Jaguars play this one.
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.
HOWARD BENDER
Of all the rookies this season, I am actually most excited to watch RJ Harvey of the Denver Broncos. Joe Lombardi's system really caters to his strengths as a pass-catcher (Lombardi's RB room is a consistent top-5 finisher in both targets and receptions) and with all the added outside-zone work they are doing, he should be able to showcase his explosiveness as he pushes through the holes. He'll work in tandem with J.K. Dobbins, but fantasy owners should not be afraid of the shared backfield. Think Alvin Kamara/Mark Ingram with Harvey playing the Kamara role. And given Dobbins' lengthy injury history, will it be long before this backfield belongs solely to Harvey? Probably not.
Bender is a longtime veteran of the fantasy sports industry and the 2008 runner-up for People Magazine's Sexiest Man Alive. He serves as the Head of Content for FantasyAlarm.com, a weekly columnist for the New York Post and is the host of the award-winning Fantasy Alarm Show on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio (M-F 6-8pm ET). You can find him on X, IG and Facebook as @rotobuzzguy and on TikTok as @therealrotobuzzguy.
SCOTT ENGEL
I am most interested to watch the progress of Tyler Warren. As we have seen in recent years it no longer takes a tight end a few years to acclimate to the NFL as a pass catcher. Warren could be the next first-year tight end to join the elite at his position fantasy wise. He can be a key target for whoever plays quarterback for the Colts right away and he has already drawn some comparisons to Rob Gronkowski.
Engel is an inaugural member of the Fantasy Sports Writers Association's Hall of Fame. He is a 4-time FSWA award winner and a 13-time finalist. He is a sports betting writer at Advance Local and a fantasy writer at RotoBaller.com, Seahawks.com and The Athletic. He is also a host at SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio.
IAN ALLAN
RJ Harvey. I think he's going to be the best of the Denver running backs, but I'd like to see him moving around some on the field before loudly promising that he'll be better than J.K. Dobbins.
Allan co-founded Fantasy Football Index in 1987. He is a member of the FSGA Fantasy Sports Hall of Fame and the Fantasy Sports Writers Association Hall of Fame.
MIKE NAZAREK
I can't wait to see how Matthew Golden plays with Jordan Love this summer. I'm just crossing my fingers that they will actually play in the preseason at the same time! Why? I drafted him onto my favorite dynasty team!
Nazarek is the CEO of Fantasy Football Mastermind Inc, celebrating 30 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 $40K in recent seasons of the FFPC High Stakes Main Event. Nazarek can be reached via email at miken@ffmastermind.com.
JODY SMITH
From a fantasy perspective, Ashton Jeanty is the easy answer. However, from a football viewpoint, I'm excited to see Travis Hunter in action. Hunter can be a standout at two different positions, and the Jaguars paid a hefty price to acquire him. I'd like to see how his two-way ability translates in the NFL. Even though Hunter is an elite talent, the hype has driven up his price above where I'd like to select him in non-IDP formats. I'm interested in seeing how his skills translate and if he lives up to the hype.
Smith is the editor-in-chief at FullTime Fantasy who is known for compiling some of fantasy football’s most accurate rankings. He has over 15 years of experience in the industry, which includes a stint on the sidelines covering the Houston Texans.
LUKE WILSON
Ashton Jeanty and Travis Hunter are the real answers, and they both figure to have long and quite possibly illustrious careers. Bully for them. For me it's the Cams: Ward and Skattebo. Ward because he has crowd-surfed into office on a tidal wave of unconditional certainty from all minicamp, OTA and training camp onlookers. To hear them tell it, he's the best quarterback they've had since Steve McNair. It's obviously premature to be chiseling out a fifth spot on the AFC franchise QB Mount Rushmore for him, but that's quickly becoming the energy around this kid this summer. Definitely eager to see how close he comes to living up to the hype.
Cam Skattebo is not that big, measuring in at an official 5'9" and a half and 219 pounds that puts him a touch smaller than guys like LaDainian Tomlinson and Rudi Johnson. On the speed front, he's about as fast as continental drift. But he's got the heart of a lion, he's like trying to tackle a picnic table on wheels and he may catch 50 (or 60) balls as a rookie. The Giants are going to be a mess, but Skattebo may emerge alongside Nabers (and who knows, maybe even Dart) as young lights at the end of the Giants' despair tunnel. Honorable mentions to Harold Fannin Jr. and Ollie Gordon, who could both be on their way to being guys we spend years drafting after this fall.
Wilson is a frequent contributor on the Fantasy Index website, and is one of many knowledgeable voices in the Fantasy Index Discord server. He also co-hosts Drinkin' Dynasty, a new beer-themed fantasy podcast.
ANDY RICHARDSON
I know he's not as compelling a fantasy pick, but I'm interested to see Cam Ward. We know that Jeanty and Hunter are going to be awesome. With Ward, we've seen such a range of outcomes from top pick quarterbacks lately that I'm hoping there will be some clear signs as to what we're going to get. He's an experienced guy, and if he comes in and looks confident and comfortable right away, guys like Calvin Ridley, Tony Pollard and Chig Okonkwo might suddenly start to look like values in drafts. If he looks overwhelmed and under siege, it will be hands off all Titans. No question I'm excited to see the top running backs and receivers, but getting an early sense of whether Ward will be a true franchise quarterback is something I'm looking forward to.
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.