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: Who will be the MVP of the fantasy playoffs?
DAVID DOREY
Have to like Derrick Henry to be a star of the fantasy postseason. Already the center of that offense, he faces weak defenses versus running backs in the Chargers (No. 28) and the Texans (No.31) in the next two weeks. In Week 17 he does face the Cowboys, but he'll be playing at home.
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.
SAM HENDRICKS
Christian McCaffrey is who I would pick first in a draft for the fantasy football playoffs. Why? He stands out among running backs who are few and far between at the top of the scoring scale. Lots of quarterbacks are going to score more but there are a ton of them at the top. Only two running backs to score 85 or more fantasy points (just 3 running backs in the top 20 scoring wise). CMC edges out Austin Ekeler. San Francisco faces Seattle, Washington and Las Vegas; none of those defenses scare me. And McCaffrey is averaging just under 30 points per game the past two weeks against Miami and Tampa Bay. As long as he stays healthy (fingers crossed), that's MVP material.
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.
IAN ALLAN
Derrick Henry is going to be running against the Chargers and Texans the next two weeks. I sure like the look of him in those games. Those are both bottom-5 defenses right now. Henry, of course, has gone over 200 rushing yards in four straight games against Houston. I’m not sure that’s a good thing (with that track record, I would think they’ll be hell-bent on making sure somebody else has to beat them). But Henry will be one of the top few backs on my board in those weeks. The Week 17 game against Dallas isn’t as good, but we’ll worry about that one when we get there.
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.
JASON WOOD
Zonovan Knight surprised three weeks ago when injuries forced him into the Jets lineup; he ran 14 times for 69 yards, for a respectable 4.9 yards per attempt. Michael Carter's injury opened the door for Knight in Week 13, although many wondered if he would be in a timeshare with Ty Johnson. Instead, he ran 15 times for 90 yards and also chipped in five receptions, helping the bold who started him win their week. But this past week, Carter returned from injury, and most assumed Knight would fall back into irrelevance. Instead, he had another 17 carries for 71 yards, scored his first rushing touchdown, and chipped in another pair of catches. The Jets face Detroit, Jacksonville, and Seattle in the next three weeks and have the second-easiest schedule for fantasy running backs. Knight could help teams win leagues, particularly if they're willing to bench laggards like Saquon Barkley and Leonard Fournette for him.
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.
ANDY RICHARDSON
I'm expecting good stuff from Justin Herbert the next few weeks. They host Tennessee this week, and they're impossible to run on but give a lot of passing production (which has lately included plenty of touchdown passes). They're at the Colts next week, which isn't ideal (Colts are worse against the run), but it's not like the Chargers are going to put up big rushing numbers against anyone -- should still be lots of passing. They host the Rams in Week 17, who will definitely be thinking about other things by then. Weather won't be a factor for any of those games. If we want to go with a sleeper-type player, Jerry Jeudy comes to mind. He won't score 3 TDs in a game again, but finishing against the Cardinals, Rams and Kansas City looks pretty promising.
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.