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 is on your Do Not Draft list?
DAVID DOREY
Do not draft list? Oh so many... Actually, all players are draftable, in the right spots, but many are far more coveted by others than me. Here's a few with virtually no chance of landing on any of my 30 teams: QB Justin Fields - great runner, so-so quarterback. Afraid he'll get hurt. QB Daniel Jones - Great 2022 was mostly 3 games with high rushing yards. Not a great passer. RB Rhamondre Stevenson - Big 2022 but Ezekiel Elliott wasn't acquired to watch. RB Breece Hall, Javonte Williams - Don't do running backs returning from ACLs. WR DJ Moore - See Justin Fields. WR Deandre Hopkins - Going to one of the worst passing teams won't recharge a career. WR Marquise Brown - Swearing off all elements of the Arizona passing game this year. Looks very messy. TE Darren Waller - See Daniel Jones.
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.
PAUL CHARCHIAN
There’s not enough value baked into Deshaun Watson's lofty ADP to offset his troubling six games for Cleveland last year and his 2021 away from football. Yes, he was a top-5 fantasy QB in 2018, 2019, and 2020….that’s a long time ago. What if, in year seven, Watson's not a rushing threat? Kevin Stefanski only gave him 4 rushing attempts per game last year. If you need to rely on Watson's arm for fantasy production, well, his box scores look a lot like Derek Carr's.
Charchian is the CEO at GuillotineLeagues.com. Guillotine Leagues are a new way to play in which the lowest-scoring team each week gets chopped from the league, and all the players go to the waiver wire. Charchian was inducted into the Fantasy Sports Hall of Fame in 2013.
JASON WOOD
In an academic sense, very few players are truly on my do-not-draft list since any player is an asset with value at the right price. But the reality is most players come off the board at or near ADP, which makes targeting and avoiding players commonplace. I tend to steer clear of players at the top of the second tier because the price arbitrage is off. For example, I avoid Deshaun Watson and Daniel Jones because I think their downside is markedly higher than the quarterbacks coming off the board right before them. At running back, the same is true for the Aaron Jones, Najee Harris, and Breece Hall tier. At wide receiver, it's Amari Cooper, Chris Godwin, Deebo Samuel, and DeAndre Hopkins.
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.
IAN ALLAN
Dalton Schultz is being drafted as if he’s going to be somewhat similar in Houston as he was in Dallas. I don’t see it. I don’t think he’s going to get the same looks around the goal line (and the Texans won’t be in that part of the field as often as the offenses Schultz has played with in the past). There’s a bunch of more lightly regarded tight ends that I’m far more interested in selecting as my second player at the position.
Allan is the senior writer for Fantasy Football Index magazine. He is a member of the FSGA’s Fantasy Sports Hall of Fame and the Fantasy Sports Writers Association Hall of Fame. He is an avid runner, swimmer and cyclist.
KEN HOLIZNA
Every year fantasy football players get sharper. I think we are losing a lot of the casual players. This makes it more difficult to find where you have significant differing opinions. But I did find a few that I am out on for 2023. They all just happen to be running backs: Travis Etienne, Jahmyr Gibbs and Breece Hall. There isn't any player I am totally out on if they are available at the price I'm willing to pay, but that has never happened. In my rankings I have Gibbs lowest of these three and he is the highest in most of the sources I've referenced. I will not say that he is on my don't draft list, but I have him ranked 28th and I have seen him as high as 11th. So the math would say that I will not have any shares of Jahmyr Gibbs on my fantasy teams. I believe as usual David Montomery is being overlooked and underrated. It only took the Lions one day to sign Montgomery to a contract when free agency opened. That tells you what they think about him. The Lions did spend high draft capital on Gibbs planning for the future and when Montgomery slows down. That slow down won't be this year. I personally don't think Gibbs can be an every-down back or they want him to. If you take Gibbs as the 11th back that's what you are counting on.
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
DeAndre Hopkins is on a new team entering his age-31 season, and that means there's little upside left. Hopkins slowed signs of leakage last year (posting his worst yards per target since 2016), and now he's trading the pass-happy Cardinals for the run-focused Titans. Hopkins at his best wins in a crowd, not by separating -- his completions generally require trust and rapport, but he probably won't have chemistry with Ryan Tannehill overnight. I'll sit out the Hopkins show for 2023.
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.
MICHAEL NAZAREK
I'm not drafting Colts running back Jonathan Taylor (ankle - PUP) due to his uncertain situation (could be traded) and his health (still on PUP list). His offensive line is still a bit of a mess and he has a rookie quarterback. This is not a situation for a big fantasy season.
Nazarek is the CEO of Fantasy Football Mastermind Inc, celebrating 25 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 web site, 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 nearly $30K in recent seasons of the FFPC High Stakes Main Event. Nazarek can be reached via email at miken@ffmastermind.com.
ANDY RICHARDSON
Jonathan Taylor seems more likely to be going the LeVeon Bell route this season than cranking out 100-yard games; I won't be drafting him. The potential upside of Deshaun Watson, for me, is overshadowed by the more likely disappointment of a guy who's not a good fit for the offense Cleveland is trying to run. I'm intrigued by Anthony Richardson long-term as a quarterback and this year as a runner, but I want no part of his receiving corps this year, which starts with Michael Pittman. For a tight end, I'll pass on Kyle Pitts. I can't see his usage and performance changing so dramatically from last year to make him worthy of an investment.
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.