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 fast starter will cool off the rest of the way?
SAM HENDRICKS
Raheem Mostert. The Miami running back is 31 and has a history of injuries. He also leads most leagues with 83.9 fantasy points (PPR). But....he is in a committee with a great rookie in DeVon Achane. I don't see Mostert holding the primary spot for much longer. Granted Mostert came off the field first in this week's blowout. But I am betting on Achane dominating down the stretch.
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.
JASON WOOD
There are plenty to choose from, with many of the surprising top-ranked players benefitting from unsustainable touchdown productivity. Donald Parham is the TE6 currently with just six receptions for 32 yards, thanks to three touchdowns. He's an easy pick, but also a bit too obvious. My official pick is Jordan Love, who sits at QB5 after three weeks. While he's been a pleasant surprise and still hasn't played with his full complement of players, I'm skeptical he'll sustain top-10 value. He's only completing 55 percent of passes and is averaging less than 7 yards per attempt. His value is mainly tied to an unsustainable 7.3 percent touchdown rate and an equally unsustainable 1 percent interception rate. I think we can comfortably say he's not a bust after three weeks, but it would be risky and shortsighted to think having him in your starting lineup will continue bearing fruit.
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.
DAVID DOREY
Most of the running back rankings are a jumble of players who had one good game. And the Top 10 will bear minimal resemblance to what the final week will show. One of the players I'm not buying into and would sell would be Kenneth Walker who ranks No. 3 in PPR leagues and has scored four times in just three games. That pace will cool down. And Zach Charbonnet will eat into the workload more as the season progresses. Plus the specter of Walker getting injured yet again. The Seahawks O-line is average at best and hosting the Panthers this week spiked his stats.
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.
IAN ALLAN
Mike Evans has been piling up a lot of catches and yards, with a touchdown in all three weeks. I expect he’ll be cooling off. That’s a lesser team, I think, and I think defenses will have more success slowing him down in the coming weeks.
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
Right now is the time to sell Raheem Mostert who is currently the No. 1 running back in most formats. Coming off a monster game with 4 TDs and a hot offense, he is at the peak that his value will ever be. Mostert is 31 years old and only has had two seasons in which he played over 15 games. His highest ranking was in 2019 with the 49ers when he ranked the 20th and last season he ranked 30th. He is a 31-year-old with a hungry rookie sharing snaps. It is rare for a back at 31 to maintain a high level of play. Mostert is definitely not a Walter Payton, Barry Sanders or Emmitt Smith. It is highly unlikely that there will be another game script this season that Mostert will be so efficient to pad his stats. Sell now before he gets hurt and the bottom drops out of his value.
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
COLT WILLIAMS
My sell-high candidate is Kyren Williams. Kyren was already getting all the work, and now they traded away Cam Akers. People should be very optimistic about him. He’s been great with his opportunities, but 58 percent of his points have come from touchdowns. Four touchdowns through two games (I wrote this prior to Monday Night Football) is fantastic but unsustainable. We saw this same situation play out during the 2022 season as well with Kansas City running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire. CEH was the RB4 through the first four weeks of the season and had 43 percent of his fantasy points from five touchdowns in four games. While he dealt with some injuries later on in the season, he still only managed to have six total touchdowns in 10 games after that hot start. Assuming you are in a position to make the trade, I’d gladly trade Kyren for Jahmyr Gibbs, Travis Etienne, or James Cook. All of which have at least ten percent of their team’s target share and have the majority of the rushing workload. If you can wait and the Austin Ekeler owner is in a bad position, I’d target him as well.
Williams is working towards a degree in economics and statistics at Sonoma State. A United States Air Force veteran, he’s been playing fantasy football since 2012. Follow him on Twitter @_ColtWilliams.
SCOTT SACHS
I'd sell the Rams receivers, Puca and Tutu. I'm not very impressed with LA's offense in their Monday Night stinker in Cincinnati. Thinking that Miami's Mostert is on borrowed time due to his injury history and the breakout of Achane, so if you're deep at running back, he could fetch a nice haul. I'd get whatever I could for Mac Jones, too. He's arrogant with terrible sportsmanship, plus New England's 2-TE offense won't be generating much in the way of fantasy fireworks this season.
With 2 perfect seasons and multiple league championships to his credit, Scott Sachs runs Perfect Season Fantasy Football, featuring LIVE Talk & Text Advice. He is a 3-time Winner of the Fantasy Index Experts Auction League, as well as a previous Winner of the Fantasy Index Experts Poll.
ANDY RICHARDSON
Maybe I'm just bitter because I dropped him in dynasty in the offseason and he scored 4 TDs the first two weeks. But I think the game that Kyren Williams had against Cincinnati will be more in line with how he performs in a typical week, making him a viable starter in PPR leagues, but not a great one. Eventually, the Rams will add another running back and work that player in for more of the inside running. Probably best to trade away Williams before that happens.
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.