Ask the Experts

ASK THE EXPERTS appears weekly with answers to a new question being posted Thursday morning. How the guest experts responded when we asked them:

What was your best preseason pick?

MIKE NAZAREK

My best advice by far was to target Falcons RB Michael Turner in the 3rd or 4th round as a No. 2 or 3 fantasy RB. I also urged subscribers to target Jets' RB Thomas Jones if Turner goes before they get a chance to grab him. Or the best case was to grab Turner as your No. 2 and Jones as your No. 3 as I did in FFWebMasters this past summer in the 3rd and 4th rounds.

Nazarek is the CEO of Fantasy Football Mastermind Inc. His company offers an online rookie draft kit, preseason draft guide, customizable cheat sheets, fantasy auction & regular drafting programs, weekly in-season fantasy newsletters, injury reports and free NFL news (updated daily) at its web site. He is the reigning four-peat champion of the SI.com Experts Fantasy League, a nationally published writer in several fantasy magazines and a columnist for SI.com. For more info go to www.ffmastermind.com. Nazarek can be reached at 702-568-7118 or miken@ffmastermind.com.

LOUIS TRANQUILLI

Thomas Jones No. 8 on the RB Rankings; I know of no one else that ranked him nearly that high. With the changes along the offensive line and his grinding style displayed in 2007 when he had only one TD; he looked like a really good option to make a strong push into the Top 10 as a great "steal" in drafts to me. He has been a steady and excellent performer.

Louis Tranquilli is the founder and the primary "brains" (if you stretch it) of BFDFANTASYfootball.com. BFD is about giving advice to players from a player. Lou's been a highly successful owner in many high stakes contests. BFD is giving away 50 fantasy football teams in 2008.

CHRIS LISS

I was very aggressive with Calvin Johnson and Roddy White -- had both ahead of Houshmandzadeh, Welker and others. WR is primarily about talent, RB is more about opportunity.

RotoWire.com is a leading independent provider of fantasy sports news on the web, covering all the news as it breaks, combining innovative analysis with an easy-to-use format. The site’s content has won numerous awards and has earned partnerships with ESPN, Yahoo! Sports, FoxSports, XM Satellite Radio, NFL.com, NBA.com and many other sites and networks. To sample site content, take advantage of their free 10-day trial.

IAN ALLAN

I’ve had a good year. I participated in three experts leagues, and I might win all three. I’ve already won two of them — the Fanex Analysis Draft and the Mock Auction league from our magazine — and I’ll be in the championship game in the Fanex head-to-head league on Sunday (I finished the regular season as the high scorer out of 24 teams). I was quicker to see the potential value, I think, in some of the rookie running backs. I had Matt Forte in two leagues and Kevin Smith in all three. I also had Calvin Johnson and Brandon Marshall in two of those three leagues — those guys helped me.

Allan is the senior writer for Fantasy Football Index magazine. He’s also one of the main content contributors for that company’s website, www.fantasyindex.com. His IAN ALLAN’S MAILBAG column is posted on Fridays.

JEFFREY KAMYS

We did a good job with our pre-season projection of Aaron Rodgers. For Rodgers we projected 24 TDs, 14 INTs and 3600 yards. We ranked him in the top 10 heading into the year. At the same time, we pretty much nailed Favre's stats, projecting 23 TDs, 18 INTs and 3400 yards for Brett on the Jets. We ranked Favre at approximately No. 10 heading into the year.

Kamys is president of Dr. Stats Fantasy Sports. His company, via the web, offers player news, injury reports, cheat sheets, projections, weekly matchups, statistics, and a customized team tracker. Dr. Stats Fantasy Sports also e-mails preseason newsletters and reports throughout the season. For more info visit www.docstats.com or send email to webmaster@docstats.com.

SCOTT PIANOWSKI

The three players I drafted most often (and promoted as sleepers) back in the summer were Matt Forte, Kevin Walter and Tim Hightower. Hey, I'll take two out of three.

Pianowski is a fantasy expert for Yahoo! Sports. His work regularly appears on Yahoo's Roto Arcade Blog (rotoarcade.com), and you can also email him at pianowski31@yahoo.com.

SAM HENDRICKS

Wes Welker and Dwayne Bowe are currently 7th and 17th. I picked them to be 14th and 19th back in May while many did not have either in their top 25 WRs. I liked Welker’s heart coming across the middle and rightly predicted KC would be behind early and often leading to lots of passes for Bowe. I also picked Derek Anderson and Jamal Lewis as busts. Both are sitting at about 30th. I was very high on Matt Forte, but even I did not pick him to be a top 3 RB in PPR leagues.

Hendricks is the author of Fantasy Football Guidebook and the recently released Fantasy Football Almanac 2008 which are both available at his website, www.ffguidebook.com, at all major bookstores, and at www.amazon.com. He is an 18-year fantasy football veteran who regularly participates in the World Championship of Fantasy Football (WCOFF) and will participate this year in the inaugural season of the Fantasy Football Players Championship (FFPC).

BOB HECK

Being a site specializing in the dynasty angle, we hit on several rookies (Chris Johnson was on our Lifevest teams for example). However, we'll highlight our Jay Cutler call. This season in particular was a year where the "wait-on-the-QB" theory really paid off handsomely. We had Cutler ranked high specifically on this strategy: land Jay Cutler in the 6th round, dominate fantasy football. As we summarized in our summer Rogue Lifevest Team team: "To top it all off, Jay Cutler has a 7th round ADP. Loading up on RB and WR talent in the first five rounds and paying a 6th round price to ensure landing Jay Cutler we feel is going to be a game-plan for fantasy championships in many leagues this year." Cutler has been more fantasy productive than Peyton Manning this season and a true dynasty gem heading in 2009.

Heck is a founding partner at Dynasty Rogues, a fantasy football website filled with football enthusiasts, run by football enthusiasts. The company provides year-round dynasty and redraft fantasy football coverage and analysis, including Dynasty Rogues Radio and the Rogues Forum. The site can be reached at www.dynastyrogues.com.

ANDY RICHARDSON

Chris Johnson was definitely my highlight -- I have him on almost every team. Watching video of the guy in college and in the preseason games, you just knew he was going to be good. Rookie runners really worked out well for me; I avoided Darren McFadden, but ended up with Matt Forte and Steve Slaton in several leagues. I did pretty well with some lightly regarded defenses I was high on, too, including the Jets and a Giants defense that people underrated because of their offseason losses.

Richardson has been a columnist and contributor to the Fantasy Football Index magazine and web site for the past seven years. His responsibilities include team defense and IDP projections, as well as various site features. He has run the magazine's annual draft and auction leagues since their inception. His A DAY OF FOOTBALL wrap-up column appears Mondays during the NFL season. For more information go to www.fantasyindex.com.

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