Fantasy Sports Writers Association Hall-of-Famer Bob Harris and Gary Davenport have well over 40 years of experience as fantasy football analysts and three Football Writer of the Year Awards between them. They know their stuff—or at least that's what they tell themselves.

Each week during the 2024 season, Harris and Davenport are going to come together here at Footballguys to discuss some of that week's most polarizing fantasy options.

Five weeks into the 2024 fantasy football season, many managers are reeling. Elite quarterbacks and wide receivers are coming close to meeting expectations. Young running backs and tight ends are coming from nowhere to help win weeks.

Which disappointing stars will bounce back? What early-season surprises will fade as quickly as they arrive?

Those are the questions Harris and Davenport are trying to answer in Week 6—beginning with the best quarterback of his generation.

Mediocre Mahomes

Might as well start off Week 6 with another Panic Meter.

Patrick Mahomes II of the Kansas City Chiefs was drafted as a top-five fantasy option in most leagues, but after failing to throw a touchdown pass Monday night, Mahomes has just six scores for the season and barely ranks inside the top 15 for the season at his position. Can Mahomes rebound this year? Is he a "buy low?" Or is it time to start legitimately freaking out?

Harris: Panic Meter is at zero. Two things can be true at once. Mahomes can be the most effective quarterback in the NFL. He's a major reason the Chiefs are one of two 5-0 teams despite losing three major offensive pieces: Isiah Pacheco, Rashee Rice, and Marquise Brown. He's more than capable of keeping Kansas City's offense on schedule and fueling the fantasy fortunes of the one piece we're currently leaning into here (yes, Travis Kelce is a thing again, as we both suggested he would be heading into Week 3).

Also, Mahomes can be all those things without being a front-line fantasy quarterback. I know it sounds sacrilegious. But that's not on me. That's on you for not accepting the truth. There comes a point when we have to divorce names from numbers. And when you objectively assess Mahomes, you realize he's finished as Q15, QB20, QB16, and QB18 twice this season while averaging 14.0 points a game. If you feel like this is a new development, I have more news for you. The last time Mahomes had a top-10 weekly fantasy finish was Week 12 last year.

Mahomes' performance so far this season falls right into line with what he's become -- a solid fantasy QB2. No panic. No drama. Just reality.

Davenport: Dayum. Harris comes out swinging. Best run for the shelters—because truth bombs are dropping.

The thing is, you can't really argue with a thing he said.

Being the best quarterback in the NFL and the best quarterback in fantasy football are two very different things. The folks who drafted Mahomes early this year were drafting the name. The commercials. All the success they see him have on television.

But it's not like Mahomes put up huge numbers last year—he was sixth in passing yards. Eighth in touchdown passes And eighth among quarterbacks in fantasy points. He was a decent weekly starter. But he wasn't an elite fantasy option. But folks let themselves believe he would be with Marquise Brown and Xavier Worthy joining the offense.

Now, Brown is toast. So is Rashee Rice, even if the Chiefs don't want to admit it. This year's offense in Kansas City is looking a lot like the 2023 iteration—and that's not going to produce elite fantasy numbers.

Mahomes is what he is—and that's much different in fantasy than reality.

Tracy vs. the Tank

We saw a couple of young running backs post big games in Week 5 in Tank Bigsby of the Jacksonville Jaguars and Tyrone Tracy Jr. of the New York Giants.

Which back has the better fantasy prospects for the rest of the season, and should fantasy managers be looking to sell high or settling in to enjoy the ride?

Both backs have contingent upside should the players ahead of them miss an extended period. Beyond that?

Harris: Bigsby has arrived as a legitimate stand-alone flex play. But let's not get carried away. He ran for 101 yards on 13 carries against the Colts. Both were career highs (and included a 65-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter). He also out-snapped Travis Etienne Jr., who was dealing with a sore shoulder for a second-straight week, for the first time this season. Also, as Late-Round Fantasy's JJ Zachariason pointed out, Bigsby's 65 percent running back rush share was a season high. The issue is that as long as Etienne is available, Bigsby will play second fiddle in this backfield.

Meanwhile, with veteran running back Devin Singletary sidelined by a groin injury, Tracy stepped up in a big way against the Seattle Seahawks. The rookie fifth-round pick led the Giants' rushing attack with 18 carries for 129 yards, good for an average of 7.2 yards per carry, including four runs of 10-plus yards. According to Next Gen Stats, Tracy had a rushing yards over expected per attempt of +2.6, while teammate Eric Gray was at -1.3. There's a universe in which Tracy could supplant a healthy Singletary.

So, if I need a viable asset to help me avoid taking zeroes while dealing with bye weeks and attrition, it's Bigsby. If I'm looking for a player I can stash on the end of my bench who might emerge as a front-line play down the stretch, I'll take Tracy.

Davenport: Bigsby's big game against the Colts comes with an equally sizable asterisk. Indy is truly terrible defensively—the NFL's only team allowing over 400 yards of offense per game. And while there may be some credence to the idea he's a better pure runner than Etienne, he's not new—if Bigsby was going to bump Etienne down the depth chart, he would have by now.

On the other hand, Tracy was more of an unknown commodity—and I say "was" because he looked formidable last week against the Seahawks. Good vision. Ran hard. Didn't go down at first contact. Over seven yards a pop is no joke—and while Devin Singletary is capable at just about everything, he isn't great in any one facet of the game.

If you need a running back to fill a hole this week, I completely agree that Bigsby's the guy—although I expect both Etienne and Singletary to be active in Week 6. But if you're looking for a late-season lottery ticket that could put teams over the top, it's Tracy.

He's going to be New York's lead back at some point this season.

Olave…Whoa Whoa Whoa Whoaaa

Chris Olave of the New Orleans Saints was already struggling from a fantasy perspective—32nd in PPR points through five games. Now, he'll be without quarterback Derek Carr for the foreseeable future.

Does Olave have any chance of approaching the production fantasy managers expected this year? What lesser-name wide receivers would you consider swapping him for at this point?

Harris: I've had a blind spot for Olave dating back to draft season. Even at that, I'm surprised he's fallen behind Rashid Shaheed as the top receiving asset in this offense. It's getting to the point where -- if there weren't a change at quarterback -- I might expect a course-correction game for Olave. But upon closer examination, it hasn't been all that horrible. Okay, Week 5 was awful. But in Week 4, he was targeted 10 times and caught eight passes for 87 yards. In Week 3, he caught six of six targets for 86 yards and a touchdown. Week 2? Olave was targeted six times, catching four passes for 81 yards. He was only targeted twice in Week 1 and caught both passes for 11 yards. As Fansided's Jaleel Grandberry suggested, "When the ball is thrown his way, good things tend to happen."

Let's hope Spencer Rattler, who completed 20 of 38 pass attempts (52.6 percent) for 202 yards, one touchdown, and no interceptions, is ready to leverage a favorable matchup against a secondary that has allowed the ninth-most receiving yards per game to perimeter wide receivers and throw the ball Olave's way.

All that said, I have Olave at the tail end of the WR3 range in my rankings. So, there's a pretty wide swath of wideouts I'd consider swapping him out for this week, including Brian Thomas Jr., Darnell Mooney, Jameson Williams, Courtland Sutton, and Jaxon Smith-Njigba, to name just a few.

Davenport: My only Olave shares this year are in dynasties—the cold, hard truth is that managers who drafted him as a WR1 in redrafts had no real reason save hope to believe that Olave would be a top-12 guy. But (again) I'm with Harris in that I didn't expect things to be this bad. And two clunkers in five games is bad for a high-end, second-round wide receiver.

As odd as it sounds, maybe the insertion of Rattler will jump-start Olave a bit. Rashid Shaheed is a talented pass-catcher in his own right, but he's not Olave. If Rattler is going to have success (and cause a full-blown quarterback controversy in the Big Easy in the process), he needs to get the ball to his best receiver.

I don't know that I'd start Sutton over Olave (The former enjoys murdering my joy), but the rest of Bob's list is at least close calls—and I'd add Jalen Tolbert of the Cowboys to the list.

Jalen. Tolbert. Welcome to 2024, folks.

Mastering His Kraft

Green Bay Packers tight end Tucker Kraft was a week-winner for fantasy managers in Week 5—four receptions for 88 yards and two scores.

Can the No. 3 tight end in PPR points remain inside the top five at the position and provide fantasy managers with the unicorn that is good news at tight end this year?

Harris: I won't lie. Kraft is better than I expected. And I was warned by more than one beat writer over the offseason that my belief in Luke Musgrave as the fantasy asset to invest in here was an overreach. Kraft, a more than capable blocker who happens to be an excellent receiver, looks like an emerging star at the position.

But a top-five finish? That's pressing a bit. The Packers have such a strong group at wideout that I'm not sure the offense can support that outcome. By the way, Kraft is currently fourth among all Packers, with a 13.5 percent target share. So even if I don't expect elite weekly production, a top-10 season seems realistic.

Davenport: I'm torn on Kraft (And don't feel bad, old friend—I was Team Musgrave too. We're dumb is all.). On one hand, he seems to be a legit weekly fantasy starter with top-five fantasy upside. On the other hand, games like last week are the reason "Sell High" is a thing—you might be able to flip Kraft for a tight end we had ranked inside the top-five a month ago.

At some point soon I expect a measure of order to be restored to the tight endiverse—we've already seen Travis Kelce start to pick it up, and I expect players like Detroit's Sam LaPorta and Buffalo's Dalton Kincaid to follow suit. But no one saw LaPorta's big 2023 season coming, so I can't rule out Kraft remaining near the top of the leaderboard.

Plant the Flag

We're going to close every edition of this column this season with a little exercise called "Plant the Flag." 

Make a player a polarizing one—by selecting a guy outside the top 15 quarterbacks and tight ends or outside the top 25 running backs or wide receivers per the Footballguys Rankings who will blow up for week-winning numbers.

Harris: Can I go with the starting running back for the New York Giants? Singletary, currently ranked as RB29, isn't a lock to play against the Bengals on Sunday night. If he can't go, Tracy, currently our RB42, will get the call. The Bengals have yielded 32.3 points per game over their last four weeks while allowing top-10 RB performances in each of the previous two. 

Davenport: When you're an FSWA Hall of Famer, you can do whatever you want. I think you get like diplomatic immunity or something.

Just don't make Danny Glover mad.

I'll go with someone I already mentioned as well—Jalen Tolbert of the Dallas Cowboys. Tolbert's 7/87/1 line as the new No. 2 wide receiver in Dallas last week wasn't a fluke—not if he keeps seeing double-digit targets every week. And with the Cowboys unable to run the ball (82.0 yards per game—31st in the NFL) and CeeDee Lamb sure to receive approximately all the coverage ever, Tolbert should keep getting opportunities—including against a Detroit Lions defense allowing the most fantasy points per game to running backs this year.

Bob Harris was the first ever Fantasy Sports Writers Association Football Writer of the Year and is a member of the FSWA Hall of Fame. Follow Bob on X at @footballdiehard.

Gary Davenport is a two-time FSWA Football Writer of the Year. Follow Gary on X at @IDPSharks.