Fantasy football sleepers to draft
If you’ve been playing fantasy football for longer than, say, a half-hour, you’ve probably heard some version of the phrase, “You can’t win your league with your first-round pick, but you can definitely lose it.”
The validity of that premise is up for debate, but the reverse could well be quite accurate: Blowing a late-round pick doesn’t matter much for your fantasy team’s chances, but hitting big on one can take your championship outlook to the moon.
So who wants to find one of these rocket boosters? That’s right, you do!
We’ll define “late-round” as after pick 144 by average draft position (ADP), which works out to 12 full draft rounds in a 12-team league. In other words, these are some deep sleepers, folks. (Our ADP data comes from the aggregated rankings of most major fantasy sites collected by 4for4.com).
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Quarterback
Sam Howell, Commanders (ADP: 187)
The last time Eric Bieniemy got a chance to coach a quarterback coming off a rookie season in which his only start came in the final week of the regular season, the then-offensive coordinator for the Kansas City Chiefs helped Patrick Mahomes throw 50 touchdown passes and get named the 2018 NFL MVP. Now in the same role with the Commanders, Bieniemy is sure to repeat history with Howell, right?
Okay, probably not. Fine: Definitely not. However, what you want from a deep sleeper is upside, and Howell has that in abundance. For one thing, he can run — to the tune of 828 yards and 11 touchdowns for North Carolina in 2021 — which always plays well in fantasy. Entering that final season with the Tar Heels, by the way, the strong-armed Howell was considered a strong candidate to be the first quarterback drafted in 2022. He ended up waiting until the fifth round before being plucked by Washington, but Howell has been impressive in preseason action, and he’ll get plenty of help from a talented receiving corps.
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Honorable mention: Jordan Love, Packers (155)
Running back
Tyjae Spears, Titans (191)
Sure, he may lack an ACL in one of his knees, but any scientist will tell you that just means other running backs are twice as likely to tear an ACL this season (cue guy-tapping-his-head meme). Speaking of getting injured — or maybe just finally showing that he’s not, in fact, a visitor from the multiverse who defies all known laws of physics — Derrick Henry begins the season with 1,877 career touches and will end it as a 30-year-old. It’s not unthinkable that Spears, who averaged 6.9 yards per carry last year at Tulane while rushing for 1,581, could start as a change-of-pace back but quickly push his way into more of a timeshare if Henry starts looking mortal.
It didn’t take long in the preseason for the 5-foot-10, 200-pound Spears to impress his superhero-sized teammate. After Spears hurdled a Minnesota Vikings defender en route to a 33-yard, first quarter touchdown jaunt, Henry said, “I know I can’t do nothing like that.”
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Honorable mention: Roschon Johnson, Bears (156)
Wide receiver
Jonathan Mingo, Panthers (182)
This second-round pick wasn’t even the leading receiver on his own Mississippi squad last year, so why should we think he might accomplish that feat, as a rookie no less, for Carolina? Well, for one thing, he’s not exactly competing against a murderer’s row. Starting with Mingo in three-WR sets will be Adam Thielen, who came over in the offseason after nine seasons in Minnesota, and another veteran in D.J. Chark. It’s fair to assume that the best days are behind the 33-year-old Thielen, and Chark’s only really good NFL season was back in 2019. Also in his first season in Carolina, Chark figures to play a deep-threat role that probably won’t result in many targets because A) the Panthers’ porous offensive line won’t give rookie quarterback Bryce Young time and B) he rarely gets open anyway (fifth-worst in average separation last season, per Next Gen Stats).
End of carousel
Thielen is ticketed for a slot role that should result in a number of underneath passes from a harried Young, but no one is expecting big plays to result from them. Starting tight end Hayden Hurst isn’t a yards-after-catch guy, either — or much of a yards-of-any-sort guy — so that could leave Mingo almost by default as the Panthers’ most dynamic pass catcher. Bolstering that hypothesis are early results indicating that Mingo’s thick build will allow him to bounce off would-be tacklers enough times to turn short passes into long gains. It may take a few weeks for Mingo to fully assert his primacy in the pecking order, but fantasy managers’ patience could be richly rewarded.
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Honorable mention: Rashee Rice, Chiefs (181)
Tight end
Luke Musgrave, Packers (189)
Yes, another rookie. For some strange reason, guys who have yet to do a single thing in the NFL tend to slip down fantasy draft boards, but to find a great sleeper, sometimes you have to boldly go where others fear to tread. In this case, it’s an especially daunting journey, because tight ends rarely make a major splash in their first seasons. This year looks like it could be very different, though, with Buffalo’s Dalton Kincaid and Detroit’s Sam LaPorta generating a ton of buzz. While they were the first two tight ends drafted, Musgrave wasn’t far behind at pick No. 42, a lofty slot made all the more noteworthy by the fact that the Oregon State product played just two games last year before going down with a knee injury.
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Not only is Musgrave fully recovered, by all accounts he has been a dominant force in Green Bay’s training camp. Packing all sorts of athleticism in his 6-6, 253-pound frame, Musgrave has been beating cornerbacks, feasting in the middle of the field and even earning usage on jet sweeps. Jet sweeps, people! Oh, and playing time won’t be a concern. With longtime Packer Robert Tonyan now in Chicago, there’s no one on Green Bay’s tight end depth chart with so much as a single catch in the NFL (Josiah Deguara has been moved to fullback, and he would never have been an impediment to our guy’s glorious ascent).
Honorable mention: Tyler Conklin, Jets (219)
Packers red zone jet sweep to rookie TE Luke Musgrave 👀
“With his speed, you gotta find ways to use it” - Jordan Love
LaFleur said in recent practices Musgrave has been the fastest guy on offense in MPH 💨pic.twitter.com/ooS6uMkQAy
— Hogg (@HoggNFL) August 16, 2023ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7uK3SoaCnn6Sku7G70q1lnKedZMCxu9GtqmhqYGeAcHyXaGluZ5aWu7Wt0rJkn6efqa%2BiuMtmqqWdlaWys3nPopqkq18%3D