Digging Deep For The Most Fun Deep Sleeper At Each Position

It’s time to grab a helmet with a light on it and mine deep for sleepers. I’ll be up front, most of these players I highlight here won’t sniff a starting lineup all season. I’m not telling you these players will be contributors. I’m saying if they get the chance, they could wind up being useful players for fantasy managers. The most fun part of fantasy football is stumbling upon diamonds in the rough, and these players will be fun as all hell if they hit.

Baker Mayfield, QB, Buccaneers (ADP: 235)

Mayfield’s been left for dead, and I do get it. His final season in Cleveland was a dumpster fire, and his performance in Carolina last season, which led to him being cut after seven games, would be enough to put a different player without Baker’s pedigree out of the NFL. But, we can’t forget his talent. A former No.1 overall pick, Mayfield is known for his breakout rookie season. We tend to devalue his subsequent two seasons, and I’m talking about fantasy only. Mayfield threw for 3,500+ yards in each of his first three seasons, and more than 20 touchdowns. He also did this playing for one of the NFL’s most run-heavy offenses.

He will certainly make mistakes, and nobody is going to call him a precise passer, but Mayfield does love to air it out. That should mesh well in Tampa Bay, where he has Mike Evans, a premier downfield threat, and Chris Godwin, an excellent all-around receiver to provide support. He’s got a running game that lacks a clear-cut standout, but one in which the presumed lead dog (more on that later) is a pass catcher in Rachaad White. No, Mayfield isn’t going to be threatening the Top 5, or probably even the Top 10, but he’s the last starting QB off the board unless you count the Josh Dobbs/Clayton Tune battle in Arizona. Mayfield absolutely has the talent to far surpass that, and he can be a big surprise in two-QB and SuperFLEX formats.

Sean Tucker, RB, Buccaneers (ADP: 267)

Tucker was undrafted this year due to health concerns during the draft process, but those have been cleared up and we’re left with a talented RB in a backfield without a strong leader.

Leonard Fournette is gone, vacating 189 carries and 83 targets, the latter of which was third on the team. Rachaad White is the presumed leader here, but he fell outside PFF’s Top 40 last season and earned a middling 66.5 rushing grade which was backed up by his meager 3.7 yards per carry. White made his bones in the passing game, but that was with late-stage, hit-averse Tom Brady in his final season getting rid of the ball quickly on dump-offs. Mayfield is not like Brady, and so White may not be as useful on the field so much. Ke’Shawn Vaughn was awful in 2022, and Chase Edmonds was even worse, earning a pitiful 36.1 receiving grade on PFF despite being almost exclusively a pass-catching back. This is the competition for Tucker, who has torn up the ACC the past two seasons for 27 total touchdowns and 1,300+ yards from scrimmage in each campaign. Tucker is reminiscent of Tyler Allgeier last season, who took advantage of a weak RB room and wound up a 1,000-yard rusher. If you can get anything near that from Tucker at this essentially non-existent ADP, that’s a huge win.

Jonathan Mingo, WR, Panthers (ADP: 215)

I went over my excitement for Mingo in the Panthers preview, but like Tucker, he’s heading to an offense that is begging for an alpha receiver. Mingo wouldn’t be a traditional alpha, because he’s best suited to dominate from the slot, but his size makes him a beast for typically smaller nickel DBs to handle. His college route tree last season showed he really only was successful on curls, slants and outs, but curls specifically made up 31.2% of his routes. That’s a humongous chunk. Reception Perception highlights the suddenness of his game, which jives with him hurting defenses on those curl routes, and his size helps him tremendously on the slants which he won 80% of the time. Adam Thielen is the de facto WR1 for Carolina, but he’s in decline and will likely be on the outside for this team. D.J. Chark, the expected primary X receiver, is out with injury. Mingo is going to be on the field a ton by default, and he’s getting in on the ground floor with No. 1 overall pick Bryce Young. This has the potential to be a lethal combination.

Taysom Hill, TE, Saints (ADP: 188)

Hill is a tight end on a team that’s bursting out of the seams with TEs. Juwan Johnson and Foster Moreau figure to muddy the waters for Hill at the position, but Hill separates himself because of his usage. He’s a TE in name only; he drew just 13 targets in 16 games in 2023 against 96 rushing attempts. Hill has spike games on the level of Travis Kelce or Mark Andrews, and that is the main reason he is here. At a position where even high-level names are capable of goosing fantasy managers, at least Hill can win a week or two. But the issue for him that depresses ADP is that he’s only going to touch the ball around 3-4 times a game. When he does not get in the end zone, he’s simply not a useful player, and he doesn’t provide the more regular 5-6 points that the boring dudes in this range deliver. Whether you like Hill or not really says a lot about how you manage a team. Check out his best games from 2022:

·         Week 5 vs. Seattle: nine rushes, 112 yards, three touchdowns, one completion, 22 yards, passing TD.

·         Week 1 at Atlanta: four rushes, 81 yards, one touchdown, one reception, two yards

All seven of his touchdowns came on rushes, and he delivered them in five games. Hill never drew more than three targets in any game, caught zero touchdowns and never attempted five passes in any game. Hill is essentially a goal line back who lines up as a TE and then moves around. He is very useful in this capacity, but the lows are low. Up to you, but if he hits he’ll be damn fun.