Fantasy sleepers
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by Buldilarekid
Hate to break this to you, but DeAngelo Williams isn't really a sleeper.
Neither is Cedric Benson, Santonio Holmes, Brandon Jacobs, Jerious Norwood, Vincent Jackson, or Kevin Curtis. Those guys are numbers 53, 21, 102, 34, 65, 90, and 101 in the Yahoo! pre-rankings. Their names are listed in the glossy front pages of every fantasy football preview magazine.
Those players might be undervalued – some of them severely, which is a subject for a later feature – but they're not exactly sleepers. Basically, no skill position player with an essential and obvious role can be called a fantasy sleeper. Every owner in a competitive league will have them on a cheat sheet.
Know who else isn't a sleeper? Any top-ten pick in the NFL Draft. Also, any rookie who attended Notre Dame, USC, Ohio State, Florida, Michigan or Texas. There's really no way you can fail to know those dudes. True fact: 96.9 percent of all life on earth holds an undergraduate degree from one of those universities. The other 3.1 percent of us are simply forced by our overlords to watch their games.
If you're looking for actual sleepers – like, of the 2006 Maurice Jones-Drew variety – you'll need to look beyond the top of the depth charts. You'll also need to look beyond Brady Quinn, Ted Ginn Jr., and Dwayne Jarrett.
Today we'll look exclusively at interesting players who are going un-drafted in the vast majority of Yahoo! leagues. Some of them belong on fantasy rosters, either as a handcuff to a starting running back or as a last-round high-upside flier. Most of these guys, however, are safe to leave in the free agent pool in a 10-team public league. Only 150 players are drafted in that configuration.
But I'm not really writing this column for public league owners. I'm trying to prepare for a 16-team, 16-round draft. There are salaries and keepers involved, so late-round selections are hugely important. The best picks I made in this draft last year were Jones-Drew in the 12th and Jay Cutler in the 13th. Both of those guys were taken well outside the top 150.
Thousands of you are also in custom leagues that will draft 200 to 300 players. It's really not easy. Below you'll find a few of your sleepers and/or potentially keepable players, all owned in fewer than five percent of Yahoo! leagues. I'm not promising a Marques Colston or a Jones-Drew, but they're all worth considering.
Robert Meachem, WR, New Orleans (4.2 percent owned) Meachem was great in his junior year at Tennessee, catching 71 passes for 1,298 yards and 11 touchdowns. The Saints offense featured four players with over 650 receiving yards last season, and one of them ( Joe Horn) is gone. There's clearly an opportunity for Meachem to achieve fantasy relevance this season. The rookie hasn't really been a terrific camp performer, but he caught a game-tying fourth quarter touchdown against Buffalo on Friday. It wasn't thrown by Drew Brees, but still …
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Leon Washington, RB, Jets (2.2 percent) OK, so you wouldn't think that a New York running back who gained more than 900 yards rushing and receiving last season would be much of a sleeper. But he's only 2.2 percent owned. Jets starter Thomas Jones has a leg injury that probably won't affect him by the beginning of the regular season. Whether Jones is healthy or not, however, you can reasonably expect Washington to get several looks per game. He's going to start for fantasy teams at some point this year.
Michael Bush, RB, Oakland (1.4 percent) Before the broken leg, Bush was just spectacular. He ran for 1,143 yards and 23 touchdowns at Louisville in 2005. It's likely to be months before he's able to contribute in Oakland, but he's an excellent keeper for 2008.
Brian Leonard, RB, St. Louis (1.2 percent) The Rutgers rookie, a second-round draft choice, had a rather awesome preseason debut. He caught five passes for 30 yards and rushed nine times for 36 and a touchdown. Leonard is obviously no threat to Steven Jackson, but he's an injury away from being a must-start fantasy running back.
I find it amusing that when you search Yahoo! for "Brian Leonard," the first result is a blog by some software engineer, and the second is the personal homepage of a dude in Massachusetts who works for Intel, listens to the Dave Matthews Band, drives a BMW, and enjoys snowboarding and ultimate frisbee.
Don't you kind of hate that second guy?
I consider these search results proof that the NFL running back of the same name is, in fact, a sleeper.
Crayton
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Patrick Crayton, WR, Dallas (1.1 percent) Long before I wrote for Yahoo!, I considered Matt Buser's looks and touches feature to be important weekly reading. If you're only going to dig through one fantasy column each week, that's probably the one. There's a lot to be learned there. For instance, if you wanted to put a fine point on just how unimaginably awful Chris Chambers was in 2006, you really just needed to scan the far right column, "Rec%."
Well, Patrick Crayton was the anti-Chambers. He caught basically everything thrown near him last year, finishing with 48 looks and 36 receptions. That's a reception percentage of 75.0, which is what you'd expect from a running back or a tight end, someone specializing in short gains. But Crayton averaged 14.3 yards per catch. Expect more looks in 2007.
Demetrius Williams, WR, Baltimore (0.6 percent) The second-year player from Oregon emerged as a big-play threat during the fantasy playoffs in 2006, catching touchdowns of 77 and 25 yards in Weeks 15 and 16. He's no worse than the Ravens' third receiver right now. They're the Ravens, of course, so that limits his value.
Tony Hunt, RB, Philadelphia (0.6 percent) The rookie from Penn State is one of two running backs you'll have to consider as a handcuff to Brian Westbrook. The other is 0.4 percent owned Correll Buckhalter. Hunt is an abusive runner who would seem more likely to poach short-yardage touchdowns. At some point during the season, Brian Westbrook will miss a game.
Lorenzo Booker, RB, Miami (0.6 percent) Booker was a third-round pick out of Florida State, where, despite a bunch of nifty YouTube-worthy runs, he never actually had a big game statistically. At least not until something called "The Emerald Bowl" last December, where he ran for 91 yards and two touchdowns, and caught five passes for 117 yards. He may very well have rewritten the Emerald Bowl record book that day. As Ronnie Brown 's backup and a third-down back in a Cam Cameron offense, he's likely to have fantasy value this season.
John Beck, QB, Miami (0.1 percent) If things go according to plan, Beck won't have any fantasy value this season. But the former Brigham Young quarterback is an intriguing keeper. In his senior season at BYU, he completed 69.3 percent of his passes for 3,885 yards, with 32 touchdowns and only eight interceptions. Beck led a game-winning fourth quarter drive in the Dolphins' first preseason game.
DeDe Dorsey, RB, Indianapolis (0.1 percent) Joseph Addai owners intensely dislike this guy. If the Colts are serious about having any sort of two-back rotation, this is the other back. That should be enough to make you consider a late-round flier. Dorsey played his college football at something called Lindenwood University. I've just read an August feature in the Indianapolis Star entitled "Getting to Know … DeDe Dorsey." It went like this:
Q. "People probably ask this a lot. Who's this DeDe Dorsey guy?"
A. "I'm DeDe, little guy from Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. I enjoy playing football."
Beyond that, we know almost nothing. He's a special teams player who ran for 15 yards on six carries against the Cowboys in his preseason debut. And still, if you own Addai, you need to draft him.
Kevin Kolb, QB, Phildelphia (0.1 percent) We've learned how valuable the Philadelphia quarterback can be, no matter who he is. Kolb put up amazing numbers for the Houston Cougars in 2006: 3,809 yards, 67.6 completion percentage, 30 TD, 4 INT.
Of course Kolb isn't expected to play this season. But his day will come, and McNabb can't be relied on as a 16-game starter. All the early reports on Kolb have been encouraging. Eagles offensive coordinator Marty Morninweg recently told the Philadelphia Inquirer, "There are very few times where (Kolb) hasn't at least known what his responsibility in his progression and read was."
James Jones, WR, Green Bay (0.1 percent) Yet another rookie. Jones was a third-round pick out of San Jose State, and he was very effective in the Packers' first preseason game, catching six passes for 58 yards. Brandon Jackson is rightly the Green Bay rookie that everyone's drafting (41.4 percent owned), but Jones could conceivably have an impact, too. As a senior, he caught 70 passes for 893 yards and 10 touchdowns. He also ran the ball 11 times for 76 yards and a TD. Oh, and he threw a touchdown pass.
Clemens
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Kellen Clemens, QB, Jets (0.02 percent) I'm irrationally high on Clemens, a former Oregon Duck. That 174-yard, three-touchdown preseason performance against Atlanta didn't exactly discourage me. Clemens would really have to do something disastrous at this point to lose the Jets backup QB job – and being Chad Pennington 's backup is a great way to become a starting NFL quarterback.
