Summer Sleeper: Seattle Seahawks

We begin our annual 32-part Summer Sleeper series where DLF scribes identify a lightly-touted player on each NFL roster who may be worthy of your consideration. Our subjects all have varying levels of “sleeperness,” but each merits a bit of in-depth discussion here in the Premium Content section.

To help everybody along, we are going to be categorizing our sleepers under one of three headings:

• Super Deep Sleepers – Players who aren’t roster-worthy in 12-team leagues, but are still worth keeping an eye on.
• Deep Sleepers – An end of the roster player who is more often than not on the waiver wire in 12-team leagues.
• Sleeper – A likely rostered player who makes for a good trade target. Their startup ADP puts them out of the top-175 or so.

Because we aren’t going give you the likes of mainstream sleepers like Tyler Lockett or Carlos Hyde, most of these players will undoubtedly fizzle. All we are asking is for you to keep an open mind and perhaps be willing to make room for one of these players on your bench. You never know when the next Willie Snead is going to spring up.  Feel free to add your own thoughts about our choice for the designated sleeper, or nominate one of your own in the comments below.

In last year’s series, in my first article for DLF, I was fortunate enough to hit on Thomas Rawls. Obviously, it’s rarely going to work out so well, where a sleeper has a huge impact as a rookie. Hitting on something like that involves a lot of luck, but it’s not a totally blind shot in the dark, either.

Despite going undrafted, Rawls was a Pete Carroll-type of running back with good tape who generated some positive buzz in rookie minicamp. No one could’ve envisioned Marshawn Lynch falling off so quickly and Rawls gaining a pristine 5.6 yards per carry in significant action, but it’s a reminder of two things. First, fantasy football is unpredictable, and secondly, it’s always a good idea to bet on talent. If you think a player has some ability, even if he appears buried on the depth chart, it’s worth keeping an eye on him.

With that said, let’s return to the well and look at another sleeper from the Seahawks’ backfield.

Alex Collins, RB SEA (Sleeper)

With Rawls coming off a broken ankle, there is a rookie back in Seattle who is rising up fantasy rankings, but Alex Collins is not that back.

The fantasy community has taken a liking to classmate C.J. Prosise. Collins has an ADP of 187 in our July staff mock drafts while Prosise is the 99th player off the board. Even in re-draft leagues, Prosise is a fairly hot commodity. Per ADP data at Fantasy Football Calculator, Prosise is RB44 in re-draft formats, with Collins falling outside the top 65 backs.

In terms of rookie ADP, Prosise checks in 12th while Collins (27th) slides to the beginning of the third round.

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The discrepancy between the two makes some sense. Seattle took Prosise in the third round of the 2016 NFL Draft, and they nabbed Collins in the fifth round. The more draft capital a team spends on a player, the thinking goes, the more chances — reps in practice and shots on Sundays — that player will get.

There is definitely some truth in that line of thought, but Seattle Head Coach Pete Carroll is someone who has a reputation of generating competitive practices and letting the chips fall where they may in terms of playing time.

With that said, I don’t think the talent gap between Prosise and Collins is that large. A lot of people felt the same way prior to the draft, including many of you. In our February rookie ADP data, Collins was the 12th player off the board while Prosise was picked 19th. NFL.com had the two listed back-to-back in their predraft rankings, with Prosise coming in just ahead of Collins.

The draft process — combine, team chatter and the actual draft — elevated Prosise and pushed down Collins in the rankings. The fact that Rawls is coming off a serious ankle injury has only further inflated Prosise’s stock. As we’ve seen in the past, you want to own whoever is starting in Seattle’s backfield.

But like I said earlier, Collins is a really good player — someone who I think can certainly play at the NFL level — and it may be him, not Prosise, who could get early-down work if Rawls isn’t ready to go at the start of the year.

Collins certainly had a stellar college career toting the rock for Arkansas. Along with Herschel Walker and Darren McFadden, Collins is one of three running backs to gain 1,000 yards in his first three seasons. He was able to do that while splitting some of the backfield work with Jonathan Williams, a fellow fifth-round draft pick from this season.

Here are Collins’ college numbers:

Year	Attempts	Yards	Touchdowns	YPC
2013	190	1,026	4	5.4
2014	204	1,100	12	5.4
2015	271	1,577	20	5.8

 

How does a player who put up those stats in the SEC, a conference widely regarded as the best in college football, fall to the fifth round of the draft?

Well, there are a couple of layers to that one.

First, Collins did not test well at the combine. Nothing about his performance in Indy did anything to help his stock. Secondly, he had a fumbling problem in his time with the Razorbacks, putting the ball on the ground 16 times over his three-year career.

What Collins does have going for him, though, is some pretty good tape, in addition to a track record of success versus top-notch competition.

Earlier, I described Rawls as a Pete Carroll-type back. By that, I mean a big-bodied back who runs hard and seeks out contact — think: LenDale White or Lynch. Collins is that type of runner. The dude even has the nickname Beastmode Junior.

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When I watch Collins, I see a runner with really good feet who makes sharp cuts and competes really hard. What he lacks in top-end speed, he compensates for with nice vision and good pad level, which results in him falling forward at the end of nearly every run. Collins profiles as an early-down bruiser — similar to Chris Ivory — who could be an animal in the red zone.

It’s these traits which make me think it should be Collins whose values sees a big boost if Rawls misses any time. Seattle likes versatile weapons on both sides of the ball, and Prosise fits that mold. Prosise may see a good chunk of work in the passing game even if Rawls is healthy, but I don’t see Prosise excelling in an every-down role. I picture him doing what Fred Jackson did in Buffalo for the longest time, serving as a dual-threat option who primarily does his work in passing situations.

Projecting playing time and/or roles is always difficult. I could be wrong about Prosise, but even if I am, Collins has put enough good play on tape — against the best competition in college football — to warrant a pick at his current cost. I also think there’s enough talent there to say he’s being undervalued. If Rawls returns to form and stays healthy in 2016, it’ll make it very difficult for Collins to get significant snaps, but it’ll also make the former Razorback even cheaper to acquire.

As we saw with this backfield in 2015, football can be very unpredictable. A player with Collins’ track record of on-field production is always worth monitoring, and if the price is right — like it is now — he’s worth a flier.

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