Summer Sleeper: New York Giants

Jarrett Behar

sleeperseriesrobinsonWith less than a month before all training camps have opened around the NFL, we begin our annual series focusing on a few sleepers from all 32 teams in the NFL.

These sleepers all have varying levels of “sleeperness,” but all merit a little more talking about here in the Premium Content section. Some of these players are deep dynasty sleepers who could merit a spot on your bench in a deep league, while others are players who may contribute a little faster than the deep prospects, but deserve more attention than they may be getting. By definition, a sleeper could mean something a little different to everyone, but we’re simply doing the best job we can to unearth one player from each team who fits the category in some way, shape or form.

We’ll never insult you with a comprehensive list of “sleepers” that includes such names as Lamar Miller, Chris Ivory or Danny Amendola. You’re all too good for that.

While many of these players will undoubtedly fizzle, there’s more value in looking more closely at these deeper prospects and players. We invite you to keep an open mind and either or re-assess your value on those who may be rostered in your league or consider adding a few of these deeper prospects we focus on this Summer who are free agents in your league – after all, some are destined to pan out, too.

Feel free to add your own comments about our choice for the designated sleeper, or nominate one of your own!

Picking a sleeper on the Giants offense is actually a hard thing to do.  For the most part, the roster seems full of studs (Hakeem Nicks, Victor Cruz, David Wilson), well valued prospects (Rueben Randle) or guys who are what they are (Eli Manning, Andre Brown, Louis Murphy, etc).  In addition, for the most part, the other younger players on the roster, Da’Rel Scott and Jerrel Jernigan, for example, are either blocked or haven’t done anything that would allow me to qualify them as “sleepers” in good conscience.  Sleepy maybe, but not sleepers.

Adrien Robinson and Brandon Myers, TEs NYG

The Giants do, however, have one position that could qualify as a sleeper or, at the very least, may be undervalued, and that’s at TE.  Accordingly to the most recent Dynasty ADP Data here on dlfstg02.dynastyleaguefootball.com, Brandon Myers is being selected as the TE21 with an ADP of 159.5 or 14.03 in a 12 team league, and Adrien Robinson is being selected as the TE40 with an ADP of 239.5 or 20.11 in a 12 team league.  Although the Giants haven’t produced a top ten fantasy tight end since the 2007 season where Jeremy Shockey was the TE10 in 14 game after being the TE6 in 2006 and TE3 in 2005, there is some reason to believe that Brandon Myers in 2013, and possibly Adrien Robinson going forward, may ascend to TE1 status.  That would certainly be good value with 14th and 20th round startup picks.

Before focusing on the Giants’ tight end situation in both the short and the long term, let’s first take a look at how they used the position since Shockey moved on after the 2007 season:

chart1

As you can see, the Giants’ usage of the TE has slowly rebounded since the departure of Shockey.  It certainly hasn’t rebounded to the 90 to 120 target level that he saw, but the usage has increased as the talent level at the position has increased.  While it can be said that Bennett’s 89 targets can be partially explained by Hakeem Nicks’ injury-plagued 2012 season, don’t forget that Bennett himself was dealing with various ailments, including a knee injury sustained in week five, despite the fact he gutted out all 16 games.

Eli Manning has averaged 544 pass attempts the last three years, about 300 of which should be accounted for by Nicks and Cruz.  That leaves approximately 250 targets for Rueben Randle, any other WRs, the RBs and the TEs.  75 to 100 targets for the TE position is thus a reasonable range.

Now let’s take a look at Brandon Myers’ 2012 season.  Although it has been said that his PPR TE6 finish was fueled by an inordinate amount of garbage time targets, you can see that his 105 targets actually comes very close to the top of the reasonable range out of outcomes for the Giants’ 2013 TE usage.

chart2

What should jump out at you right away is Myers’ incredible 75.2 catch percentage (by comparison, Jimmy Graham was at 62.9%, and Carson Palmer only completed 61.0% of his passes).  That efficient use of his targets will ameliorate the devaluation that will occur should Myers not reach this projected target ceiling.  Taking out Kevin Boss’ outlier 2008 rookie season, Giants’ TEs have averaged 75 targets and 14 yards per reception over the past four seasons.  If we downgrade Brandon Myers to 75 targets and then extrapolate that using his 75.2% catch percentage and bring his yards per catch up to the Giants average (which I am doing because I believe this has more to do with how the TEs are targeted in New York rather than elite YAC ability), then the results are as follows:

chart3

As a result, Brandon Myers should have an expected PPR TE range of TE6 as a ceiling to TE11 as a floor.  That is fairly good value as a 14th round pick, and a good reason to wait on TE after Jimmy Graham and Rob Gronkowski have been selected in your dynasty startup.  Myers also makes an excellent cheap target for those teams looking replace Aaron Hernandez.

With Myers on a one-year deal, similar to the one Martellus Bennett signed before the 2012 season, and with the Giants’ recent history of revolving TEs, it is reasonable to think that they will let Myers go after the 2013 season, especially if he performs well and would command a higher 2014 salary than the Giants are willing to pay.  This is especially true considering they just signed Victor Cruz to an extension and are likely looking to lock up Hakeem Nicks if he can stay healthy, with Nicks in the last year of his rookie deal – that is where 2012 fourth round pick Adrien Robinson comes into play.  He is an extremely cheap flier at his 20th round ADP position.

Robinson is a 6’4”, 267 pound athletic specimen that ran a 4.56 40 yard dash at his pro day.  Although he caught just 29 passes in 4 years at Cincinnati, Giants GM Jerry Reese famously called Robinson “the JPP of tight ends.”  In addition, the Giants success at utilizing the revolving TE strategy is in large part due to their excellent TE coach, Mike Pope.  Robinson is signed through 2015 under his rookie contract, and with two years of tutelage under Pope, it is not unreasonable to think that he would be ready to take over the starting TE job in 2014 with a very cap friendly $570,000 salary.  In addition, with his expected role as the Giants’ blocking TE this year, Robinson may ultimately to turn to be the increasing rare every-down TE that is also the main pass catching TE.  That is a fairly high ceiling that you may be able to realize in the not-so-distant future for a 20th round pick.

Now, that all being said, you have to be in a league with enough roster spots to be able to roster a developmental TE who is unlikely to make a 2013 impact (I would say at least 24 spots if not TE premium), but I believe that the upside is there to corner the market on the Giants’ TE position with two late startup picks that give your dynasty team the benefit of a decent amount of upside.