Summer Sleeper: New Orleans Saints

We continue 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 Allen Robinson or C.J. Anderson, 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 Alfred Morris 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.

The new look of the 2015 Saints offense is perhaps one of the biggest mysteries that fantasy GM’s have to contemplate as we close in on training camp. After finishing third in the NFL in total passing yards last season, the Saints made big headlines in March by trading away their first and third most productive receivers in 2014 in Jimmy Graham and Kenny Stills. Nearly a third of the Saints 659 pass attempts (just two attempts behind the league-leading Colts) were directed at those two players. To exacerbate the problem, Graham and Stills were not the only skill position players to leave this off-season; Pierre Thomas and Traveris Cadet, the fifth and sixth most targeted players in 2015 respectively, are also gone. Marques Colston (59 receptions on 100 targets in 2014) and Brandin Cooks (53 receptions on 69 targets) are the only proven receivers left on the roster.

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Nick Toon, WR NO

All told, a whopping 52% of the Saints 2014 receiving yards were compiled by payers who will be wearing different jerseys this season.

This fact didn’t seem to concern the Saints front office that much as pass catcher was not a priority in either free agency or the draft. They did sign 27-year old running back C.J. Spiller to a four year, $16 million deal, and he will certainly be asked to replace some of the lost receiving production out of the backfield, but he alone is very unlikely to fill the gap left behind by Thomas and Cadet, who combined for 83 receptions last year.

That said, when projecting for 2015, one must account for the Saints undergoing what looks like a 2013-2014 Dallas Cowboys-like transformation from an extremely pass-heavy approach to a run-heavy one. Some have said that the 36-year-old Drew Brees showed signs of slowing down in 2014, and the Saints moves are indicative of a team that wants a more balanced offense and indeed a more balanced roster. Retaining Mark Ingram for what passes as pretty good money for a running back these days while shipping out Graham and Stills, ostensibly for salary cap reasons, is telling in and of itself. Furthermore, the Saints took an offensive lineman in the first round of the draft, and then spent six of their remaining eight picks on the defensive side of the ball. It seems pretty clear that the Saints were on a mission this off-season to change their formula for winning so that it doesn’t rely on throwing the ball 45 times a game.

Still, even taking that shift into account, and allowing for increased roles for Cooks and tight end Josh Hill, there is still a sizable amount of production that must be picked up by a player or players already on the Saints roster.

In the magazines many of us used to buy every summer, Hill would be highlighted as a big-time sleeper for 2015, but information travels a little faster nowadays and he is likely already in the hands of a very optimistic owner in any league with a pulse. Hill was drafted as the TE14 in July, ahead of Dwayne Allen , Kyle Rudolph, and just behind Maxx Williams and Ladarius Green (post Gates suspension). Hill is an intriguing prospect in that range, but the possibility of Hill “replacing” Graham has already been priced into his cost, taking him well out of “sleeper” range.

To me, that leaves Nick Toon as the next player on the Saints roster that has even a reasonable chance of emerging as a significant contributor this year. A fourth round pick in 2012, Toon has had a very quiet start to his career. In 2014, he was often a game day inactive, which is not a good sign for a third year player. But when Cooks suffered a hand injury late in the season that sent him to the IR, it was Toon who emerged as the Saints’ third wide receiver.

From week 12 through to the end of the season, Toon finished behind only Colston and Stills in snaps, targets, receptions and yards. His final stat line – 17 catches for 215 yards and a touchdown, hardly jumps off the page, but more important than his stats is the fact the coaching staff revealed to us that Toon was the next guy up. That information becomes significantly important now given the aforementioned holes in the Saints receiving group.as we Earlier in July, Sean Payton himself acknowledged Toon’s snap count will go ‘way up” in 2015, further suggesting that Toon, at least on paper for the time being, is the de facto WR3.

It’s also worth noting in that final season stretch, Toon was primarily used as an outside receiver. Only 14% of his routes were out of the slot, a significantly lower rate relative to Stills (20%) and Colston (77%). That suggests if Toon maintains his position on the depth chart, he would likely be lining up as an outside receiver in three receiver sets, with either Colston or Cooks kicking inside (Cooks ran about 30% of his routes from the slot when healthy).

As for his status in fantasy circles, people are starting to get the hint about Toon. His name has come up on more than one podcast that I frequent and his ADP increased from 252 in June to 215 overall in July. I expect that climb to continue as owners slowly accept that there will not be a significant addition to the Saints depth chart at wide receiver this year. Once training camps start, his value will depend largely on the reports that come out about his performance.

It’s important to note that even if Toon locks down the third wide receiver role, that still may not translate into a great fantasy impact in 2015. In fact, if Colston and Cooks manage to stay healthy, he will likely be worth only a spot start in moderately deep leagues. But one of the best reasons to pick up Toon is that if he manages to put things together this year, he could become a great stash for 2016. Colston will be 33 then (and in the final year of his contract), which he was already forced to renegotiate down to stay with the team in 2015. Colston’s contract will have relatively low dead money by next year, and it would not be surprising to see the Saints part ways with him as they continue to transition to a more balanced team. Toon, who has a similar build to Colston at 6’5” and 218 lbs, could be seen as a starting receiver this time next year, which at the very least will create a great opportunity to sell.

Check the wire in your league(s) and see if Toon is available. Depending on the depth of your league, he is well worth a stash. His upside may be capped this year barring injury, but if a few things fall right for him, he could be an ascending name in the near future.

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