Summer Sleeper: Buffalo Bills

Brian Malone

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.

Dezmin Lewis, WR BUF

Category: Super Deep Sleeper

Buffalo isn’t the place to go for optimism this off-season.  Tyrod Taylor is on a one-year, prove-it deal.  Cardale Jones – the rookie who was drafted to challenge Taylor – is struggling.  Sammy Watkins only recently started running after off-season foot surgery.  LeSean McCoy is battling hamstring injuries.  Karlos Williams got pregnant (or something) and then suspended.  Jonathan Williams has been charged with a DUI.  And Marquise Goodwin failed to make the olympic track and field team.  The best news all off-season was that McCoy wouldn’t be charged for his role in a night-club fight involving two off-duty police officers.  So … yay!

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The second best news all off-season has been the buzz on wide receiver Dezmin Lewis.  The Bills drafted Lewis in the seventh round of the 2015 draft and stashed him on the practice squad for most of the season.  This off-season is different.  Head coach Rex Ryan singled out Lewis when asked which wide receiver was performing the best in off-season workouts.  Beat writers are calling Lewis the “Minicamp MVP.”  And Taylor says Lewis is dominating in the weight room and on the field.

Indeed, Lewis has bulked up to 6’4” and 220 pounds, making him the most dominant physical presence in the Bills’ WR corps.  Not bad for a guy who ran the 40-yard dash in 4.58 seconds at the combine (and 4.46 seconds at his pro day).

But more importantly, Buffalo’s receiver coach Sanjay Lal has made Lewis his pet project.  Coming out of Central Arkansas, Lewis was rawer than Cordarrelle Patterson.  He struggled with the NFL playbook, and his route running was a mess.  But Lewis became a student of the game, watching Watkins and the other Bills receivers, asking questions, and testing his technique against first-team cornerbacks – one of the benefits of being on the practice squad.  Now, Lal describes Lewis like this:

“He has done everything he could’ve to this point,” said Lal. “Really proud of him. He’s changed his running form, his routes are great. He made a great double move on a dagger route in minicamp. As a 6-4 guy to drop his hips, move and then slide over the top of someone, that’s rare. I know he only did that because he worked on it. He worked on it over and over and over again.”

Lewis wasn’t a very good college prospect, and we haven’t seen him do anything on an NFL field.  It’s dangerous to trust coach speak, but the buzz on Lewis has been consistently positive.  And he took first-team reps in off-season practices with Watkins sidelined, so the Bills really do seem to think they’ve found a gem.

Barring catastrophe, Lewis seems like a lock to make the Bills’ 53-man roster.  But that’s far from being fantasy viable.  Watkins was the only Buffalo WR (or TE for that matter) worth starting in 2015, and it’s not clear there’s room for another.  The Bills threw the ball 465 times in 2015, more than 100 attempts shy of the league average.  Only Minnesota had fewer attempts.

And even if the Bills do give us two fantasy viable receivers, Lewis isn’t the top candidate to join Watkins.  Robert Woods is entrenched as the second WR on the depth chart, and TE Charles Clay was the team’s number two receiving option when healthy.  Both Woods and Clay battled injuries in 2015, but they have some fantasy appeal in their own right.

I’m not rostering Lewis in normal-sized (or even above-average-sized) leagues.  His talent is a huge question mark, and he has to overcome two respectable pass-catchers just to claim the second spot on a run-heavy team.  Still, you can’t teach size and speed.  If Lewis really has developed his game, he’s the kind of guy you want at the end of a dynasty roster.  Stash him now in very deep leagues, and add him to your watch list everywhere else.  If the training camp buzz is anything like the off-season buzz, he’ll be worth a speculative add.

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brian malone
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