Summer Sleeper: Arizona Cardinals

Adam Tzikas Posted On August 21, 2016

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 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.

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Time to fire up the Arizona Cardinals sleeper machine I keep locked up in the basement. Last year it spit out David Johnson and had a slight hiccup with Jaron Brown, but we will turn to it again for our next group of sleepers. The Cardinal offense was firing on all cylinders last year and subsequently has been picked clean of talent. 1^st in yards and 2^nd in points, it’s an offense everyone wants a part of. With extensions for Carson Palmer and newly reborn slot man Larry Fitzgerald through 2017, the band will be together for at least two more years. The only likely changes in 2017 will be the departure of pending UFA Michael Floyd and “old man” John Brown ending his rookie contract, so we look to the rest of the offense for potential deep adds. Who better than a deep ball speedster like J.J. Nelson?

J.J. Nelson, WR

Status: Deep Sleeper

The 5^th round pick out of the University of Alabama at Birmingham excels with speed. Running a 100^th percentile 4.28-second 40, the 5’10” receiver is lightning in a bottle. He compares really well to teammate John Brown in measurables. This is unsurprising since he is likely a player to be used in a similar role due to his similar size. While not being used that much in 2015 (13% of snaps) he lead the team in yards per reception at a whopping 27.7 yards, not far from the 20 yards he averaged in college at UAB. He also added two touchdowns to his stat sheet, one on a 64 yard reception. Nelson is tiny, but shows great hands and an awareness to get up field as quickly as he can. For his slender size he surprises with great ability to high-point the ball and fight for most throws. He also excels as a return man, but again wasn’t asked to return that much since Patrick Peterson is a thing; hard to take a return job away from one of the greats. This is another example of stellar talent stopping Nelson from seeing the field, but the future could be bright with a few breaks in the right direction. Not a player to hurt yourself to acquire, but at an ADP of nearly 200, Nelson is the epitome of a deep sleeper.

Kevin Minter, LB

Status: IDP Sleeper

The third year inside linebacker out of LSU is my next pick for a sleeper on a defense that’s mostly picked clean. Obviously guys like Deone Bucannon and Tyrann Mathieu hold the name cache to be worth a ton in your IDP league, and for good reason. I like to look at strong defenses and find out other outlets for tackles. This leads me to Kevin Minter. Lining up next to Bucannon might seem like a bad idea, but in his first year of significant snaps, Minter managed 72 tackles and had a solid tackle floor of 6 per game and was a top 40 LB in DLF IDP scoring. He is not a flashy player, but he is very consistent going back to college. His strong suit is taking very good angles to make the tackle and has excellent hands. He scrapes through trash well and doesn’t shy away from taking on blocks. Minter showcases a high motor with some ability to blitz. He can be a liability in coverage but that’s something he has improved upon in the pros so far. While he won’t single-handedly win your IDP league, as an LB2/3 that’s basically free he’s hard not to add to your deep IDP league. He is not on the top 75 aggregate IDP ranks and in the currently running IDP analysts mock, he currently hasn’t been drafted by the 24^th round. Given the fragility of the Honey Badger and Bucannon, he could be in for a major step up this year.

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Adam Tzikas

Contributor at Dynasty League Football

Adam "StickyZ" Tzikas burns in the South Florida sun while he contemplates tweets no one will read. He is an avid nerd and hosts an IDP podcast with a bloke from the UK.