Summer Sleeper: New England Patriots

Ryan Finley Posted On August 4, 2016

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.

I love a good chocolate malt. Maybe it’s fallen out of favor with you younger folks, mostly because you wonder what in the heck malt is and why you’d want it. But for me, the addition of malt makes milkshakes magical. (Why yes, that was deliberate.) It’s my favorite cold treat, and I love it going down – but here’s the rub – it makes me feel like crap afterwards. Why am I telling you all this? This reflects how I feel about trying to pick the right skill position player from the New England Patriots. I’m thrilled initially, but after not too long they tend to make me feel sick to my stomach. But like that chocolate malt, I keep going back to that well regardless. So what hidden gems will I target this year?

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Deep Sleeper – DJ Foster RB/WR

Before we get to anything else, we should talk about position with Foster. You’ll notice I listed him above as RB/WR. Foster spent his first three seasons at Arizona State as a running back. A dual-threat as a runner and receiver out of the backfield, his best season was his junior year as a starter, where he put up 1,088 yards rushing with nine touchdowns AND caught 62 passes for 688 yards with three scores – good for the 16th highest yards from scrimmage number in the country.

So after a stellar junior campaign at running back, he came back for his senior year as – a wide receiver. ASU had two promising young running backs to give carries to, and Foster wanted the opportunity to make himself a more enticing package for the draft a year later. The problem was that he didn’t have a fantastic statistical season at receiver, and actually caught fewer passes (59) for fewer yards (584) than he had the previous year as a running back.

But it must be stated that he was playing as a real-deal wide receiver, and hence going against cornerbacks rather than slow linebackers. While some guys carry a RB/WR designation because they are “gadget” players, Foster actually spent significant time playing both positions. This could bode well for his future in the right offense. As of right now, MFL has Foster listed as a wide receiver, but that may change as we get closer to the season.

So statistics and history aside, let’s take a look at his PlayerProfiler.com profile:

foster pp

This shows a player who isn’t especially fast, but showed good quickness. His was in the 80th percentile for three different agility drills at the combine – the 3 cone drill, 20 yard shuttle and 60 yard shuttle. Here’s where I’ll ask you to remember we’re talking about the Patriots. Do they value agile players much? (Ahem, Wes Welker, Julian Edelman, Dion Lewis…)

With his versatility, Foster looks an awful lot like a different version of the aforementioned Lewis. And since I know guys like Nick Whalen don’t believe in Lewis, there’s a reasonable path for Foster getting work. And just for the record, I’m a big believer in Lewis, but I don’t mind hedging my bets either. A player with versatility like Foster has needs the right team to be able to bring out his strengths – I believe the Patriots may be just that team, he just needs an opportunity.

Super Duper Whizz-Bang Ultimate Deep Sleeper..of Doom – Deandre Carter, WR

Because “Super Deep sleeper” didn’t seem to adequately describe Carter. Rather than provide you just one flyer, I thought I’d find you the ultimate lottery ticket. I’ll start this off by admitting that the chances Carter pays off are quite low (like Da Bears winning the Super Bowl this year low), but if he DID pay off it would likely be in a big way.

So who is Carter? He’s a smallish guy from a smallish program with unreal measurables. I don’t usually care too much for combine numbers, but sometimes they are hard to ignore:

carter pp

His 40 time is good but his size makes that a poor speed score. But then look at all the other bars. 100th percentile for his agility score. Apparently, there are none more agile. I might chalk also this up to much ado about nothing, but then his college dominator and SPARQ-x scores are also very, very high.

So ask yourself this, do the Patriots have room on their roster for a smaller, exceedingly agile wide receiver? And to follow that up, have Edelman and Amendola ever been injured – at the same time? I think you see where I’m going with this.

But the real problem here is that Carter went nowhere last year. He signed as an undrafted free agent in Baltimore, but was cut without getting any opportunities. He then landed with the Raiders shortly, until ultimately ending up on the Pats practice squad. He also has to beat a veritable murderer’s row of un-met expectations to get the fifth wide receiver spot out of camp. Old favorites like Aaron Dobson and Nate Washington stand in his way. The smart money says the spot goes to Keshawn Martin, but it’s not even in the same ballpark as “locked up.” (So you’re saying he has a chance?) Yes, I’m saying he has a chance.

So if you’re looking for a moon-shot flyer at the end of a deep bench, you could find gold with Carter. His unreal quickness could work really well in the slot role for a dynamic Patriots offense.

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