Summer Sleeper: Tennessee Titans

Travis May

In our annual 32-part Summer Sleeper series, 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, 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 Adam Thielen 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 Tennessee Titans have quickly become one of the most exciting teams in the NFL. Just one off-season ago they were the laughing stock of the NFL coming off of a paltry 2-14 season with virtually no offensive weapons to speak of (besides Delanie Walker). Since then the Titans have added DeMarco Murray (that worked out okay…), Derrick Henry, Rishard Matthews, Corey Davis, Eric Decker, Tajae Sharpe, Jonnu Smith and more. The Titans may actually have enough fire power to win a playoff game or two this year.

And that’s all fine and dandy (for me as a Titans fan), but what in the world does that mean for Fantasy Football goodness?

That’s a great question!

Besides Delanie Walker and maybe DeMarco Murray there may not be a sure thing to rely upon in this offense in the near future (at least this year). But this article isn’t about them. It’s about this year’s “Summer Sleeper” on the Tennessee Titans. However, Delanie and DeMarco do have something to do with where you might look for a sleeper.

Given that Derrick Henry is already well beyond hyped as the heir apparent and handcuff to DeMarco Murray there is no need to tell you about him. His ADP and trade price tag is already where it needs to be (if not already too high, but that’s neither here nor there).

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But! Even if you already believe you know the backup to Delanie Walker, I bet he is a lot cheaper than Derrick Henry. Yes, this year’s “Summer Sleeper” for the Titans is…

Jonnu Smith, TE

Category: Sleeper

At first, when considering which Titan should be the sleeper this year I didn’t even consider Jonnu. He really shouldn’t be a sleeper. Jonnu Smith was taken in round three of this year’s NFL Draft. The Titans have perennially thrown to the tight end position on a consistent basis (See: putrid receiver production in part because of this). Plus, he is in position to learn from one of the best tight ends in the league right now. The list of reasons why Jonnu shouldn’t be a sleeper is fairly long.

However, according to Dynasty League Football’s startup ADP Jonnu is barely going inside the top 200 picks at TE24. His price tag comes even cheaper in rookie drafts. Jonnu is coming off the board at pick 47 in rookie drafts right now. That makes him essentially free in standard 12-team leagues. How is this possible?

The short answer is that we want to win, and we want to win now. But what if there was even a slight chance Jonnu could help us do just that? Could Jonnu make a cheap investment in him worth it? Let’s just break it down and see.

In 2016 the Titans ran a good amount of snaps with at least two tight ends on the field. Their primary tight ends were Delanie Walker (709 offensive snaps) and Anthony Fasano (533 offensive snaps). Delanie’s snaps aren’t going anywhere unless he is injured, but Fasano is now gone. The only other two tight ends remaining that could possibly threaten Jonnu for snaps were on the team last year as well. Phillip Supernaw saw 301 snaps while Jace Amaro (former Jet) only saw the field 34 times on offense throughout the whole season. While Titans fans like Supernaw, he’ll bring more value on special teams (251 snaps there in 2016) than he will in the TE2 slot. Amaro was once a Twitter darling, but should only see the field if an injury happens.

So yes, it looks like at the very least Jonnu has a massive opportunity to see snaps early even if Delanie Walker is healthy. Where things really get interesting at the tight end position for the Titans is target distribution. Although the other three tight ends (not named Delanie) saw 868 offensive snaps last year, Delanie out-targeted them, 102-22. At first glance, that’s not very encouraging for Jonnu hopefuls. But here’s the good news if you forgot already: Jonnu’s price tag does not scream starting fantasy tight end. Jonnu may end up only seeing a few targets this year, but that’s why he’s a sleeper.

We never want to wish injury upon anyone, but the truth is that tight ends get hurt a lot. Delanie is a tough guy who has shown he can play through injury, but he’s missed at least one game every single year with Tennessee. If Delanie’s 33-year-old body does fail to hold up, even for a brief window this year, Jonnu could explode onto the scene with a massive opportunity. Even if Jonnu only produces once, we all know the drill. The dynasty market overreacts to anything and everything. A fourth-round rookie pick investment in Jonnu could turn into a future second round pick overnight. Or better yet, you could hold Jonnu and enjoy the future dividends in a post-Delanie world in Tennessee.

The bottom line is that Jonnu could very well be considered in a tier above sleeper. He simply checks all of the boxes for a dynasty tight end prospect. He’s 6’3”, 248 pounds, or in other words large enough to be an in-line tight end in the NFL. But don’t let that fool you. Jonnu runs a 4.6-forty and out-jumped all but three of the 58 wide receivers at the NFL Combine this year in the vertical. If you’re into predictive production metrics, then you’ll enjoy Jonnu as well. He led Florida International in receptions and yards as a freshman and sophomore. What more can you ask for? There’s really almost nothing not to like with Jonnu. The stacked tight end class this year just overshadowed how amazing Jonnu could truly be.

As always, I hope you enjoyed the read. If you can think of any other Titans player you would suggest as a sleeper feel free to leave a comment. Also come find me on Twitter @FF_TravisM and we’ll talk some football.

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