2018 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 to 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.

About a month ago, I suggested that the summer sleeper for the Atlanta Falcons was Ito Smith. Apparently, I have a thing for small running backs. And the Tennessee Titans definitely have a few tiny little guys playing the position.

Yes, they have massive human Derrick Henry, but the rest of their running backs are tiny little guys, for the most part. Everyone knows Dion Lewis (one of the tiny little guys) already. He’s definitely in line for a big role in 2018. Both Henry and Lewis have been getting plenty of reps with the first team at training camp.

Henry and Lewis can’t really count as sleepers. Their current dynasty start-up ADP puts them both firmly inside the top 100. So which small running back could I be talking about?

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Akrum Wadley, RB

Category: Super Deep Sleeper

Wadley put together an impressive run of two seasons at the University of Iowa. He was only a two-star recruit coming out of high school so he faced an uphill climb from day one. Undersized and lacking strength, he still somehow managed to carry the ball 33 times as in his first season of action for Iowa. His electric burst could not be ignored.

By the time he was a junior, Wadley was the lead option on a formidable Iowa team. From there, he put together two consecutive seasons of 1,000 yards on the ground and 300 through the air. Wadley, although a tad small, showed an impressive, balanced skill set in college. Yet still it wasn’t quite enough to get him drafted this spring. Why is that?

Wadley did just fine as a junior when he was splitting time with LeShun Daniels. He was one of the more efficient running backs in the Big Ten Conference, averaging 6.4 yards per carry (on 168 carries). But one obvious thing that stood out in his final season at Iowa was that he wasn’t built to be a true feature at 5’10”, 194 pounds. When he was asked to carry the entire load (252 carries) for the Iowa Hawkeyes, his efficiency disappeared. His top speed would sometimes begin to wane later in games as his slight frame began to feel the weight of carrying an entire offense. It seems NFL teams saw this and chose to pass on draft day.

But the Titans still saw the clear talent. He’s a great receiver out of the backfield. His one step “juke and go” mentality was evidently valued by the Titans general manager, Jon Robinson. The Titans signed him to three-year deal worth $1.7 million dollars. There isn’t very much guaranteed money involved, but if they want to keep him for virtually nothing they can choose to do so. But in order for that to happen, he still has to earn a roster spot.

I went to the first three days of Titans practice last week and learned a lot about what exactly Wadley needs to do to make the team. Unless the Titans keep four running backs on the active roster, he’s going to have to beat out David Fluellen (career practice squad and camp body). People may think it’s odd that Fluellen is ahead of him, but he most definitely is. Fluellen saw a total of 11 snaps with the first team, and a total of 52 snaps in 7-on-7 and 11-on-11 drills throughout the first three days of camp. Wadley logged only one snap with the first team and a total of just 31 snaps in that same span. He clearly has his work cut out for him.

However, he did much more with his snaps when given the opportunity. He left Rashaan Evans in the dust in a one-on-one drill the first day. He took a pass in the flat for a first down past two defenders. Wadley even logged a couple of nice inside runs against the second team. If he continues improving and does indeed beat out Fluellen, he could very well be just on the edge of possible production.

Even if he doesn’t beat out Fluellen though, he still has a shot to find relevance at some point this season. Why? Wadley fits the Dion Lewis role incredibly well. He’s a shifty pass catcher with underrated pass protection skills. If (and likely when) Lewis misses time Wadley could see a significant snap share. Lewis is currently in a near 50/50 split with Derrick Henry for first-team reps at camp. There’s a good chance he could see around 40% of the offensive snaps this season.

Lewis has logged just one season where he played in all 16 games (2017). Every other year (besides his rookie season) he missed at least seven games. Are we supposed to believe he is just magically going to stay healthy now? No. But yes, the upside of Wadley’s role – should Lewis miss time – is probably capped thanks to the presence of Henry. However, at the very least, that kind of window for opportunity would be an easy sell window for dynasty owners. Akrum Wadley may be a longshot, but he’s basically free with a non-existent startup ADP and is definitely worth consideration.

As always, you can find me on Twitter @FF_TravisM. I love interacting with and learning from you guys! Feel free to chat with me on Akrum Wadley, the Titans, Falcons, or anything else for that matter. Good luck in all of your leagues this year!

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