2019 Summer Sleeper: Jacksonville Jaguars

Ryan Finley

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.

The Jacksonville Jaguars entered 2018 with high expectations. They had a strong year in 2017, going 10-6 and making the AFC Championship game before losing to the New England Patriots. Many hoped 2017 was a stepping stone to an even more successful next season but instead the Jaguars ended with a disappointing 5-11 record and out of the playoffs.

As is often the case, the failure of a season led to some roster and coaching changes. For the 2019 season, the Jags have a new offensive coordinator in John DeFilippo along with a new quarterback in Nick Foles. (Interestingly, some credit Flip with Foles’ success in the Eagles Super Bowl season.)

Which offensive player could be the beneficiary of this new offensive dynamic duo? How about…

Josh Oliver, TE

Category: Sleeper

Any success the Jaguars have had in recent years has largely been the product of a strong defense. There have been pockets of solid offensive output, but they’ve been just that: pockets. As soon as it looks like they have something rolling, the tides change or injury hits and they find themselves once again struggling to move the ball.

After a disappointing 2018, head coach Doug Marrone survived, but his offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett did not. In Hackett’s defense, the requirements of the job involved getting the most out of a bad quarterback. While Hackett was failing to get much out of Blake Bortles, DeFilippo was having a hard time getting the most out of a strong offensive roster in Minnesota. Mike Zimmer had issues with Flip’s play-calling, namely his inability to balance the offense. Now Flip will have to earn his way back into head coaching consideration, and it will start in Jacksonville.

So why my pick of Oliver already? For starters, Flip has only been an offensive coordinator for two seasons in the NFL. Last year with the Vikings, he had a strong tight end season from Kyle Rudolph. That may have been expected, as Rudolph has been a solid tight end for some time. If you look to Flip’s other season as an OC however, the story is even more compelling. He helped Gary Barnidge make the Pro Bowl. That’s right, Flip was the OC in 2013 for the Cleveland Browns, a mostly dismal team with a sad 3-13 record, but with one shining light in the 30-year-old Gary Barnidge.

Do you know who else has a fairly strong history with feeding tight ends? Nick Foles. There is a question about the origin of that, as perhaps Foles has produced strong tight ends due to having strong players like Zach Ertz at the position. But whether it was the chicken or the egg, it’s still quite a positive sign that both the new OC and the new QB have experience doing good work with tight ends.

Those two elements aside, the roster as a whole leads to the choice of Oliver as well. Let’s face facts, the wide receiving corps is a clown car of maybes and I-don’t-knows. Sure, I like DJ Chark or Marqise Lee as much as anyone, but there isn’t a blue chip wideout to be found, and therefore nobody to suck up a huge portion of the targets. The ball in Jacksonville will be up for grabs. And if we learned anything about Flip, it’s that his offense will throw the ball.

As far as the tight end room, that is also up for grabs. Oliver only needs to beat out a nobody in James O’Shaughnessy and a never-was in Geoff Swaim. If Josh Oliver can make the transition to the NFL with his skill set, the barrier to the top tight end spot in Jacksonville should be akin to a wet paper bag. Let’s get to it then, let’s talk about Oliver.

First, let’s take a look at his career stats from his time at San Jose State.

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Statistics from sports-reference.com.

He was not mind-blowing by any stretch, but he had a very good senior season with 56 catches for 709 yards and four touchdowns. He also had a very good yards per catch number. One key note that you don’t see here is that Oliver was featured and heavily targeted in that offense – he also received attention from opposing defenses because of that.

Oliver would most certainly be considered a move tight end. His work as a blocker is spotty at best, as he has nher enough strength nor technique for the job. He will have to be utilized more like an Evan Engram type as a big receiver rather than an all-around tight end. Oliver has fantastic hands, with a vacuum-like catch radius. If the ball goes his way, he just seems to come down with it. His speed won’t blow anyone away, but it’s more than adequate for the position. He can certainly stretch the seam in the NFL and create mismatches against many defenders.

From a physical standpoint, Oliver has the stats we crave in the position. He has good size at 6’5” and 249 pounds. He has exceptionally large hands at 10.75”, which likely contribute to his strong catching ability. He performed very well in the vertical jump, broad jump, and posted a 4.63-second forty.

Take an offensive coordinator with a history of utilizing tight ends, add a quarterback who knows how to feed one, and top it all off with a talented rookie without a whole lot of competition for playing time, and you just might find yourself a useful sleeper. While Oliver is no deep sleeper at this point, you should still find his price very affordable. His startup ADP hasn’t cracked the top 200, and you can likely pick him up in the third round (or later) of most rookie drafts. At a position where there are more questions than answers, Oliver might be just the right kind of dart throw to make.

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