2019 Summer Sleeper: Tampa Bay Buccaneers

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 NFC South should be one of the most intriguing and competitive divisions in all of football for the 2019 season. Kyle Holden and Matt Price have each given their summer sleeper picks for the Saints and Falcons respectively, so stay in the division and give those a read as well.

This sleeper pick is as over-looked as any rookie receiver who was drafted in the class of 2019. However, before we fully dive into our mystery rookie, lets first analyze the shoes that this sixth-round draft pick will be filling.

Of the eight games that DeSean Jackson played in where he was paired up with Ryan Fitzpatrick, the numbers were impressive for the deep-shot standout. Jackson hauled in 32 receptions for 591 yards and four touchdowns in those eight games. While those statistics might not blow you out of the water (average of four receptions and 73 yards per game), fantasy owners playing Jackson out of the FLEX spot were pleasantly surprised to get some great consistency out of the veteran receiver.

Although Fitzpatrick and Jackson have now left the Buccaneers, there is one rookie receiver who has been consistently impressing the coaching staff and has a similar deep threat skill-set comparable to Jackson’s. Mike Evans is a star, and Chris Godwin is the talk of the 2019 off-season. Both are sure to inherit a ton of targets, but this sleeper pick will be available on your waiver wire and will no doubt make some noise this season.