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.
After benefiting from what can only be considered a fluky playoff appearance in 2017 (the team sported a 9-7 record despite a -57 point disparity), the Buffalo Bills fell back to 6-10 and third place in the division. This coincided with the onboarding of rookie first-round pick Josh Allen under center, which led to decidedly mixed results.
On one hand, Allen added a dynamic element under center with a surprising 631 rushing yards, a total that actually led the team and helped Buffalo retain its position as a top-ten rushing offense. Conversely, calling his (and those of Buffalo’s other uninspiring options) passing numbers “uneven” would be flattery of the highest order, as the Bills could only muster enough yards through the air to stay one spot out of the league’s basement (lookin’ at you, Arizona).
Given that the squad’s best receiver was an undrafted rookie, Robert Foster, (yes, I know Zay Jones led the team in most statistics but his efficiency numbers were otherworldly awful), and the top three options combined for barely 1,500 yards on over 200 targets, it was unsurprising to see the wholesale changes across the team’s receiving corps. John Brown and Cole Beasley were signed to free agent contracts. TJ Yeldon was brought in as a pass-catching specialist at running back. The tight ends, led by Jason Croom’s measly 259 yards in 2018, also received an upgrade in the form of third-round pick Dawson Knox.
And while it’s that last position I want to focus on, it’s not the day two rookie who will be the topic of this piece. Instead, it’s the veteran option picked up in free agency, a player with under 700 career yards and only thirty-six across five games last year. Our Rip Van Winkle-esque sleeper is none other than erstwhile Bengals tight end and “other Tyler”…
