2020 Summer Sleeper: Minnesota Vikings

Rob Willette Posted On August 2, 2020

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 Minnesota Vikings frustrated many a fantasy owner in 2019. Despite possessing elite weaponry in the passing game, the team went run-heavy, often opting to run the football even when advanced metrics would stipulate the situation called for a passing play. It was an edict endorsed by Mike Zimmer and implemented by Kevin Stefanski/Gary Kubiak.

Zimmer and Kubiak remain. However, despite not being a dominant team in 2019, the Vikings benefited from many two-score leads last season, ultimately leading to them taking the air out of the football as they relied on a regressing yet still strong defense to close out the game. Situations change fast in the NFL, and it is unlikely the purple have an opportunity to rely so much on the running game in 2020.

Despite volume concerns, Stefon Diggs was incredibly efficient in the first year of the Kubanski offense. Diggs is gone, and Adam Thielen remains. While Diggs’ talent is essentially irreplaceable in year one, the Vikings have added options at the position.

Tajae Sharpe, WR

Category: Deep Sleeper

Justin Jefferson was drafted with the pick the Vikings received from Buffalo in the Stefon Diggs trade. There is zero doubt Jefferson is the man Minnesota envisions stepping into a large role in the passing game eventually. But the truncated off-season – as has been much discussed – could lead to slow starts from many players new to the NFL, and rookie wide receivers seldom set the field ablaze.

The Vikings were fairly quiet on the free agent trail but did make a small addition to the receiving room in the form of Tajae Sharpe. A former sixth-round pick out of UMass, Sharpe had many fans in the scouting community out of college. Given his production, it is little wonder why.

screenshot 2020 08 02 at 10.46.05

Stats courtesy of sports-reference.com.

Despite elite production, a tall frame and passable athleticism, Sharpe tumbled to day three. He was able to stick around with the Titans, though his career to-date can be best described as nondescript. His rookie season – surprisingly – is his most notable, as he tallied 522 yards to finish second on the Titans among wide receivers. I could not blame you if Sharpe has fallen so far from the collective dynasty consciousness you didn’t realize he signed with the Vikings. If someone is likely to be a fantasy football contributor, we see the rewards within a few seasons. There are, of course, exceptions, and this is not a piece discussing the elite players within the dynasty realm. This is digging deep to mine value out of the abyss.

Sharpe slipped down the depth chart as the Titans invested at wide receiver, with the drafting of Corey Davis in 2017 and AJ Brown in 2019, combined with the free-agent acquisition of Adam Humphries. His ultimate departure from the Titans led him to Minnesota, where he is penciled as the team’s number three wide receiver with an opportunity to earn a decent target share, especially early in the year.

Adam Thielen returns as the team’s number one receiver; Justin Jefferson is a versatile receiver who has zero time to build chemistry (if you believe in such a thing) with Kirk Cousins. Irv Smith Jr is a promising yet still young second-year tight Eed and Kyle Rudolph is perpetually Kyle Rudolph. It is more than likely going to be a committee approach behind Thielen but if anyone emerges from the hodgepodge, you’re going to want a piece of the pie.

The upside with Sharpe is opportunity combined with a perhaps untapped skillset. At UMass, Sharpe showed excellent footwork and a real savvy within his route tree. He utilized advanced technique in conjunction with reliable hands to simply dominate the competition. At 6’2”, Sharpe has the size to box out defenders despite a lithe frame. His overall profile never screamed superstar, but it portended somebody who could contribute as a secondary option at the NFL level, likely as a possession receiver.

Realistically, a second option is all the Vikings require and Sharpe is the most accomplished receiver on the roster after Thielen. He lacks the pedigree of Jefferson or Smith Jr and the decades of experience Rudolph has, but all it takes is a small niche to become an end of roster depth piece. Is he a long-term option? Almost certainly not. But he could be the type of who seizes an opportunity and provides short-term value for owners who are willing to look past the name value and strike while the value is there. At an ADP of…non-existent (outside of the top 283!) there is no risk in taking the plunge and seeing how the passing game hierarchy shakes out.