2020 Summer Sleeper: Pittsburgh Steelers

Michael Moore

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.

2019 was a bad season for the Pittsburgh Steelers offense and seemingly everyone on it. Ben Roethlisberger missed all but two games with a serious elbow injury while Pro Bowlers James Conner and JuJu Smith-Schuster followed up their 2018 breakout seasons with injury-filled and ineffective campaigns. We won’t even mention how the backups to all of those players did. To illustrate just how bad it was, the lone bright spot was a third-round rookie receiver – Diontae Johnson – who still failed to top 700 yards.

But with a whole off-season (and possibly more) to get healthy, the main cogs of the Steelers offense are ready to go and being counted on by dynasty teams all over. So who’s left that could join in the fun? Pittsburgh has a handful of rookies who are currently being snatched up in rookie drafts so it’s hard for them to be considered sleepers just yet. Veterans like James Washington or the aforementioned Johnson are also on many dynasty teams radar so they don’t count either.

Instead, we’re going with a freakish athlete who signed a free-agent contract in the off-season and could see immediate dividends in the Steelers offense.

Eric Ebron, TE

Category: Sleeper

The Player

Drafted tenth overall in 2014 by Detroit, Ebron came into the league (both real and dynasty versions) with super-high expectations. He was the highest-drafted tight end in eight years and was just 21 when he entered the league.

He struggled in his first season – as most rookie tight ends do – but his stats got better every year including his third season where he caught 61 passes for 711 yards while missing three games. His fourth-year was the make-or-break year in Detroit that would determine if he would be rewarded with a contract extension and, as we know, it wasn’t meant to be.

His stats went down across the board, Detroit let him walk via free agency and he ended up in Indianapolis to rebuild his value. And rebuild he did as he became one of Andrew Luck’s favorite targets during the quarterback’s swan song. Ebron had the best season of his career with 66 receptions for 750 yards and an incredible (but unsustainable) 13 touchdowns.

It didn’t last long though as Ebron, like the rest of the Colts offense, tanked after the retirement of Luck. Injuries didn’t help either as Ebron missed five games on his way to his lowest yardage total (375) since his rookie season. The Colts moved on and Ebron, for the second time, caught on with another team via free agency.

But despite the down year, let’s keep Ebron’s career in perspective. Sure, he’s been given more chances than other tight ends with as much draft capital and talent behind him but he’s also been productive with those opportunities, turning in the 20th-best start to a career for a sixth-year tight end in league history.

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From Pro Football Reference.

The Situation

For the Steelers, we have a tale of two offenses. The offense in 2018 that was helmed by Ben Roethlisberger and led the league in pass attempts and the offense of 2019 that was 26th in the league with 510 attempts by a pitiful combo of quarterbacks including Mason Rudolph and Devlin Hodges. It’s fair to say the 2020 version will be some combination of the two which means we’re looking at more targets then we’re available last year.

Speaking of last year, there actually aren’t a lot of new faces in Pittsburgh besides Ebron.

screen shot 2020 07 15 at 09.46.09

From Pro Football Reference.

Players no longer with the Steelers – Nick Vannett, Johnny Holton, Donte Moncrief, Tevin Jones – only make up 57 unaccounted for targets. Ebron can scoop some of those up but he’ll need to also grab some targets from incumbent tight end Vance McDonald and running back Jaylen Samuels.

McDonald is an obvious candidate to take targets away from as it would be odd for the Steelers to sign Ebron in the first place if they didn’t want to at least upgrade the position he and McDonald both share. Samuels, however, is another candidate to cede targets to Ebron after seeing a respectable 57 last year. Samuels proved to be a horrendous running back (his actual position) but an asset in the passing game. However, both Samuels and Ebron operate close to the line of scrimmage (Samuels averages seven yards-per-reception for his career; Ebron is at 11) with Ebron providing the much bigger target.

The Cost

Ever since becoming a (perceived) bust when it comes to dynasty ADP, Ebron seems to exceed expectations wherever he lands. First, let’s see where he’s actually finished as a fantasy tight end.

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From Pro Football Reference.

Save for his rookie season and an injury-filled 2019, Ebron has consistently been on the TE1/2 line when it comes to fantasy scoring. Yet, here’s his current positional ADP:

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Nearly 30th! Ebron, despite signing with a team that clearly wanted him, is being valued as a low-end TE2 at best. And that doesn’t even account for the extremely weak class of rookie tight ends this year.

As for what’s possible with Ebron, let’s take a look at that extremely pass-happy Steelers offense from 2018.

screen shot 2020 07 15 at 09.47.06

From Pro Football Reference.

As mentioned above, it’s not fair to hope for a carbon copy of the same offense but if it can get anywhere close, there are a lot of targets to go around. Smith-Schuster could have a resurgence while James Washington and Diontae Johnson could easily split Antonio Brown’s targets which still leaves a fair amount for Ebron to claim.

Using the DLF Trade Analyzer, Ebron is currently worth an early third-round rookie pick. He’s got more talent and is in a much better situation than any other rookie and would make a valuable, and cheap, option if you were looking to shore up the tight end position on your dynasty team.

michael moore