2020 Summer Sleeper: Tennessee Titans

Michael Zingone Posted On July 24, 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 Tennessee Titans turned everything around in week seven of last season. After a woeful 2-4 start to the season and fresh off an offensive donut performance (a 16-0 loss against the Denver Broncos), a quarterback change was necessary. From week seven onwards to the AFC championship game, Ryan Tannehill took over and led one of the most efficient offenses in the league.

With Tannehill and Derrick Henry signing long term extensions, AJ Brown rising in the dynasty world as an up-and-coming superstar, and many sharp analysts on tight end Jonnu Smith to break out, there are few question marks for this team heading into 2020. For this summer sleeper series, I could opt to go with a promising rookie running back: Darrynton Evans. But, with a focused article on the rookie on DLF just recently, we’ll look elsewhere in this Summer Sleeper series edition.

Dynasty players everywhere, it’s the moment you all have(n’t) been waiting for. That’s right, an article focused on your (least) favorite former dynasty 1.01 in rookie drafts. You know him, you (hate) love him, please put your hands together for…

Corey Davis, WR

Category: (Post-Hype) Sleeper

Ok, ok. I know what you’re thinking. Corey Davis? A sleeper? Everyone knows Corey Davis, and we’ve already seen him for three seasons. Don’t think of this article as one of the many you’ll see in this series about a guy buried on the depth chart who could shock the NFL in 2020. Rather, here we’ll make the case for Davis, with his July DLF ADP of 158.17, being a sound trade target for savvy dynasty managers heading into the 2020 season.

Davis, prior to last season, has been the definition of a target hog for the Tennessee Titans. While consistently playing on a run-first team, Davis managed target share numbers of 19% and 26% in his first and second seasons, respectively. Since Ryan Tannehill took over in week seven, below is the team distribution of targets, yards, air yards, and other key metrics from airyards.com.

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The stats above are solely from the regular season. When looking at the 2019 playoffs, we see that Davis drew 14.2%, 13.3%, and 25.8% of Ryan Tannehill’s targets. In aggregate, Davis commanded 12 of Tannehill’s 60 passing attempts in the postseason, a 20% target share. The Titans did little this off-season to bring in any relevant competition for Davis to once again command 20%+ of the Titans passing volume.

But Michael, Corey Davis is a bust in his career. I’m not trading for a bust.

We must acknowledge that Davis, both in regards to NFL and dynasty draft capital, has been a bust thus far. Many dynasty leaguers passed up players like Christian McCaffrey and Dalvin Cook for the small-school star receiver. No one who drafted Davis will forget that, but has that mentality spilled over into his ADP? Yes.

Below is a chart showing total expected points added (EPA) through a receiver’s first three NFL seasons with a minimum of 100 targets through three seasons. Without going into too much detail on EPA (check out here for my attempt to explain it), it can be thought of as a total barometer for how much a player is adding to his offense.

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Here I’ve circled Davis’s performance through three seasons and put two red lines around similarly performing players. Here, we note that Davis’s total EPA performance through three seasons is on par with players like Will Fuller, Davante Adams, Golden Tate, Emmanuel Sanders, Marvin Jones, and other successful NFL players. Of course, each of the aforementioned players had their own unique circumstances that lead to their performance, but we cannot deny that Davis has players in his range of total EPA.

Let’s be real; absolutely no one should expect Davis to become the alpha on the Tennessee Titans. AJ Brown is an incredible prospect who has showcase legitimate star potential in the NFL. Aside from Brown, however, the number two option in the Titans passing offense is absolutely Davis’s to lose. Star running back Henry has not proven to be a consistent threat in the passing game. Rookie Evans should not be penciled in for high volume; the Titans were bottom half in the NFL in plays with two running backs on the field. As for third-year TE Smith – a popular sleeper this season – he is unlikely to command more than 18% of targets, a feat just eight TEs accomplished on a per-game basis last year.

Overall, the Titans had a perfect storm of efficiency lead them to a deep playoff run in 2019. Their total passing volume of just 448 attempts is expected to increase in 2020 as their per-play efficiency naturally regresses. As Corey Davis enters a contract year, expect the former fifth overall selection in the 2017 NFL Draft prove himself as a reliable option in the passing game once again.