2022 Dynasty Fantasy Football Summer Sleeper: Washington Commanders

Eric Hardter Posted On August 7, 2022

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.

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 or James Robinson 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 change in team name to ‘Commanders’ wasn’t the only big off-season move for the artist formerly known as the Washington Football Team! Revamped is an offense that in 2021 featured a couple of players who would be considered fantasy-relevant, but no one who truly transcended above the masses, and likely no one who instilled weekly confidence in their owners. Given this overall ineptitude, it wasn’t surprising to see the Commanders swing for the fences with the following moves:

Trade for Indianapolis quarterback Carson Wentz to replace the uninspiring former UDFA Taylor Heinicke (okay, maybe this is more of a bunt single, but better than their prior strikeouts under center).
Select Penn State receiver Jahan Dotson with their first-round pick in the 2022 NFL Draft.
Select running back Brian Robinson with their third-round pick in the 2022 NFL Draft.
Reward star receiver Terry McLaurin with a new three-year, $71 million contract.

Despite this, there still remains a little meat on the bone for another pass-catcher to emerge from his slumber.

Cole Turner, TE

Category: Super Deep Sleeper

Turner fits snugly into the ‘Super Deep Sleeper’ category, given both his stature in DLF’s dynasty ADP (not selected in a single July 2022 mock draft) and on his own team (third string per the current depth chart). However, there might be more opportunity for the rookie than it first appears.

To start, presumed starter Logan Thomas began training camp on the PUP list, opening up valuable reps for Turner and positional cohort John Bates. Given the severity of Thomas’ injury (torn ACL and MCL), along with its timing (December 2021), it’s not out of the realm of possibility for him to land on the short-term Injured Reserve at the inception of the regular season. Thomas participating in the season opener would signify a return after only 9.5 months, and even if he’s able to play it’s more than fair to question his conditioning and readiness for full contact.

Notably, Bates stands next in line to benefit from Thomas’ absence. After being selected in the fourth round (pick 124) of the 2021 NFL Draft, Bates actually had a reasonable freshman season with an efficient, aggregate 20-249-1 line on 25 targets. Unfortunately for Bates, this was very nearly his best season dating back to 2017, as his top college season came as a junior and yielded only a 22-273-1 line. In fact, through four years in college (23 games) he could only manage an aggregate of 579 yards and two scores. Older entering the league (23 years old as a rookie), as well as slow, lacking explosion and with poor arm length and hand size measureables, Bates doesn’t fit the profile of a future contributor, and doesn’t represent an insurmountable hurdle.

It’s also fair to question how committed the Commanders are to Bates as Thomas’ backup, given their selection of Turner. It’s true Turner’s draft capital was actually worse than Bates’ (fifth round, pick 149), but clearly the team felt compelled to add competition to the room. And while I can only attempt to prognosticate why teams make draft day trades, the Commanders traded back from pick 120 to obtain picks 144 and 149 – it’s possible they felt they could get Turner there (along with quarterback Sam Howell) and pick up some value in the process.

In addition to having similar draft capital, Bates and Turner are also about the same stature, including height, weight, arm length and hand size. Turner is a bit faster with a 4.76-second 40-yard dash (compared to a 4.84s 40-yard dash for Bates at his Pro Day), and Bates has higher marks for agility. Both have underwhelming to poor vertical jumps, and neither is particularly strong.

At this point, apart from depth chart considerations, you might be wondering why Turner was my selection for a sleeper, no matter how deep! Notably, he has one major trump card over Bates, which was an ability to produce in college, even despite fellow NFL-level competition on the roster.

As part of the Nevada Wolfpack, Turner had a slow first two seasons, but broke out as a junior along with his prolific quarterback Carson Strong. It’s true fellow 2022 rookie and Packers fourth round pick Romeo Doubs led the way, but the tight end was still able to corral a 49-605-9 line across 73 targets in his third season with Nevada. As a senior, with Doubs still alongside him, Turner upped his game with a 62-677-10 line, while increasing his target count to 97. These numbers represented the second-most receptions and yards on the team both years, with Doubs only managing one additional touchdown from 2020-2021 (20 versus 19).

Bates, well, didn’t have that same success. Boise State featured NFL talent in John Hightower and Khalil Shakir, but even with that Bates was the fourth or worse option in each of his four collegiate campaigns. As noted above he had troubles scoring the ball, but even that would even be putting it incredibly kindly – across Bates’ college career the team accounted for 94 passing scores, with Bates only managing to secure two of those. Not surprisingly his breakout age was non-existent, and he only had a 13th percentile Dominator Rating.

Comparatively, Turner broke out at age 20.5 (69th percentile) and managed a 79th percentile Dominator Rating. Neither is old but from an age perspective, Turner was also 1.4 years younger in any given season (e.g., senior versus senior, junior versus junior, etc.), and despite only a year’s difference in draft class he’s actually 2.4 years younger than Bates.

College isn’t the NFL, and while he did so in a limited manner Bates produced some as a rookie, and arguably out-produced his expectations. But when considering a flier, especially at the tight end position, I’d rather gamble on the younger guy with higher-end college production, a proven nose for the end zone, and an ability to produce despite a crowded depth chart. With the addition of Dotson to pair with McLaurin I’m not speculating Turner will have a robust rookie role, but someone has to step up as the third man on the totem pole – given the myriad of mediocrity rounding out the rest of the Commanders’ depth chart, perhaps this sleeper will awaken?

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Eric Hardter

Contributor at Dynasty League Football

Eric is a Boston College chemistry grad school survivor with a minor in dynasty football. He prefers to utilize both statistics and sarcasm whenever possible, believes in process over results and thinks "Hot Takes" are the scourge of the fantasy landscape.