Big Blue View
Draft season for season-long redraft fantasy leagues is here at last! Are you ready?
Home Leagues that use a redraft format are still the backbone of the fantasy football world, and for the next few weeks, tens or maybe even hundreds of thousands of home, work, and family leagues will go through the annual ritual of player selection. Traditions will be on display, and friendships will be rekindled (or tested) through a shared passion. It’s glorious.
Crushing your draft in one of these leagues is awesome. But to accomplish that you can’t just nail the early and middle rounds. Selections made towards the back-end can make a huge difference, and I’m not talking about DST and kicker.
Today I’m giving you sleepers. What’s a sleeper? Definitions vary, but for me it’s a player who’s likely to be available in the late rounds of drafts (or who might not get drafted at all), and who brings an upside opportunity that could translate into a meaningful contribution in fantasy. Drake Maye, J.J. McCarthy, Javonte Williams, Tank Bigsby, and Emeka Egbuka don’t qualify. We’re going deeper.
For this exercise, I’m only listing RBs and WRs whose current Average Draft Position (ADP) is outside the Top-130, and QBs and TEs (the “onesie” positions, and this article is geared towards 1-QB leagues) whose ADP is below 145. These are players who will often be available after completion of the 11th round (12th for QBs and TEs) in 12-team leagues, or who can be nabbed for a buck or two at the end of auction drafts. You’ll want to have sleeper targets ready when the draft hits the point where your league mates are cracking their sixth cold one, and posting about the awesome fantasy team they just drafted. This is when you pounce.
Most sleeper calls don’t hit. That’s kind of the point. The majority of late-round picks end up riding your bench or being dropped. When you take swings with very little draft capital, you get what you pay for. But if none of your late picks pop, you’ll be at a disadvantage vs. managers who found value at the end of the draft. You usually need to hit on a sleeper or two to win your league.
My 2024 Sleepers column had a lot of misses as you’d expect, but I did unearth some big winners, including: Sam Darnold, Chuba Hubbard, J.K. Dobbins, Darnell Mooney, Khalil Shakir, and Jonnu Smith. I’ll try to nail a few more late-round guys who can help you out this time around.
Here’s a link to where you can find my other preseason fantasy football content here at Big Blue View, including my July rankings, players to target and avoid at ADP, a Giants fantasy preview, and more: Fantasy Football Hub.
ADPs shown are for Half-point PPR, and any player rankings shown are also Half PPR, on a points per game basis. ADPs are as of August 17. I’m using a consensus of ADPs, but ADPs move around...
