0:00I don't mean to be disrespectful, but most fantasy football analysts completely missed the point of a sleeper. They tell you about someone
0:05who's getting drafted in every league, maybe like a 12th round pick. But I have 10 guys who are legitimately deep, deep,
0:12deep fantasy football sleepers that I think can make an impact on our redraft rosters this upcoming year, and we are going to begin with Skyler Bell, a guy
0:21who I think probably should have been drafted much earlier than he was in the actual NFL draft. He lands on the
0:28Buffalo Bills, who in my opinion don't have any good wide receivers. Kalon Shakir is coming back from a tight rope procedure. He also has basically the
0:35lowest average depth of target of any starting wide receiver in the NFL. DJ Moore was absolutely cooked for the Chicago Bears last season. The only team
0:43that didn't know that DJ Moore was cooked is the Buffalo Bills trading a second round pick for him. I think he
0:48probably would have been cut. Skyler Bell is the exact profile of wide receiver that the Bills have liked to recruit. He just happens to be the
0:55youngest and the healthiest one. He had 3.13 yards per route run in his final season in college and 2.15 yards per
1:03route run over the course of his career while absolutely dominating all of the offenses that he was in. We've already gotten some good coach speak about
1:11Skyler Bell having an impact on the Bills offense this year. My guess is that they probably cut or trade Keon Coleman at some point. I just don't
1:19think Keon Coleman can make an impact for this Bills team.
1:23Skyler Bell is basically exactly what I look for in terms of a sleeper wide receiver, ultra productive at Connecticut, a day three pick, and an
1:32elite fantasy football offense for him to start playing for. It would not surprise me if Skyler Bell is actually starting receiver for the Bills starting
1:39from week one. Now, transitioning to the backup of actually a very elite talent, we are going to transition to DJ Giddens, who is one of my favorite
1:48prospects in the 2025 rookie class.
1:52Barely played, actually got outproduced and lost his snaps to Ameer Abdullah on the Indianapolis Colts. So, you might be saying, "Davis, this guy completely
1:59flamed out as a rookie. Why would you want to be taking this guy?" A great comparison I would give you to DJ
2:04Giddens would be someone like Blake Corum, who was completely immaterial and useless his first season for the Los Angeles Rams and actually even his
2:12second season because he injured his ankle for the first season. DJ Giddens was an ultra useful, ultra versatile prospect when he came out of Kansas
2:22State. After his bad rookie year, everyone has completely given up on him, but the Colts did not add anything significant to their backfield, only
2:29adding Seth McGowan as competition behind Jonathan Taylor. Jonathan Taylor has missed 18% of his career games with injury, and Daniel Jones is coming back
2:39from an injury this year. I wonder if this is one of those situations where the Colts in the back half of the year
2:44are kind of just shutting it down.
2:46They're not trying super seriously.
2:48Those are situations where we end up with guys, younger guys, playing more than you would think. I think a great example was the Dolphins from last
2:55season turning the backfield over to Ali Gordon and to Jaylen Wright. I really love I mean, DJ Giddens was a 9.7 RAS
3:03guy, ultra ultra ultra productive at Kansas State. He basically was the entire engine of the offense. In my modeling, the SLAP model, he had one of
3:10the biggest backfield dominator ratings inside of the entire market, and he still is only 22 years old. You know, plenty of running backs have come in.
3:18There are actually a handful of examples of running backs who either didn't play or played quite poorly as rookies and then made a big impact in fantasy
3:26football later on. James Conner, one of my favorite examples. Kenyan Drake, another one. And I think Blake Corum of recent vintage is one of the best ones.
3:35And I did just mention one Mr. Ali Gordon. I'm going back to the well, and this one is going to be a little bit
3:41controversial because the Miami Dolphins, they are going to be pretty bad, and he's behind Devon Achane, right? So, he would be behind Devon
3:47Achane. Why would you want to draft a potential running back two on a horrible football team with a running quarterback and a superstar running back who just
3:56got a contract extension. There are a couple reasons here. The first one being if the Miami Dolphins are as run heavy
4:02as we imagine them to be, this could be a situation wherein they are maybe one of the few teams in the NFL who has
4:09enough carries for a second running back to potentially be fantasy football viable.
4:14Ollie Gordon at Oklahoma State, I think was a little bit underrated. You know, he had the incredible junior season where he legitimately could have gotten
4:22Heisman Trophy votes. Then he had the terrible, terrible final year. Actually followed the same trend as former Oklahoma State teammate Chuba Hubbard.
4:30But he is a big-bodied guy. I actually think if you're looking at it in terms of stylistic fits, who is a better
4:36stylistic fit to ground and pound with Malik Willis? Would it be Devon Achane or would it be Ollie Gordon? To me, it
4:42would be Ollie Gordon. And very similar to the Giddens point, I think that we have a lot of equity here wherein the
4:48184-lb Devon Achane might not be able to sustain to the beating of being the engine of the offense for an entire
4:55season. In fact, that is what we saw last season. At the end of the year, Ollie Gordon and Jalen Wright saw
5:00expanded roles in the back half of the season because Devon Achane was just not able to handle getting 20 touches a game
5:07for a terrible football team. Achane obviously so much better than Ollie Gordon. That I'm not saying that Ollie Gordon can wrest the backfield away.
5:13This is a true last round pick. But in terms of stashing running backs, I love the prospect profile way more than the
5:20models do for Ollie Gordon. This is This is one of the few times when you're going to have Davis Mattox be a ball
5:25knower where I say, "When I watch Ollie Gordon, he is way better than a lot of the data would indicate." And the data
5:31for him in the prospect profile is actually not all that bad. I I quite like one Mr. Ollie Gordon and he is
5:38going to be on the back end of a lot of my rosters. My next one is I mean, this is as secret as it's going to get. No
5:44other fantasy football player, no other fantasy football channel is going to give this one to you. But, Zavian Thomas has started to draw absolutely rave
5:53reviews coming out of the Chicago Bears camp, and I think it's easy to see why.
5:57He is your quintessential day three draft pick sleeper, where he comes in, he's drafted at 21 years old. He barely played in college, right? Barely played,
6:06only had 1,200 receiving yards in college, added in another 200 rushing yards and a touchdown. He, however, and this is always so crucial to me,
6:16ended up being a third-round pick. And when these guys are third-round picks with this type of profile, where there's no production and it's all based on how
6:23fast they are, sometimes it can be the team views them as an elite special teams player. And Zavian Thomas is going
6:30to make the opening day Chicago Bears roster because he is an elite special teams player. He profiles to be one of
6:36the best kick and punt returners in the league. He generated an insane amount of production as a kick returner. In fact,
6:43he led the entire nation in 2024 in college football in kick return yards.
6:48But, the biggest secret is, and I'm serious, don't tell this to your buddies, don't tell this to anyone, is that the Chicago Bears are planning on
6:54converting Zavian Thomas to at least a part-time running back. He has the frame for it, he has the speed for it. Because
7:00he's such a returner, he also has the vision and the shiftiness to do it. In my opinion, Zavian Thomas is basically
7:07the best deep deep fantasy football sleeper imaginable. In all of my dynasty leagues, I've added him in the fourth round of rookie drafts. It would not be
7:14surprising to me, and again, I'm the only one saying this, I think that he could actually outperform and outproduce Khalil Mungai as the running back two in
7:23the Chicago Bears backfield if the Bears actually choose to go down that road with him. We'll see if they go down that
7:30road with him, but I'm pretty sure that they are going to. Now, I have a name that you guys will actually be pretty
7:35familiar with, and it is my guy Tyquan Thornton, who was actually kind of an interesting member of the Chiefs last year, had 13, 18, and 12 points in the
7:45games that Xavier Worthy missed. Then when Xavier Worthy came back, he barely played. However, things are totally trending in his direction this upcoming
7:53season. Andy Reid brought in his old friend Eric Bieniemy, and one of the big things that Bieniemy is changing for the
7:58Kansas City Chiefs is everyone is accountable. You know what that means?
8:02No more JuJu Smith-Schuster, no more old guys. We are playing the best guys at every single position. All of the early
8:09reporting has been that Tyquan Thornton is going to be the wide receiver three next to Xavier Worthy and next to Rashee
8:15Rice.
8:16And you guys know that I love Xavier Worthy, so this one is hard for me to do. However, I think there is a strong,
8:23strong chance that in fact Tyquan Thornton is the best deep threat on the team. Xavier Worthy has just not shown the ball tracking ability to be good
8:32enough to be the guy with the 18 A dot on this team. And I also think that Mahomes has left a lot on the field with
8:39deep balls in years past, but we saw him succeed in that role last season. Again, it would not be surprising to me if
8:45Tyquan can kind of put up a Mecole Hardman plus style season. All the reporting has been very consistent that this is a huge part of what the Chiefs
8:53are trying to integrate into their offense this upcoming season. Tyquan Thornton is kind of the perfect guy.
8:58Look, we've all been there. It's week seven. Your best wide receiver is on bye. Your wide receiver two just rolled their ankle and is not going to be able
9:05to start, and you're just hoping and scraping for four for 6 56 and a touchdown. I I think Tyquan is basically
9:12on this list my highest degree of confidence that he will be ranked as a fantasy football starter or at least a
9:19useful fantasy football asset in the 2026 season. A version of Tyquan Thornton, if we go back in time to look at who he was at as a rookie, is we got
9:27to look at my guy Brennan Thompson, who again did have a very interesting collegiate career where he never ended up being that productive, but every time
9:36he was called upon, he was basically awesome. He started out at the University of Oklahoma, my favorite university, never really found a fit
9:44there. So, the time that he played at Oklahoma was them transitioning their style of offense into being basically an early down rushing team. Very funny. He
9:53also was collegiate teammates with Matthew Golden and Xavier Worthy all the way back at 2022 at Texas. I mean, think of that wide receiver room. Brennan
10:01Thompson, Isaiah Bond, Xavier Worthy, and Matthew Golden. Uh that that sounds more like a relay racing Olympic team than it does a football team. But
10:09finally, he goes to Mississippi State and absolutely dominates the first time that he's asked to be a real wide receiver. He generates 57 receptions and
10:18over 1,000 receiving yards and six touchdowns. No one else on the team had more than 831 yards. And after that, I
10:25mean, the whole team threw for only 3,100 yards. So, he had a 30% share of the offense.
10:31He goes to the Los Angeles Chargers who kind of desperately need a deep threat.
10:35If you look at the guys they have on their roster, Trey Harris, not a deep threat, not fast enough, not athletic
10:40enough. QJ is more the YAC guy and LAD is the underneath low A.D.A.T. operator.
10:46Now, is Brennan Thompson going to be able to generate and earn enough snaps off the jump to be super useful for
10:52fantasy football? Probably not, right?
10:54If if we're going to be realistic and level-headed about this. However, with one injury ahead or maybe Kellen Moore and Daniel are just
11:01trying to find something. McDaniel has always been about speed. He's always prioritized fast boundary wide receivers. Thompson is far and away the
11:09fastest guy basically on the Los Angeles Chargers. Ran the fastest 40 of any wide receiver at the combine this year. I
11:16think that Thompson is probably a guy you don't have to draft, but I want you to lock that name away in the back of
11:22your head because when we start to see his routes trend up, like week one, maybe he's a healthy scratch. And then
11:27week three, he runs 10 routes. And then, oh my gosh, we're looking at the box scores week seven. He just ran, you
11:33know, 34% of the Chargers routes. That's when I want to start thinking about him being a guy that in the Death Star
11:39version of the Chargers offense where Herbert is just absolutely rolling, the offensive line is healthy, Amari Rodgers Hampton is grinding these defenses down.
11:47I think that Brenden Thompson ahead of Trey Harris is actually a part of that Death Star offense. Now, we're going to
11:53go back to the running back position and we're going to go to one Mr. Taj Brooks.
11:59Who basically doesn't exist, right? I mean, at this stage he basically doesn't exist for the Cincinnati Bengals, but I look at their backfield and I go, "Okay,
12:07you've got 32-year-old Samaje Perine who did have a very good season last year, but missed time with injury." And they have Chase Brown who is a day three pick
12:15who's like pretty good. You know, he's very good running back for them, but not someone who is going to like change your
12:20franchise.
12:21Were Chase Brown to be injured, do I think that Samaje Perine can handle 18 touches in a game? I'm pretty unsure.
12:27Now, we have a long history of the Bengals doing this with their third string running backs. Do you guys remember Chris Evans?
12:34Yeah, I remember Chris Evans. I remember the Chris Evans debates. And Taj Brooks has basically been Chris Evans for them because he has been on the Cincinnati
12:41Bengals. He did not get a chance to play at all last year, even when other guys were injured. Maxed out at 16% of snaps
12:49in a game, never really got the ball, was never really involved. But again, very similar to the DJ Gillins situation, I can see Taj Brooks earning
12:56himself a larger role just with a greater understanding of the offense, more time to think about what it means to be a professional football player, a
13:04very productive player at Texas Tech, high RAS, you know, very strong rushing yards per game, contributed in the passing game when he was at Texas Tech
13:11as well. He is going completely undrafted. I mean, I would imagine if you guys any of you guys are dynasty players, you could be in the deepest
13:18dynasty league imaginable and no one even cares about Taj Brooks in any way, shape, or form. But I'm keeping my eyes
13:26out for him because looking at the way the backfield for the Bengals is set up, it's hard for me to imagine Samaje
13:31Perine at his age just being a super safe bet for production that is going to make the Bengals happy and might allow
13:38Taj Brooks to start to get some playing time.
13:41Next up, we are going to transition to the tight end position and we are going to go to Oscar Delp who was not very
13:47productive again at the University of Georgia. This is another one where I'm going to kind of transfer things over to the ball knowers, the film watchers, the
13:55scouts and these people absolutely loved Oscar Delp who only had 854 receiving yards and nine touchdowns in college.
14:03But now I'm starting to get my wind torched on. Why would he be drafted where he was drafted 73rd overall by the
14:10New Orleans Saints if everyone is talking about the revolution of 12 personnel, 13 personnel, every team is going to play two tight ends? Well,
14:18Juwan Johnson is a converted receiver, Noah Fant is on like his 19th team and was not able to contribute for anyone. I
14:25mean, the guy was on the Cincinnati Bengals and did absolutely nothing. I think that the New Orleans Saints have a plan for Oscar Delp and it would not
14:32surprise me if he had a very similar rookie season to what D'Wayne Johnson did where immediately off the jump, no one thought he was going to contribute.
14:40He was playing 40% of the snaps right away. I'm also a believer in Kellen Moore. I'm also a believer in Tyler
14:46Shough and Oscar Delp, I mean, this is actually crazy. These were the tight ends that he played with in college.
14:52Darnell Washington, Brock Bowers.
14:56Not really that hard for me to imagine why he was not able to get playing time over Darnell Washington and Brock
15:01Bowers, right? And also, I mean, just to go further on that, this is also a team that is just a running team that does
15:08not really like to throw the ball at all. You know, when Ladd McConkey is there, sure they're happy to do it, but
15:12when their wide receivers are Oscar Delp and Arian Smith, maybe not. This is basically a structural bet on the offense and kind of a bet against Juwan
15:21Johnson fitting the modern meta of the NFL. You know, I'm not sure if he is a good enough run blocker to be used as an
15:27every down player. And if Delp plays to what all the scouts tell me he is, that there's a lot more to his game,
15:35that he is a pretty strong pass-catcher.
15:37I actually think there is a chance that he could be like every year in fantasy football, there's a tight there's a
15:42tight end who scores eight touchdowns who no one's ever heard of. I mean, I think there are many examples of this.
15:46One of my favorite examples was Colby Parkinson from last year. basically a career right tackle. Uh and actually Will Dissly on the Seahawks before that.
15:54There's kind of always someone who's so good at blocking that they get used in these personnel formations. And I think Oscar Delp is a great nominee for that
16:02this year. If you don't like the flavor of Oscar Delp, how about my guy Eli Raridon, who is liked even more by
16:09scouts. He suffered some injuries when he was at Notre Dame, which really kept him from ever being uh a true breakout
16:15player. The scouts, the people that I like out there, they liked Eli Raridon even more than Oscar Delp. He gets drafted by a team
16:22who kind of revolutionized 12 personnel, the New England Patriots. Even more in his favor, the team signed Julian Hill to a pretty lucrative contract to
16:31potentially be their second tight end.
16:33He tore his ACL in organized team activities. He's gone. He's out for the year. Eli Raridon is already drawing rave reviews despite the fact that I
16:40mean, this is crazy. 623 yards and three touchdowns in college, yet analysts that I really like and respect, I mean, my my
16:48favorite profile on this guy was done by my friend Hayden Winks from Underdog Fantasy, had him as his tight end two in
16:55this overall class, which I think speaks to just how good of a blocker he is, and how good the film on him is. It's also
17:01an elite landing spot where Hunter Henry is on the I mean, conservatively, the back nine of his career. It's an elite
17:08passing offense. It's an elite running offense that doesn't really have a third wide receiver who demands to be on the field. I think that we could again, very
17:16similar to Gunner Helm, I think we could see Eli Raridon off the jump after being drafted in the third round of the NFL
17:22draft be a like just a legitimate starter. Like we go to go check the advanced data in week one and we go,
17:28"Oh, Eli Raridon ran the fourth most routes or played the fourth most snaps of any pass catcher on the New England
17:34Patriots."
17:35When I talk about deep sleepers, I'm telling you no one else out there is doing the Delp and Raridon thing on
17:43you know, any kind of deep sleeper list.
17:45And then we are going to go to the absolute deepest sleeper match mold. I mean this is just catnip for fantasy
17:51football players like me, but we are going to go to one Mr. Eli Heidenreich who is a converted wide receiver running
17:57back from Army. I mean this guy or sorry, Navy rather. Heidenreich is one of the most interesting prospects I've ever done. So when I was building a
18:06prospect model this off season, it had a very hard time with Mr. Heidenreich. Basically says this guy is like the eighth greatest
18:14running back prospect of all time. 9.25 RAS, he generated 1,100 rushing yards and 100 on 169 rush attempts in Navy. He
18:24also generated a completely absurd 18.5 yards per reception in college while generating 109 receptions. That doesn't sound like very much. However, we go
18:34look at the 2025 Navy team. Look at this. 941 receiving yards. The team threw for 1,690 yards overall. That kind of offensive
18:46dominance is very hard for a computer to make sense of. Now do I think Heidenreich is that good of a receiver?
18:51Do I think he is that good of a running back? You know, I No. I conservatively I don't. However, I do think there is real signal there for
18:59any guy who is that dominant in a given situation. This has always been an argument that I've made for smaller school guys. Some of them have worked.
19:07David Johnson I think is a great example of a of a kind of receiving based prospect from a smaller school who came
19:13to the NFL and absolutely smashed. Now, there's been an absolute litany of these guys who have been huge, huge misses in
19:19fantasy football. So, don't get me wrong on that one. But, Hinden Reich landed for a team that I think can actually use
19:25his skill set because Aaron Rodgers absolutely peppered Kenny Gainwell with short area targets last year. I think that Hinden Reich will be one of those
19:33rare guys, you know, every year in the off season we get this where teams will say, "Oh, we're going to play this
19:38running back in the slot. to put the running backs on the field together." I don't see any reason why that would not
19:44be true for Eli Hinden Reich. And when these guys are that when these guys are able to actually do that, I think they
19:51can be kind of useful and that could scale Hinden Reich from being kind of a designer, you know, 10 snaps per game
19:57style guy where if there's one injury ahead of them, if the injury is to Michael Pittman Jr., if the injury is to
20:03Rico Dowdle or Jaylen Warren, this could be this year's Jaylen Warren or Kenny Gainwell. I I see absolutely no reason why he couldn't be.
20:12So, that is a look at the basically deepest sleeper list imaginable in fantasy football. If there's anyone I missed, please comment down below. Or if
20:20you actually like any of these guys are going to draft them in your league, please comment down below and let me
20:25know. If you want to get more of my analysis, I mean, first off, you should be subscribing to this channel. And
20:30second off, please subscribe to my content over on flockfantasy.com. It supports me, supports the channel. It's going to help you win your league. We've
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