RADIO
It's time to dig deep. In fact, it's time to dig deeper. Everybody knows who is a top-tier fantasy asset. Everybody has a clear picture of who to target in the mid-rounds of their drafts. That is why you need to study the full roster of available players and look for low-valued bargains with huge upside. And this is what we're here for.
Think for a minute that you're part of a way larger league than an eight or 10-team one. In that case, you'd find yourself desperate to find value wherever you can. You'd need to study the deepest of depth charts and the third or fourth-string receivers in order to get a good return on investment. Using PPR-format scoring as a baseline, and ADP data from hundreds of MyFantasyLeague.com fantasy drafts, I have built a dataset to try and find very deep WRs that can be obtained really late in drafts or even for free after the draft is finished.
Here is a look at four receivers that can be considered deep sleepers. Keep an eye on them and track their presence on the draft board as they can become interesting pieces down the road during the 2020 season!
Editor's Note: Our incredible team of writers won two writing awards and received 12 award nominations by the Fantasy Sports Writers Association. A big congrats to our very own Byron Lindeque (Golf) and Jordan McAbee (NASCAR) for both winning Writer Of The Year awards! Be sure to follow RotoBaller's analysis and advice all year long, and win more. Win More With RotoBaller!
Allen Lazard, Green Bay Packers
ADP: 202.0
While Lazard doesn't have the deepest of ADPs, he's still going undrafted in most fantasy leagues at an average 202nd pick. You tell me how that makes any sense. If you have paid minimal attention to this NFL offseason, then you know Green Bay's brass has done everything to piss Aaron Rodgers off and have added no weapons for him to use on offense. With the same players on the offensive side, the Packers will mostly rely on their backfield and WR Davante Adams. After that, things get pretty thin. Enter the WR2 of Green Bay, Allen Lazard.
After a season in which he racked up just over 100 PPR while having three games of 16.5+ PPR points, Lazard is poised to be the No. 2 receiving option on his team in 2020. Last year, Lazard overperformed his expected fantasy points by an average of 1.8 FPOE/G from Weeks 6 to 17 (the games when he was actually used, playing at least 25 snaps), which ranked 40th in the NFL. All things considered, he would have finished 2019 with around 136 PPR points had he been used similarly all year long.
For 2020, PFF projects Lazard to finish the year with 120.4 PPR points (589 yards on 45 receptions with 3 TDs). The most important thing here, though, is the role Lazard will play. He's one of only three receivers (the others being Dede Westbrook and Steven Sims) projected to finish as the second most-targeted player on his team. Lazard is expected to get a great 13.8% target share. He's being drafted as the WR74 yet he is projected to finish the season with more fantasy points than 11 other WRs getting drafted before him by ADP.
Steven Sims Jr., Washington Redskins
ADP: 255.1
First of all, and related to the image above, Sims might not be on your radar at all. He went undrafted in 2019 and only logged more than 10 snaps in seven games (six of them from Week 12 on). As you see, I have superimposed (light semitransparent grey) the number of snaps he was part of over his PRR outcomes over last season games. It is easy to see how 10+ snaps (almost) always meant 6+ PPR points for Sims, and how he had four games over 14 PPR points.
Sims closed the season with three 15.5+ PPR games, making him the seventh-highest scorer in that span among WRs. He averaged 19.7 PPG in those three games while logging at least 37 snaps in each of them, topping out at 53 in Week 16. Washington is far from a loaded team and is still taking its first rebuilding steps. The Redskins corps now feature stud Terry McLaurin along with rookies Antonio Gandy-Golden and Antonio Gibson, but the latter of the two shouldn't pose that much of a threat for Sims if his true level is similar to the last we saw from him.
All of those other three Washington wideouts have higher ADPs than Sims, the cheapest among them and WR93 by ADP. None of the other three are projected to return positive ROI, while Sims, at his current price, sure is. PFF projects Sims to 121.8 PPR points in 2020 (Gibson is at 93.2 and Gandy-Golden at 25.6), so you do the math. If that PPR projection holds, Sims would finish the season as the WR63, making him something of a WR5 in 12-team leagues. Even the slightest of overperformances would boost his outcomes to a surefire FLEX play in most leagues. You can't get many more bargains like this one.
Mohamed Sanu Sr., New England Patriots
ADP: 293.8
At this point in Sanu's career, I don't think he'll ever drop the divisive love me/hate me narrative before he retires. Some fantasy GMs love his reliability and low volatility, while others hate him precisely for that, as he seems to never have booming performances no matter what. As you can see in the image above, even in 2018 while playing all year long for Atlanta, Sanu only had two WR1 performances over 20 PPR points and while he was almost always on the 10-to-17 PPR clip he never truly exploded for more than WR3-level games.
After he was traded to New England mid-season in 2019 his outcomes plummeted. Truth be told, Sanu was more than a bit banged up and in fact, he underwent surgery this past March. He is expected to be back on the field by the start of the 2020 season, though. While Sanu is far from a top-tier receiver these days, his ADP and upside in an offense in which he would at the very least be the No. 3 option should make him appealing if only for a FLEX spot. Tom Brady is gone, but with either "rookie" Jarrett Stidham or newly-signed Cam Newton manning the team I'd guess Sanu could turn into a safe option to throw passes to next year.
Looking at PPF projections, that's in fact the perception. Sanu projects to get 70 targets and catch 46 passes for 505 yards and two TDs in 2020. Those 70 targets are the most by any WR with an ADP over Sanu's with the exception of Amendola (76). Sanu has one of the highest potential ROIs for 2020 as his ADP of WR108 doesn't correlate at all with his WR73 expected year-end rank (113.5 PPR).
Danny Amendola, Detroit Lions
ADP: 299.0
Matthew Stafford was the Lions' starter last season for eight games before being shut down for the year prior to Week 10. In those eight games, Amendola racked up 74.6 PPR points and averaged 10.7, including three performances with more than 17 PPR. Entering 2020, Amendola is a veteran playing in a contract year once more after re-signing with Detroit this summer. For someone his age you might think he'll be all about regression, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Amendola has strung together three seasons of at least 127.4 PPR points while averaging at least 8.5 PPG. Last year marked his best season ever in terms of yardage (678) and his third-best in receptions (62), with an average of 10.9 Y/R that rank second-best in his career stat lines.
Stafford should be back in full force next year, so Amendola shouldn't be expected to endure another replacement-level quarterbacking stint in 2020. That should bode well for him, and although Detroit has two stud receivers in Kenny Golladay and Marvin Jones Jr. (both projected to command at least 108 targets each), Amendola should be the third wideout in the pecking order once more projecting to get 76 targets and a 14.2% target share.
The fact that Amendola is getting drafted as the WR113 is a little mind-blowing, as he is projected to finish 2020 as the WR65 and 155th-best player overall. Yes, those aren't great numbers out of context, but all things considered, his near-300 ADP gives Amendola one of the highest ROIs in the league and the best among wideouts getting drafted outside of the top 150 (followed by Adam Humphries with a 306.9 ADP, and DeSean Jackson's 235.3).
