Late round LBS to help you win your redraft league this year
The word sleeper shouldn't really apply to anyone at this level of playing NFL fantasy football. It implies that it's a player many of your leaguemates have never heard of who panned out to be fantasy relative and if you are in a league where that applies you suck. By this stage in the game you are playing Dynasty, you are playing large roster IDP leagues and you know the names. Scratch ticket luck leagues no longer interest you. Rarely does a player come out of the blue who surprises you and makes you say "who the hell is this?". Enter the Late Round Target. These are guys people are aware of, but might not know they can provide good production at a very very low draft cost. Which, after all, is what redraft is all about. Drafting the best players and manipulating the draft cost of the players you take is how you win in these leagues. So, without further adieu (adieu? Who the fuck wants to hear French shit), I give you my late round targets for 2016 redraft.
Avery Williamson
If this article was written prior to the 2015 season, I would have touted Avery as the premier break out late round linebacker. Everything fell in to place. He was to be handed the green dot, his team is awful, and his competition was not great. As we all should know by now, when you're playing lb on a defense that is bad instead of good, teams can run all day in the 4th quarter, and just grind out the game. There's your boy racking up tackles and winning you weeks. Williamson was in absolute dream territory, and I licked my lips as I drafted him. I thought he'd play in 90+ % of snaps(another thing to look for when drafting), a mark he actually almost hit.
Sadly, as the weeks went on, the opportunity remained, but the points had yet to come. Putting up average to below average points week after week, he rode my bench as I continued to roster him in disgust. Then, the light finally flashed. Starting with a huge week in a 27-10 loss to Carolina, Avery showed us glimpses of what he could do with an 11 solo, 3 assist week. Posting a dud the following week vs Jacksonville did not help his case, but he came roaring back with an 11 tackle (8,3) performance which included a sack. Ending his year he came ever so close to our goal of 10 tackles per game time and time again. Basically, what Avery Williamson provides is the possibility of Lb1 production, for late late round draft cost. If you reach the rounds where players are just grabbing at garbage or backups and you see this Titan still there, feel free to draft him for his lottery ticket potential. If he pans out? You got yourself top production for cheap cost, if he turns out mediocre, you got yourself a lb3 or bye week filler for free.
Deion Jones
There's really no way to hide the fact that the Atlanta Falcons defense was terrible. None. Enter Dan Quinn from Seattle, who surely saw in early training camp that the talent level on his new team paled in comparison to his hard hitters in Seattle. Well this year in the draft he sought out to fix that taking the nail driving Keanu Neal to be his new Kam Chancellor, and snagging the speedy Deion Jones to be his new Bobby Wagner. We are here to discuss the latter of the two. Unlike most other positions, rookie linebackers are set up wonderfully to produce. We only have to remember back to the rookie seasons of Kiko Alonso, CJ Mosley and countless others recently to see how huge of an effect these newcomers can have in fantasy. Well, this strategy took a bit of a rough tumble last year with top 'backers in Stephone Anthony, Erik Kendricks and company failing to produce a top of the line Lb1 amongst the group. Use the tendencies of your draftmates to only remember the recent past, and feel free to grab Deion Jones while your opponents are afraid of giving the rookie a try on their squad.
Jones will start immediately in Quinn's defense over the extremely untalented Paul Worrilow. A starting lb that can be had in the later rounds is an absolute dream target, and that's exactly what Jones will be. The earlier your draft is, the better when it comes to players like Jones. Atlanta will say all the right things in training camp about competition and whatnot, but do not let coach speak fool you the way it could fool your leaguemates, Jones is in, Worrilow is out and should be avoided at all costs. if you draft before week 3 in preseason, Jones should be near unfindable in your draft window, exactly where you want him.
Denzel Perryman
Denzel Perryman has the golden ticket to fantasy stardom. Rarely has a rookie produced at such a high rate when given the chance, scoring more points per snap than any other lb in the league in 2015. How can such a player be had so cheap? Easy. He did it quietly. Perryman started off 2015 with an injury that slowed the start of his career. Missing games and seeing snaps as often as you saw pussy in high school, DP quietly went about his career until the second half of the year. Once fully healed and given the starting job he racked up top rookie fantasy numbers, but was hidden on a terrible team. There were no highlights from the Chargers games on television, no one raving about the plays. Enter Perryman, a textbook tackler who was taught tackling at a young age to hit with perfect form. Remember how Tiger was coached at a young age to golf? Denzel was coached at a young age to hit people and wrap them up properly. He never allows his target to break the free and always makes sure his man ends up on the ground. His fantasy numbers extrapolated for snaps would have had him end the season as the Lb1 in our scoring system, an incredible feat considering the talent at the position today.
Working against him is the ever popular sophomore slump as well as team improvement. We all know the Chargers were awful in 2015, and easily fell behind in games. Middle linebackers clean up in these situations and, despite not making too many improvements this offseason, its hard to imagine San Diego playing that poorly again. Lastly, it's pretty tough to believe that anyone could keep up such an incredible pace as DP easily led the field in getting points per opportunity. But even with all this said and a regression from such a high level of play expected, if he plays at even 85% of the level he did last year with full time stats, he will put up top lb numbers this year. Stay quiet about him to your opponents and come draft time, snag him in the later rounds and reap the rewards.
All of these linebackers are currently being drafted around lb 35-41 territory. Use those numbers and based on your leagues size and you can guess which round you can draft them in and go in with the knowledge that you can get lb1-2 play for lb3-flex prices. Spend your draft capital elsewhere and load up your team elsewhere resting in the comfort that you can get guys later on in the draft that can produce at a high level for you.
Honorable mentions and quick blurbs
While Kuechly steals most of the thunder in Carolina, it's batterymate Tommy Davis that can be had at a much better price. Despite his name being not nearly as sexy, Davis ended up as the lb10 in my league, and unless your scoring system sucks, he should have been in lb1 territory for you too. Feel free to give a few second year guys in Stephone Anthony, Erik Kendricks and Ryan Shazier a look see if they fall, as well as converted db's Deonne Buchannon and Mark Barron as your league mates may not be aware of their effectiveness at the lb position. A lotta rankings slaves are out there and, depending on what site you are drafting on, guys like Buchannon and Barron might be buried in the lb rankings despite both landing in the top 20 of most leagues.
Do yourselves a favor and do mock drafts in your leagues format and look for these players. Where are they on the list of "next best available player" at their position and note the ones that are buried. When the later rounds come and your opponent blindly takes the next highest ranked lb, happily scroll down and find one of these gems knowing you're grabbing a potential lb1 for free.
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