2021 Fantasy Football: Post-Hype Sleepers
Stats and metrics referenced in this article can be found at PlayerProfiler.com.
We’re in the part of the fantasy football cycle where players are getting hyped up all over the place. Everyone has their favorite sleeper. Everyone has their favorite breakout. And everyone swears they know just who the next big thing will be. But lost in all the noise are the breakout studs of yesteryear. The guys we all swore would breakout in seasons past. These are the guys who are being shoved down draft boards as fantasy gamers drool over the hot young studs. We call these forgotten souls “post-hype sleepers.” They may have burned us in the past. The heartache may even still be fresh. But sometimes it’s okay to go running back to an old fling to see if you can capture the magic one last time.
Tyler Higbee, TE, Rams
Tyler Higbee was pumped up in 2020 drafts coming off a strong finish to the 2019 season. In four games without fellow Rams tight end Gerald Everett, Higbee went off. He averaged 22 fantasy points per game, 8.5 receptions, 11 targets, and 104.5 receiving yards. It was a monster run that propelled him to a TE8 finish on the year. But for those of us who actually take a closer look at the data, it was obvious Higbee would not be able to replicate his 2019 performance. His splits with Everett in the lineup were shocking when compared to his four games without him. As it turns out, those who didn’t buy the hype were right.
But what is different now that makes him a guy to target in 2021? Firstly, Everett is gone. That launches Higbee up to the TE1 spot all by himself. That’s a great start. Secondly, the Rams made a massive upgrade at quarterback with the addition if Matthew Stafford. Stafford will take the Rams offense to the next level and unlock elements of the Sean McVay offense that we have yet to see. A better offense will only be good for Higbee. The offense will undoubtedly make more trips to the red zone, where a guy of Higbee’s size and ability will thrive. He is going at a much more reasonable cost than he was at this time last year, so if you miss out on Kittle, Kelce, and Waller, Higbee is a good option.
Parris Campbell, WR, Colts
We were excited about Parris Campbell in 2019, then he got injured. We were excited about him again in 2020, and then he got injured again. But the train hasn’t quite fallen off the tracks yet, and we’re gonna go around the bend one more time. Campbell has played in just nine games since the Colts took him in the second round two years ago.
Injuries have prevented the breakout, but he showed some positive signs in Week 1 last year. In that game, Campbell saw a career-high nine targets (19.5-percent Target Share) while running a career-high 28 routes. He was on the field for 83.8-percent of the snaps. He converted for 71 yards on six receptions and finished the week as the WR27. All the signs were pointing to the breakout we expected to see when he came out of Ohio State. At OSU, Campbell was highly productive from an early age. His 18.1 Breakout Age is in the 100th-percentile. With 90 catches for 1,063 yards and 12 touchdowns as a senior, Campbell was the first OSU wide receiver to eclipse 1,000 receiving yards in a single season-since 2002. He’s a freak athletically, with 4.31 (100th-percentile) speed, a 117.2 (97th-percentile) Speed Score, and a 135.5 (97th-percentile) Burst Score.
Campbell will operate primarily from the slot and could leapfrog the aging T.Y. Hilton in the pecking order for targets. At still just 24 years old, Campbell is again poised for a breakout season. If injury luck is on his side, he may just lead the Colts in targets.
Denzel Mims, WR, Jets
Do you know who Denzel Mims’ best comparable player is on Player Profiler? It’s Chris Godwin. If Mims’ breakout is half as good as Godwin’s, then he’s a hit. At 6-3, 207-pounds, Mims has everything we want in a potential alpha wide receiver. He has 4.38 speed with a 115.6 Speed Score (96th-percentile) and an explosive 131.0 Burst Score (90th-percentile).
Injuries plagued much of Mims’ first season after the Jets drafted him in the second round. But when he was healthy, Mims gave us a peak at what’s to come. He was on the field a ton in the games he played, taking at least 90-percent of the offensive snaps in seven of nine outings. He topped 100 Air Yards in three-straight games from Week 9-12. Most of those went unrealized, thanks to a bottom of the league 57.8-percent (No. 107) Catchable Target Rate (PlayerProfiler). That should no longer be a problem with second overall pick Zach Wilson now under center.
The opportunity will be there to succeed as the Jets don’t exactly present the most difficult wide receiver depth chart to overcome. His biggest threat on the outside is Corey Davis who just finally broke out last season if we can even qualify his 2020 campaign a true breakout. Jamison Crowder is still there but he just took a massive pay cut to avoid being released. And the team added Elijah Moore but he’s a rookie. Everything lines up for Mims to take that big second-year leap.
Tre’Quan Smith, WR, Saints
It’s assumed that it’s going to be Jameis Winston taking most of the QB snaps in New Orleans. While that may have Saints fans feeling a bit uneasy, it’s exciting for us fantasy gamers who expect to roster New Orleans pass-catchers in 2021. For fantasy purposes, Winston is actually an upgrade from what we got from Drew Brees over the last two years. As we saw in his Tampa Bay days, Winston is much more comfortable (and capable) chucking the ball down the field compared to noodle-arm Brees. Winston has averaged 7.7 yards per attempt for his career, with a 4.7-percent touchdown rate (No.12 among active quarterbacks) (CBS).
As the Bucs starter in 2019, Winston threw for 5,109 yards and had a 10.5 Air Yards Per Attempt average. Both numbers were league-highs. In comparison, Brees averaged 6.8 Air Yards Per Attempt in 2019 and 5.9 (No.39 among all qualifying QBs) in 2020. He attempted a career-low 18 Deep Ball Attempts (No. 38), averaging a league-bottom 1.5 per game. (PlayerProfiler) We saw what Winston can do for wide receivers back in 2019 when both Mike Evans (No.5) and Chris Godwin (No.2) finished as top-five receivers in fantasy points per game. Even Breshad Perriman had two top-three scoring weeks at the end of that year.
Because of this, we’re taking one last shot on Tre’Quan Smith this year. Smith showed a lot of promise as a rookie with two top-five scoring weeks. We liked him coming out of UCF where he had an 86th-percentile Breakout Age and a 62nd-percentile College Dominator. At 6-2, 210-pounds, Smith ran a 4.49 40-yard dash. His Speed Score and Burst Score are both above the 81st-percentile. Defenses respected his ability to get deep in 2020, giving him an average of 4.35 yards of cushion which was top-10 among all wideouts. The competition for targets is minimal with just Michael Thomas and Alvin Kamara as established options in the passing game.
Bryan Edwards, WR, Raiders
Bryan Edwards opened up his rookie season as a starting member of the Raiders receiving corps. He played 75.4-percent of the offensive snaps in Week 1 and 61.6-percent in Week 2. However, he succumbed to injuries, missing Weeks 4 through 9. When he returned in Week 10, he was clearly playing at less than 100-percent and had fallen behind in the offense after having missed so much time. Coming out of South Carolina, Edwards checked a ton of the boxes that we look for when trying to find the next stud wide receivers.
He was a dominant producer at the college level with a 94th-percentile College Dominator Rating and 29.1-percent College Target Share (88th-percentile) even while playing alongside future NFL receivers Deebo Samuel and Shi Smith. Edwards did it from an early age, as indicated by his unbelievable 17.8 (100th-percentile) Breakout Age (PlayerProfiler). He stands at 6-3, 212-pounds and proved to be a dangerous weapon after the catch and in the return game at South Carolina. Had it not been for a foot injury during the draft process, Edwards would have come off the board earlier than he ultimately did in the mid-third round.
The opportunity is there for Edwards to take on the WR1 role in Las Vegas. Nelson Agholor is out of town, leaving behind 82 vacated targets. The only other competition on the depth chart is undersized field-stretchers John Brown and Henry Ruggs, with little Hunter Renfrow in the slot. Edwards is the only one who can step up as an alpha and command a significant target share behind tight end Darren Waller. There’s an excellent chance he is second on the team in targets.
