Fantasy Football Sleepers by Week and Season

2009 fantasy football drafts are ripe with sleeper picks.  The RB list is deeper than ever, causing many breakout candidates to go unnoticed until the double digit rounds.  There are gifted and enticing rookies that could have the Chris Johnson, Matt Forte, or Eddie Royal type impact.  As always, there are also plenty of veterans on new teams or in new systems that could flourish in their altered surroundings.  We’ll list some of the top ones here with brief descriptions and then later add more detailed posts about the best ones.

Julius Jones - Jones may be the best value in drafts right now.  Jim Mora and OC Greg Knapp know how to build a running game.  Many thought the Seahawks would address RB in the draft or in free agency, but they didn’t.  They must like what they have in Julius Jones and TJ Duckett.  Duckett has been an effective runner for Knapp before, but it remains to be seen how much of the load the big guy can still carry.  Jones could get 70% of the workload here, which would make him a lock to pass 1000 total yards.  If he can squeeze in 4-7 TDs he’ll be one of the best RB3’s in the league, but you can get him in the 9th -11th rounds at the price of an RB4.

Derrick Ward - Ward’s current ADP of 65 is just silly.  Tampa’s power running game will be a perfect fit for the Giants transfer.  Graham will be a factor at the goal line and will be used to spell Ward, but consider Ward a feature back.  There are no real holes in his game.  He should receive around 70% of the carries and almost all of the passes out of the backfield.  He will even have some goal line carries with Graham plowing through as his lead blocker.  His TD upside is around 10, and I think 5 is a worst case scenario.  Ward has Top RB2 upside but is being drafted in the fifth round.  If you find yourself going RB, WR, WR in your first three rounds, confidently grab Ward in the fourth, especially in PPR leagues.

Pierre Thomas - How can someone who finished the 2008 season so strongly be so unheralded going into 2009?  McAllister is out and Bush is clearly not a load carrier.  Thomas is going to have a lot of time in the backfield when Bush is lined up at receiver or on the sidelines nursing his knee.  PT Cruiser can catch out of the backfield, plow the short yards, and break the long run.  With Brees spreading the field expect to see all three of those regularly.  The latest news is that he’s bulked up in the offseason and Peyton has expressed confidence in him as the main ball carrier.  If you go crazy and extrapolate his late 2008 stats then he is easily a top 5 back in 2009.  Realistically I would be targeting him as an RB2 in the late second round, but at this point in mock drafts you can get him in the third or fourth.  If someone is able to go RB, WR, WR, RB and pick up Thomas as his second RB then I’ll go ahead and call him the frontrunner in his league.  Pierre’s upside is tremendous in that offense.  I expect his ADP to climb significantly as we get closer to the regular season, unfortunately.

Larry Johnson - I just participated in an early draft done entirely through Twitter and Larry Johnson went in the 7th round, pick 77 overall.  Just a few years ago this guy was dominating fantasy football.  Injuries and general Asshole-ishness have cost him a lot of opportunities, but he’s still an incredible talent.  Haley can talk a big game about not caring about LJ, but in the end he needs to put his best team on the field.  Haley has the weapons he needs to produce a little bit of offense, and LJ could be the biggest beneficiary.  This is especially true now that Red Zone Hawk Tony Gonzalez is out of the picture.  Look for LJ to find the end zone early and often this season.  He should rise into the RB2 ranks, but you can easily snatch him up as an RB3.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 4th, 2009 at 12:40 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.