Early sleepers before free agency and the NFL Draft
It's always fun to be on social media when a big trade goes down in the NFL, and Twitter was no exception when the Russell Wilson trade was announced. From hilarious memes of Tom Hanks in the cast of Seahawks to dozens of <Jerry Judy post-fire emojis> tweets, everyone had something to say.
Before we even had the details, there was a lot of excitement for Noah Feint as well. Then we learned that Fant was headed to Seattle as part of the deal. And, immediately, it was Albert Okuegbunam's season.
The 23-year-old Bronco went from a backup substitute to the No. 1 tight end for the future Hall of Famer catching passes from Teddy Bridgewater and Drew Locke. He has an excellent size/speed combination when he is healthy and can catch 80% of his targets despite playing a spotty quarterback. He immediately surpassed Fant in my tight end estimations.
I think it's a good time to define how I qualify sleepers, for a very early version like this. Since there isn't a very reliable ADP at the moment, I'm using the current Fantasy Professionals Expert Consensus Ranking. I bring this up because Okwuegbunam is currently TE37 there. I don't know for sure where he'll be when everyone updates their rankings, but he's in the TE12 range for me. It is possible that I am calling that a breakout in June and then, if ADP gets out of control, a bust by August. read more