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Everyone wants breakouts on their team to start the Fantasy season, and some breakout picks are easy. You saw more of those in my earlier pieces this summer: Jimmy Garoppolo, Dalvin Cook, JuJu Smith-Schuster, Trey Burton. Everybody loves those guys.
But the best breakouts are the ones who do it without getting all the buzz before the season. Especially if their ADP is suffering in August because of negative news.
None of the breakouts on the list below are without question. There are playing time issues, suspensions, busts from last year, and injury concerns. But don't let that discourage you. It's just going to make it taste that much sweeter when they break out and win you your league.
I know if you look at the full season statistics from Jameis Winston from 2017 they aren't impressive. And I know he's going to miss the first three games of the season due to a suspension. But we've got reason to believe he could be a top-5 quarterback when he returns.
In the 11 games Winston started and finished in 2017, he averaged 307 passing yards per game. He was on pace for 27 touchdown passes. Kirk Cousins finished as the No. 5 quarterback with 4,100 yards and 27 touchdowns. This helps highlight the truth that Winston had his most efficient year as a passer in 2017, averaging 7.9 Y/A with a career-low 2.5 percent interception rate.
In 2018 there's reason to believe he'll continue his climb. Chris Godwin has mad huge strides as the team's No. 2 receiver and Winston will have both Cameron Brate and O.J. Howard back. Those weapons, in addition to star wide receiver Mike Evans, give him one of the most complete supporting casts in the league.
You're getting a 24-year-old quarterback with top-5 upside and a surplus of weapons in the final round of the draft. Don't pass that up.
I've heard plenty about the snaps Frank Gore is going to take away from Kenyan Drake and I'm not sure I could care any less. Drake looked like a star after the team traded Jay Ajayi and he's flashed several times this preseason already. All running backs have to share some percentage of the load, but I can't imagine Adam Gase is going to regularly take his best offensive player off the field.
So just how good could Drake be? His 16-game pace from the time he took over for Ayaji was 1,512 total yards and seven touchdowns. Before you tell me he can't reach that mark with Gore there, know that Drake was only on pace for 219 carries. He doesn't need 90 percent of the team's carries to be a top-12 back; if he gets 60 percent he'll be a star in Fantasy this year.
I understand why Fantasy players are having a hard time accepting Alex Collins as a feature back. It took John Harbaugh longer than it should have, too. But the Ravens have accepted that Colllins is in fact a good running back, and it's time for Fantasy players to do the same. He has a similar upside as Drake, but an even safer floor because the competition is either injury-prone (Kenneth Dixon) or just not very exciting (Javorius Allen).
I have little doubt about Collins delivering at his ADP, but the way he takes things to a whole new level is if he's used in the passing game. The Ravens experimented with that in the second half of 2017, giving Collins 31 targets in that stretch. He caught 20 of them for 154 yards. If he adds 300 yards receiving to the 1,100 yards rushing I expect, he could push his way into the top 10 running backs.
It's going to be really interesting to see how the Titans deploy Derrick Henry and Dion Lewis on a week-to-week basis. But there are a couple of things i feel pretty confident in. Henry will get at least 50 percent of the rush attempts and he'll get a large majority of the carries inside the five. Even with just those two roles I'd expect a borderline top-25 season, but that's not getting into his upside.
Last year was the first time in his career Lewis made it through a 16-game season and the first time he touched the ball even 100 times. If he goes down for any stretch, Henry becomes a borderline No. 1 running back. I don't want to predict that, but I do think Lewis' history makes it more likely they lean on Henry in the running game and Lewis gets mostly third-down and change-of-pace duty. Expect 1,100 yards and eight touchdowns from Henry, with even more upside.
Jamaal Williams may be the sneakiest running back on this list, at least according to ADP. Williams is the 30th running back off the board on Draft Day with an overall ADP of 89. That's interesting considering he's the starting running back for a team with Aaron Rodgers at quarterback. It's absurd when you consider his compettition for touches.
Ty Montgomery and Aaron Jones both have things they do better than Williams but neither has been fully healthy during the preseason and Jones will miss the first two games of the year due to a suspension on top of that. I had already accepted that Williams would cross over 200 carries and probably threaten 1,000 yards on the ground. But we may be underestimating his usage in the passing game, especially if Montgomery can't stay healthy.
Coming into 2017 Amari Cooper was the free space in any breakout column. He was a 23-year-old third-year receiver coming off back-to-back 1,000 yard seasons. And then he was a colossal disappointment. Cooper battled injuries and ineffectiveness in 2017 and posted the worst numbers of his career. I expect a complete bounceback and then some.
Cooper will be the unquestioned No. 1 in this offense and traditionally Jon Gruden's teams have leaned heavily on their No. 1. He should once again reach 130-plus targets and 1,000 yards. The bonus may come from the departure of Michael Crabtree, which hopefully means more red zone targets for Cooper.
Marquise Goodwin was the focal point of the 49ers passing game once Jimmy Garoppolo took over, and nothing seems to have changed in the preseason. He leads the 49ers with seven catches for 119 yards in the preseason and has been Garoppolo's favorite target once again.
Goodwin topping 1,000 yards seems like a given if he plays 16 games, but the true measure of his breakout will be measured in touchdowns. He's never scored more than three in a season. I expect he'll double that mark in 2018 and finish the season as a top-24 receiver.
Corey Davis had a disappointing rookie year, so it won't take much for him to reach a new level. He's gotten a lot of work this preseason as the team's No. 1 option because of Rishard Matthews' recovery from a procedure on his knee. The hope, for the Titans and Fantasy owners, is Davis never lets go of that role.
With Davis' size and skill he has the upside to vault into the top-20 receivers in Fantasy with ease. He should be a red zone monster, and the he rapport he's built with Mariota this preseason will help, but he's also going to have to stay available on a weekly basis.
There's an opening in Tennessee for a dominant No. 1 receiver and Davis has the pedigree to fill that role.
Perhaps no player has seen his stock rise as much in the past two months as Chris Godwin. First we got reports that he'd passed DeSean Jackson as the team's No. 2 receiver. Then he had a spectacular camp that had Pete Prisco telling us that Tampa Bay viewed him as a 1A to Mike Evans. This touchdown in the team's third preseason game was just icing on the cake:
Chris Godwin (@CGtwelve_) GETS UP for the @Buccaneers TD! #DETvsTB pic.twitter.com/OiTbN4T9di
— NFL (@NFL) August 25, 2018
I now think it's possible for Godwin to approach 100 targets and be the most efficient receiver on the Buccaneers on a per target basis. He has top-30 upside if Evans stays healthy, and could vault into the top-15 if Evans goes down.
Everything that held David NJoku back in 2017 has seemingly been resolved. His team added two quarterbacks who were more talented than anyone he played with last year; It doesn't look like he's splitting time with Seth DeValve to the extent he was; And his starting quarterback loves targeting his tight end, just ask Charles Clay.
Njoku has already cracked my top-12 tight ends, but he has the upside to go even higher, especially if Josh Gordon is unavailable at any point in the season.
So what Fantasy Football sleepers should you snatch in your draft? And which wide receiver can you wait on until late? Visit SportsLine now to get Fantasy Football cheat sheets from the model that called Alvin Kamara's huge breakout last season and find out.
