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Fantasy football sleepers come in many different versions.
There are the younger players, unproven but full of talent and capable of turning into stars at any moment. There are the post-hype sleepers, players who have burned trusting fantasy owners in the past but still have a chance to make an impact. And there are the boring sleepers, typically veteran players who look primed for big seasons but tend to fall under the radar because they simply aren’t as exciting as the first two groups.
When it comes to the quarterback position, there are a ton of the latter: Players with 4,000-yard, 30-touchdown potential but are coming at steep discounts because, well, they’re boring.
Let boring win you a fantasy championship this year. Grab one of these signal-callers in the later rounds of your draft.
Note: Average draft position courtesy of Fantasy Football Calculator
Eli Manning, New York Giants
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Average draft position: 96th overall; 12th among QBs
People love to make fun of Eli Manning. He can, at times, be a turnover machine (see: 2013), which isn’t really all that funny, but he tends to receive an extra amount of flak because of 1) the fact he plays in a media hotbed like New York, and 2) the hilarious faces he makes when sad.
I don’t need to eat on Sundays. Eli Manning turnovers sustain me.
That’s forcing people to overlook the fact that Manning had a career-year in 2014, completing 63.1 percent of his passes (career-high) for 4,410 yards (career-high), 30 touchdowns (one off a career-high) and 14 interceptions (second-lowest interception percentage of his career). Playing under new offensive coordinator Ben McAdoo, who helped develop Aaron Rodgers into the best QB in the league, Manning limited his mistakes and finished the season 10th among QBs in fantasy points.
Moreover, he did all of that despite having Odell Beckham Jr. and Victor Cruz on the field together for all of six quarters. With those two healthy, and the addition of elite pass-catching running back Shane Vereen, Eli should have no trouble replicating his 2014 numbers at the least.
Carson Palmer, Arizona Cardinals
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Average draft position: 136th overall; 17th among QBs
Carson Palmer hasn’t played a game since November, so it’s easy to forget how well he was slinging the ball last year. In six games before suffering a torn ACL, he threw for 1,626 yards, 11 touchdowns and just three interceptions. Bruce Arians was letting him absolutely wing it–an average of 37.3 pass attempts per game–and it resulted in a 6-0 record for the Cardinals and 16.8 fantasy points per game for Palmer.
Extrapolate his stats to an entire season, and he would have surpassed the 4,000-yard mark for the third-straight year, and he would have finished seventh among all QBs in fantasy points.
A 35-year-old coming off major knee surgery is a bit concerning, but reports out of Cardinals camp suggest he’s healthy (and has an even stronger arm than last year), and as an 11th-round pick in 12-team leagues, there is very little risk involved.
Joe Flacco, Baltimore Ravens
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Average draft position: 148th overall; 19th among QBs
In new Baltimore Ravens offensive coordinator Marc Trestman’s 10 seasons as an OC or head coach, his teams have ranked in the top-10 of passing attempts six times. Nicknamed the “Quarterback Whisperer,” he guided Rich Gannon to an MVP and had Josh McCown looking like a star at the end of the 2013 season.
The kind of volume Trestman’s pass-happy offense brings is enough to make an intriguing fantasy option out of any quarterback, but Joe Flacco is hardly a slouch.
A seven-year veteran with alluring physical gifts and a rocket arm, Flacco set career-highs in yards and touchdowns last season. Although he’ll have to adjust to new playmakers after the departures of Torrey Smith and Owen Daniels in free agency, Steve Smith Sr. is still there, Justin Forsett is a terrific pass-catcher out of the backfield and rookies Breshad Perriman and Maxx Williams are both immensely talented.
Expect Flacco to top 600 pass attempts this season. That’s easy top-12 QB upside for someone who’s being drafted 19th at the position.
