Taking a look at three fantasy football sleepers at the wide receiver position to consider in your next draft!
Fantasy football season is oh so close, and unless you are a sicko like myself, your fantasy draft is fast approaching. Finding good fantasy football sleepers can be tricky, but one of the easy buttons we can press when it comes to finding WR sleepers is identifying second or third-year players with a couple of checked boxes. Draft capital, environmental shift and identifying which players have good underlying metrics.
Here are three fantasy football sleepers you can consider for your next draft! You can also find fantasy football team names for them here! Let’s get into it.
Fantasy Football Sleepers to Draft at WR
Ricky Pearsall, San Francisco 49ers
It was a weird year for Ricky Pearsall. First, the man survives a gunshot wound to the chest (mad respect for standing on business and keeping the Rolex) Then, when he gets healthy, he struggles to make an impact for a good chunk of the year until the last two weeks of the season. Pearsall posted a WR13 finish against the Bucs out of the bye week, then disappeared for six weeks before posting a whopping 48.3 fantasy points in PPR over the last two weeks of the year.
Deebo Samuel is on the other coast for 2025, Jauan Jennings has had a “calf” injury for most of camp, and Brandon Aiyuk is slated to start the year on the PUP list. With Deebo gone and Aiyuk injured, the 49ers vacated almost a quarter of their targets from 2024. Mix in the first round capital and Pearsall’s surprisingly decent 2.7 fantasy points per touch, and he could be in line for a lot of work in 2025. Sitting at WR40 right now for his average draft position ADP, Pearsall looks to be a great fantasy football sleeper, especially given his easy strength of schedule.
He’s already getting a steady drumbeat in camp and has shown a really good rapport with Brock Purdy. Pearsall should see plenty of snaps as the starting Z receiver for San Fran, and he has the ability to play in the slot as well. WR40 is simply too low for a player who has three top 15 weeks under his belt in a season where the 49ers weren’t expecting anything from him. It is a small sample size, but the talent is there, and Shanahan clearly has a plan for him. That kind of profile is well worth a pick in the 70s or 80s.
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Jayden Reed, Green Bay Packers
The Matthew Golden hype train is making Jayden Reed an incredible value. Yes, you read that right.
Currently going outside the top 100 in ADP, at WR48, Reed has been the poster boy of efficiency in fantasy football for the last two years. Despite not being a full-time player for the Green Bay Packers, he was often their best fantasy asset at the wide receiver position. Matthew Golden does present a problem, though, after a strong camp. If he and Romeo Doubs are still starting, where does that lead Reed in 2WR sets?
For me, this question doesn’t matter. Reed has already shown he can be productive as a part-time player, and the Packers will likely regress their rush rate and pass rates back to the mean after posting a bottom-five pass rate in 2024. Jayden Reed was the WR1 after all in Week 1 and the WR2 in Week 4 last year before Josh Jacobs became the featured part of what the Packers wanted to do offensively, not to mention Jordan Love playing hurt for a large part of the year. This, paired with good efficiency benchmarks (2.7 FPPG and 2.25 YPRR) signals that he should be drafted higher.
Being ahead of the curve is how you win in fantasy, and if Reed’s role changes in the Packers offense, his underlying data suggests he could smash his ADP, making him a sneaky fantasy football sleeper. If he disappoints or underperforms, a ninth or tenth-round pick isn’t going to sink your team. For me, his upside is that we have already seen if the Packers are willing to use him more makes him a priority target in drafts. Would you rather have the player who could finish in the top 20 and give you a top-five finish any given week, or would you rather have someone like Michael Pittman or Keon Coleman?
Cedric Tillman, Cleveland Browns
If the last two players were fantasy football sleepers, then Cedric Tillman is a turkey coma after lunch on Thanksgiving. Tillman is likely lining up as the X receiver for a Cleveland Browns team that no one thinks is good, trotting out a 40-something Joe Flacco, and has a receiver on the same team going about 120 picks ahead of him. What could go wrong?
What makes me a buyer on Tillman at his price is the potential he briefly flashed last year before injuring his ankle. Immediately following Amari Cooper’s trade to the Bills, Tillman rolled out as a starter and the primary X for the Browns, posting finishes of WR10, WR3, and WR12 before the bye week. Like we talked about with Pearsall, this is a small sample, but something that shouldn’t be ignored. Some in the industry have even suggested that Tillman could follow a career path similar to that of Nico Collins.
Perhaps even more encouraging during this span was that Tillman was outplaying Jerry Jeudy, posting a better target share (22% to 20%) and averaging 18.1 FPPG. The bad news is that the Browns are slated to have one of the toughest schedules for fantasy wide receivers.
The bet on Tillman is very low risk considering his ADP. If he hits, you look like a genius drafting the WR68. If the season starts and by Week 4 he isn’t doing anything for your team, then you can cut bait and grab someone else. The names going around Tillman’s ADP are filthy: Rashod Bateman, Wan’Dale Robinson, and Pop Douglas. None of the players around him in drafts carries the same upside for that low of a cost. For that reason, I am clicking Cedric Tillman’s name a lot more than I probably should in 2025.
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