Sleepers

C.J. Verdell blew up early on in his college career. He went for over 1,000 rushing yards in each of his redshirt freshman and redshirt sophomore seasons. He missed some games while dealing with injuries as an upperclassman in 2020 and 2021. But his 28.8-percent per-game Dominator Rating as a redshirt senior last season was actually the highest of his career.

C.J. Verdell was a productive college player who was fraudulently propped up as a future NFL stud by over-eager devy enthusiasts. He’s probably a JAG. Hoping he becomes Jay Ajayi or Miles Sanders is misguided, given that those guys aren’t really that good either. A JAG with volume is good for fantasy, but it’s not very predictable (at least pre-draft). Look elsewhere in your rookie draft.

Oklahoma State’s Jaylen Warren is the next subject in a series in which I evaluate 2022 rookie running backs solely on their ability to run the ball. Where he really shined was in the open field. He turned an 81st-percentile rate of his chunk runs into breakaways of 20+ yards. His career 38.0-percent Breakaway Conversion Rate is on par with the college rates of guys like Kenny Gainwell, C.J. Spiller, and Joe Mixon.

Jaylen Warren simply deserves more hype. He’s by no means a perfect prospect. But he’s a rocked up dude at sub-5-9 and 215-pounds. He was productive at three different college programs. And he was as efficient a college runner as some of your favorite sleeper runners of the past few years. Seeing as he got a Combine invite, the NFL is at least tentatively interested. In the late rounds of your rookie draft, you should be too.

Fresno State’s Ronnie Rivers is the next subject in a series in which I evaluate 2022 rookie running backs solely on their ability to run the ball. According to my running back model’s composite Rushing Efficiency Score (which accounts for all the non-BAE metrics covered here, in addition to overall team quality, offensive line play, strength of opponent, and rushing volume), he earns a 44.9 out of 100.

A five-year contributor at Fresno State, Ronnie Rivers is neck-and-neck with Alabama’s Brian Robinson as perhaps the most super of all the seniors in this year’s running back class. He had a good career in a mediocre conference. But that resumé is a dime a dozen among NFL players. He is not worth a selection in rookie drafts, and is unlikely to ever be fantasy relevant.

Ohio State’s Master Teague is a lot like Georgia’s Zamir White. Both have workhorse size. Neither of them catch a lot of passes. And they were both highly-touted high school recruits who had some bad injury luck and never were able to separate themselves from talented teammates at powerhouse programs. In Teague’s case, those teammates averaged a collective 3.84-star rating coming out of high school.

I haven’t seen many people out there hyping up Master Teague, and for good reason. It’s unfortunate that injuries (he tore an Achilles in college and lost his senior year of high school to an ankle injury) robbed us of a guy who could potentially have been a beast. But for the sake of your dynasty teams, there’s no longer much of an argument for taking him seriously as a future fantasy contributor.

Washington State’s Max Borghi has been a name well-known in devy circles for a few years now. Given his pass-catching acumen (and, let’s be honest, his complexion), he was receiving hype as the next Christian McCaffrey early on in his college career. The people were a little out over their skis on that one. But general excitement about Borghi hasn’t been completely unwarranted.

From a valuation standpoint, Borghi’s chance to hit the high-end of his range of outcomes doesn’t seem that different than other pass-catching types in this class, like Tyler Badie or Jerrion Ealy. He’s got good size for a satellite back. If you’re looking to throw darts in deep leagues, you could do worse than a guy who was impressive as a producer, runner, and receiver in college.

Florida State’s Jashaun Corbin is a theoretically enticing running back prospect given his sizable receiving role and sizable, well, size. He caught 60 passes in 35 college games, a 72nd-percentile rate among backs drafted since 2007. And he was listed at 6-0, 221-pounds on the Seminole roster in 2021. It’s probably true that he is a fine pass-catcher. But the rest of the profile for the former 4-star recruit is not what it seems.

Put simply, Jashaun Corbin was bad in college and the players who were similar to him in college have either been bad in the NFL or fallen ass-backwards into volume for a year before then continuing to be bad. He also has the lowest Rushing Efficiency Score of any back on this list; the comps can’t even keep up with how terribly he ran the ball. My expectation for Corbin, therefore, is that he also is bad in the NFL. The takeaway here is that you absolutely should not waste a rookie pick on him.

South Carolina’s ZaQuandre White has had a Dora the Explorer-like route through college football land. He started out in the swampy marsh (Florida State), pulled the map out of his backpack and made his way to the big corn field (Iowa Western Community College), then said goodbye to his friends in JUCO-ville before strapping on his red boots and meandering back over to where he started in the sunny south (South Carolina, to be specific).

White is a relatively slimly built guy with underwhelming production. But he was an Austin Ekeler-caliber player at the JUCO level. He catches passes, and he’s dynamic with the ball in his hands. With a first name that kinda sounds like a bizarro version of Saquon, ZaQuandre White might be my new favorite full-skillset dart throw in this running back class.

Mississippi Rebel Jerrion Ealy is a fun eval. Dude came into college as a 5-star recruit in football AND one of the top baseball prospects in the country. He spent three years catching a lot of passes and breaking a lot of tackles. While his production profile is underwhelming, his play-to-play ability is evident in his per touch efficiency metrics.

Jerrion Ealy is a far better receiver coming out of college than most of these guys were as prospects. He should have an easier time finding an NFL role than someone like Jaret Patterson. However, if the best player on your comps list is Darren Sproles, you probably won’t be fantasy-relevant. Ealy simply must be bigger come the Combine. With a prospect profile that doesn’t even stand out within his archetype, he’s not the droid you’re looking for.

It has become apparent that landing spot takes are not a very effective measurement of opportunity. Sure, landing spots or new coaches can smell like fantasy gold, but there are better advanced metrics that offer a closer look at who is really getting golden opportunities for your fantasy roster. Let’s find some 2022 breakout wide receivers using one of the ultimate tools of opportunity: Hog Rate.

Hog Rate alone can’t solely predict a breakout. It can certainly point you in the direction of wide receivers who have their offense’s attention while on the field. Which means more opportunities to produce fantasy points. It is no coincidence that these elite-tier guys have significant Hog Rates. So as you start drafting for 2022 and looking at trade targets, don’t forget these three names.

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