Yahoo Sports' Fantasy Football Live crew takes a look at Week 1 sleepers they are looking to get into their fantasy lineups.
Matt Harman, give me somebody that's on your mind as a flyer.
Yeah, I mean, we're what, here 15 minutes into the first show of the season and I'm already ready to talk about starting a Cleveland Brown in fantasy football.
Uh, what are we talking about here?
And hey, it's not even Jerry Judy, it's not David Njoku, any of the running backs.
No, it's Cedric Tillman, the starting X receiver for this team.
And I think people forget that Tillman had a really nice stretch in the middle of the season and, and this always happens.
If something happens in the middle of the year, we tend to forget it.
It's the beginning and the end that we really remember.
That is just like a psychological truth of football and really of life itself.
We remember the beginning, we remember the end.
We tend to forget how things happen in the middle and that middle of the season was really good for Cedric Tillman.
He was neck and neck from the time Marquise Cooper got traded to when he left the season with concussions.
I'm not sure that's gonna happen right away here in week one, but it's a Bengals defense that is a mess.
It's Joe Flacco who at least will push the ball down the field on those deep in breakers that Cedric Tillman should be running from the receiver position.
So if you're desperate, you need a starter.
If not now, when for the Cleveland Browns and certainly Cedric Tillman.
Uh, Chris, I know you've got a sleeper you want to talk about here as well.
Yeah, at least for me, I'm also looking at one of the guys that's gonna be running at least against an easier coverage in Josh Downs now going up against the Miami Dolphins.
Now Josh Downs specifically last season in games where both Downs and Pittman were both active.
Downs had the higher target share, around a 25% target share, targeted more often on a per-route basis, and also ran more of his slot routes from the slot.
And now this week against the Dolphins, Josh Downs will be running against Jason Marshall Jr. 5th round rookie out of Florida.
Now, looking at his coverage rates out of, uh, from PFF, He only ran about 60 snaps total from the interior throughout all of his collegiate career.
And so now looking at the Miami Dolphins, their front four, looking at Kenneth Grant, Bradley Chubb, Jordan.
Brooks, Chop Robinson, and they have plenty of pressure and ways to get to Daniel Jones.
And so that leads me to believe he's gonna be looking towards that lower A dot type target or that low A dot option, and that's going to be Josh Downs.
So if you are desperate for this week, seeing a guy that can have 8, 9, 10 targets in a particular matchup, and this should be a back and forth matchup between the Colts and the Dolphins, Josh Downs should be the guy that you'd want to have in your flex for week one.
I can't believe someone else is on this show hyping up Josh Downs, which I totally agree with everything that Chris just said.
Somebody else is hyping up Josh Downs, not me.
Meanwhile, I'm talking about Panthers wide receiver Xavier Legette, like what is happening here on week one Sunday?
Like what is going on?
But listen, I do think Xavier Legette is a decent deep sleeper play for people out there because look, the Panthers traded away Adam Thielen to promote Jalen Coker as the starting big slot receiver.
Coker immediately and heartbreakingly, by the way, goes on IR.
He's likely gonna be out at least the first four weeks.
Hopefully, that's it, but at least the first four weeks.
So week one, Xavier Legette doesn't really have a lot of competition as that secondary target alongside Tederro MacMillan, and this is a good match.
That Jacksonville secondary, maybe it's improved from last year.
It is a new coaching staff and a totally new scheme, but they were ultra generous to the pass last season.
I think that this Panthers and Jaguars game could be relatively high scoring.
So if you're trying to find some deep sleeper pieces for week one, you typically want to go for those potentially high scoring matchups.