Fantasy Football Sleeper Watch: Joseph Randle

It’s that time of year again as NFL training camps get underway and players start battling for roster spots as teams prepare for the upcoming season.  It’s also time for fantasy football players to start their annual scouring of training camp reports to try and find the right fantasy football sleeper who can carry their team to glory this season.

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Throughout the next few weeks leading up to your fantasy football draft, Fansided will be providing a number of potential sleepers for you to consider.  While picking the right stars is also vital to your team’s success, sometimes it’s your later-round picks that can make or break your fantasy year.  These “sleepers” shouldn’t be drafted too high, but their potential does make them worth a look after the big names are off the board.

Today, we’ll start our look at these potential sleepers with an rather obvious selection, but one of the players who has the most upside of any running back outside the top 20 RB’s.  According to myfantasyleague.com‘s average draft position, Cowboys running back Joseph Randle is going around the 65th pick in drafts which is an extreme value for a player with the potential for a breakout season.

Last year, the Cowboys showed the NFL just how good of a running team they could be with a dominant offensive line and a huge season for DeMarco Murray.  Murray finished the year with 1,845 yards rushing and 416 yards receiving while scoring 13 touchdowns.  Murray rushed for 100+ yards in 13 of the team’s 18 games (counting postseason) and found the end zone in all but five of those contests.  This offseason, Murray left the Cowboys and signed with their NFC East division-rival Eagles leaving a gaping hole in the Dallas backfield.

To try and fill the void, the Cowboys did bring in Darren McFadden, but I think they’ll rely heavily on the two backs who served as backups to Murray last season–Joseph Randle and Lance Dunbar.  The most likely scenario is the fantasy-draining running-back-by-committee, but Jerry Jones has discussed Joseph Randle as the lead back, and I think he’ll get the first crack at the majority of the work. McFadden is already dealing with injuries this preseason and Dunbar is better used as a change-of-pace option.

Randle looked good in his few opportunities last season.  He finished with 343 yards rushing on 51 carries in the regular season and caught four passes for 23 yards.  He found the end zone three times including in his “breakout” game of the season when he ran for 56 yards on seven carries against the Jaguars in London.

Randle also made headlines when he was caught shoplifting cologne and underwear in a Frisco, Texas, mall in October, but other than that incident he has been able to avoid trouble for the most part.  The Cowboys will need him to step up and avoid any further indiscretions since they need him on the field this season.

In his small sample size, Randle averaged 6.7 yards per carry which shows the kind of dynamic talent the third-year back from Oklahoma State can bring to the table.  He hasn’t ever been the feature back in the NFL, although he was a workhorse for his college team when helping OK State to some of its best results in recent history.  He doesn’t have a lot of experience in the passing game either which could limit his role on third down or if Dallas ends up playing from behind and throwing the ball a lot.

So where does Randle fit and when is the right time to draft him? Randle has huge upside if he can claim the job and could generate a ton of buzz with a big preseason.  If he gets too much hype, he could be over-drafted and end up a disappointment.  However, the effectiveness of the Dallas offense and the potential that he could be a feature back makes him definitely worth a look.

As of now, I would happily grab him as my third running-back in 10 or 12 team leagues since he has tons of upside. If you can get him in the sixth round (as his current ADP indicates), he offers great value especially if you can get a “safe” running back option as your fourth RB later in the draft.

Randle appears to be lined up for a breakout season, so watch him in training camp and be ready to add him to your fantasy team as a possible fantasy football sleeper for this year. While expecting Randle to put up DeMarco Murray-like numbers is a stretch, it is definitely possible that he’ll be able to run for 1,200+ yards and find the end zone often enough to be a top 10-15 running back by the end of the season.