Early fantasy football sleepers who could win your league this season

Sleepers. It's a word that's probably a bit overused in fantasy football discourse, and part of that is that people don't necessarily seem to know how to use it right. For example, I recently read an article — and I'm not going to call the writer out, so don't expect a link here — that referred to Jaguars running back Bhayshul Tuten as a sleeper. But Tuten is the RB25 in the FantasyPros consensus rankings, so is anyone really sleeping on him?

No, I think we need to dive even deeper. Here are two sleepers at each skill position who really might not be on your fantasy radar this season.

QB Malik Willis, Miami Dolphins

Are the Miami Dolphins going to be bad this year? Probably, but that might mean that fantasy managers get a new garbage time king. It's a classic role in fantasy football that's been owned in the past by an illustrious group, from Blake Bortles having two QB1 seasons in Jacksonville to Jacoby Brissett's resurgence in Arizona last year. Willis is very well equipped to be the next guy in that lineage.

Willis showed last year in Green Bay that he could throw the ball much better than he did in his time with the Titans, and while he won't complete 85.7 percent of his passes again, I think he can be an efficient passer who keeps the ball moving and also hit a few big throws when trailing in the fourth. Wilis also brings rushing upside — last season, he had 22 carries, which wasn't far behind his 35 pass attempts.

Sure, the lack of weapons in Miami is a hindrance he'll need to overcome, but I don't completely hate this pass-catcher group. I mean, it's bad, but Jalen Tolbert and Malik Washington are solid players, and at least one of the three wide receivers the team drafted should be able to carve out a role, right?

QB Aaron Rodgers, Pittsburgh Steelers

Stop laughing. Yes, I know that Aaron Rodgers finished as the QB18 last season and is now even older. I haven't been tricked into misunderstanding time. It's simply that I like the weapons around him more this season and think that can drag the veteran quarterback into the high-end QB2 tier by the end of the 2026 season.

The Pittsburgh Steelers traded for Michael Pittman Jr. and spent a second-round pick on Germie Bernard, giving the team an instant upgrade at the position. Rodgers will have to do less to be effective than he did last season, because he actually has a collection of players around him that you can maybe trust.

Of course, there is one big knock on Rodgers' fantasy value, which is that he won't add anything on the ground. His 61 rushing yards last season were his fewest as a starter, and he hasn't had more than one rushing touchdown in a season since 2021. That caps his upside as below the top-10 players at the position, but there's still solid value here considering his stock is currently so low — the FantasyPros consensus rankings have him at QB32, though I do wonder if some of that is rankers not updating since he officially signed to return to the Steelers.

RB Jonathon Brooks, Carolina Panthers

Is this the year that Jonathon Brooks is finally healthy? If so, he has a chance to be a fantasy league winner.

Brooks was drafted in 2024, with his stock at the time a bit depressed after an ACL tear that ended his college career and cost him a good bit of his first NFL season. Once he returned, another torn ACL ended that first season, and he wouldn't see the field at all in 2025. He enters his third season with nine career carries.

But the Panthers let Rico Dowdle walk this offseason and didn't draft a running back, suggesting that the team feels pretty good about Brooks as the backup to Chuba Hubbard. If he regains the explosiveness he showed in college, he won't be the backup for long. Hubbard has carved out a solid NFL career, but the college version of Brooks is better in virtually every way. The risk for fantasy managers is that the college version never actually appears in the NFL, but it's a risk worth taking.

RB Jordan Mason, Minnesota Vikings

Jordan Mason's first season with the Minnesota Vikings was solid. He rushed for a career-high six touchdowns and came close to his previous career high in rushing yards despite playing just 44 percent of Minnesota's offensive snaps, with Aaron Jones serving as the team's lead back for the 12 games Jones was healthy and active for.

Now, Jones is a year older. He has over 1,500 career carries. He missed time last year with a variety of injuries. And he's backed up by one of, IMO, one of the best backup running backs in the league. This is a situation where fantasy managers could get a massive reward if the Vikings end up using Mason as the starting running back at some point.

There's one issue that caps his upside a bit, though: he's a complete non-factor as a receiver. Mason had 159 carries last year, but just 16 targets. That's, uhh, a pretty big disparity, and it wasn't a result of game planning. Jones had 132 carries — fewer than Mason due to missing five games — but was still targeted 41 times. Still, in standard and even half-PPR, Mason is a great player to throw a dart at later in your fantasy draft.

WR Romeo Doubs, New England Patriots

I'm a believer in the idea that the New England Patriots are going to wind up trading for A.J. Brown. It just makes sense for a variety of reasons. But whether they do or not, Romeo Doubs stands to be a fantasy value.

If the Patriots don't add Brown, then the former Packer is set to be the most talented wide receiver on an offense whose quarterback was the MVP runner-up last season. He has WR2 upside in fantasy with Drake Maye under center if he serves as the primary weapon.

If New England does add Brown? Then I imagine we see Doubs' draft stock take a hit, so while his overall ceiling would be lower, he'd still be a value. With Brown taking a lot of defensive attention, Doubs could easily deliver WR3 value. Considering he's currently being viewed as the WR50 in the FantasyPros consensus rankings (and that's before any kind of Brown trade), there's serious value potential here.

WR Germie Bernard, Pittsburgh Steelers

We return to the Steelers once more for a player who is flying under the radar. I've especially been shocked by how low I've seen him go in dynasty rookie drafts. (But hey — that's meant he's magically fallen to me way deeper than he should have a couple of times already.)

This player is Germie Bernard, who should end up getting plenty of snaps in the slot for Pittsburgh. Considering Rodgers loves getting the ball to his slot guys and his arm isn't what it used to be so he'll likely spam the short passing game a lot, Bernard has a chance to do some real damage.

Of course, that's if Pittman doesn't dominate those kind of looks. I like Bernard's potential to break off big plays more than Pittman, so I think ultimately, Bernard winds up with a sizable role, though there might be some early growing pains. He's someone who could lose you your league if you start him too much early in the year, but could win you your league if you start him later in the season.

TE Isaiah Likely, New York Giants

The Isaiah Likely breakout never happened in Baltimore, largely because the team continued to cling to Mark Andrews as the TE1. Yes, Andrews was the better player at his peak, but extending Andrews and letting Likely walk to the New York Giants feels like a bad allocation of resources.

Now, Likely winds up on an ascending offense on a team that, importantly, is coached by the same guy who was his head coach with the Ravens, and while the team's other tight end, Theo Johnson, is a good player, he's not an Andrews-level player who'll block Likely.

Add in the lack of pass-catching weapons behind Malik Nabers and Likely could see a huge role this year. He's being viewed as a TE2 by rankers, but there's a very clear path to top-10 production at the position in 2026. I mean, he's produced like a clear TE1 in the past in games that Andrews missed, so we have plenty of evidence to support the idea he's ranked too low.

TE Chig Okonkwo, Washington Commanders

Huge Chig Okonkwo guy here, which is why his 2025 season was such a disappointment for me. There was a real dearth of weapons around rookie quarterback Cam Ward and I expected Okonkwo to take advantage of that as a safety valve option for him, but instead, his production only ticked up the tiniest bit.

Now, he's off to Washington, where he replaces Zach Ertz. This is something that I think can be a fantasy goldmine for Okonkwo if Jayden Daniels is healthy all season. That's because of what happened in 2024, Daniels' rookie season.

That season saw the Washington Commanders heavily utilize the tight end position. Ertz was coming off a disappointing 2023 season in Arizona, but in Washington, he caught 66 passes for 654 yards and seven touchdowns. It was the best season he's had since leaving Philadelphia, and now Washington is adding a younger tight end with more athletic upside to replace him. Washington still has a very shaky receiver situation behind Terry McLaurin and I don't think third-round pick Antonio Williams suddenly fixes that. Okonkwo should see heavy usage and has a shot to finish as a low-end TE1.

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