13 Fantasy Football Sleepers for CBS Leagues

Aug 08, 2018

For the past few seasons, I have looked at John Paulsen’s rankings here on 4for4 and put them side-by-side with average draft position (ADP) data from each of the major sites that host our beloved fantasy football leagues.

That would take many hours to come up with who are the best values and sleepers on the actual sites we play on, instead of just using the overall ADP of a player across all sites.

More Sleepers: Yahoo | ESPN | NFL.com | (Bonus: Risky Players)

But this season, there is a fantastic new tool we have unveiled for 4for4 subscribers—the ADP Bargains (Sleepers) tool. It can be found under the Tools heading in the menu above, then under Draft tools.

It essentially takes what I used to do manually and organizes it into a nice table that gets updated throughout the draft season with the latest ADP data from the site you use for your leagues.

Just change the settings to how many QBs, RBs, WRs, and TEs you draft, mark whether you play in standard or PPR, and choose where your league is hosted.

Today, we’re going to study who the best standard and PPR league values are for those who play in CBS leagues, with the default lineup settings of 2RB, 3WR, and 1TE—the default lineup setting for standard rosters in CBS prize leagues. That means we’ll adjust the ADP Bargains tool for each position accordingly. Let’s begin with standard league bargains, and we’ll include some PPR-specific values at the end of the article.

Standard League Values on CBS

QB Matthew Stafford, Detroit Lions

This shocked me because, usually, the biggest values that show up in this study are depth/sleeper options who may be going undrafted. In this case, it’s quite the opposite. Stafford is being drafted after the eighth round in CBS leagues, and we have him ranked as a top-10 quarterback. It seems the late-round quarterback strategy might already have moved into the mainstream. Nevertheless, Stafford is a great value here.

QB Blake Bortles, Jacksonville Jaguars

People love to hate the Jaguars signal-caller. However, Bortles is being drafted about three rounds later than he should be in the 14th round. Studying our projections is key here. He’s only projected to score 12 points fewer than our QB10. That’s less than a one point per week difference. Therefore, if you find yourself not liking the value of when you have to draft the higher-priced quarterbacks, wait, wait, and wait some more. Because the difference between our QB10 and Bortles, our QB20, is negligible. At that point, play the matchups each week and don’t waste an earlier pick on a quarterback. And for the “Bortles sucks” crowd, he’s finished as the QB13 and QB11 the past two seasons.

RB Rex Burkhead, New England Patriots

Among top-24 RB options, Rex Burkhead provides the most value in CBS leagues. His average draft position (ADP) in the seventh round is two rounds of value, considering we have him ranked near the top 50 overall as a solid RB2 in a potent offense. Cash in on the discount for Burkhead and build a strong corp of RBs. He has a great chance to be the Patriots' red zonegoal-linee back this season, despite Bill Belichick drafting Sony Michel in the first round.

RB Bilal Powell, New York Jets

No running back in our standard rankings has a bigger bargain score in CBS leagues than Powell. He’s one of our top-40 RBs for standard leagues, despite the fact that he’ll be sharing touches with Isaiah Crowell. What matters here though is his price. He’s being drafted near the final round in most drafts, which makes him a free dart throw. Based on our top 200 rankings, you can draft him more than six rounds later than he should be going. Powell had a handful of games last season when he was effective when given the opportunity.

RB Chris Thompson, Washington Redskins

Thompson has the second-best Bargain Score among running backs on CBS but the best among top-24 RBs. Some hype around Adrian Peterson has kept Thompson's ADP in check with a cost in the seventh round and sometimes later. He is still the preferred option in this backfield for our Director of Forecasting John Paulsen. That ADP is still more than two rounds cheaper than it should

WR John Brown, Baltimore Ravens

Continue reading to see why Cameron Meredith is a bargain at his price in CBS leagues, and the rest of Steve's sleeper picks for the 2018 fantasy season on CBS..