During a football draft one year, we hit round six and I made the quote: “Here’s where it gets interesting, yet boring.” Seven years later, I still hear about it. But what those silly fools I play with don’t understand is that the statement’s not that Johnny Bananas in reality. Sure, everyone and their mom (mom’s don’t play fantasy football…they have Pinterest…) knows the names of the first few rounds, and you should all know to wait for upside, defenses and kickers for the final rounds, but what about the clusterf*ck in the middle? It can be a big pile of I don’t knows, wild guesses, and ESPN says he’s ranked 50th overall!!!’s. So let’s sort through the trash like Scrooge McDuck diving into his treasure room of gold coins and mine those players for the middle rounds to find some overrated hype, underrated targets, and the sleepiest of sleepers.
[graphiq id=”4fLoBkLpWOV” title=”Stefon Diggs Overview” width=”640″ height=”548″ url=”https://w.graphiq.com/w/4fLoBkLpWOV” link=”http://football-players.pointafter.com/l/27123/Stefon-Diggs” link_text=”Stefon Diggs Overview | PointAfter”]
When coming into a dynasty rookie draft, one thing I look for in the late rounds is how highly was the player coming into college. While yes, development occurs in the collegiate years, talent is easily seen before then. Target the 5-Star guys that may have underperformed to their stature in college, but landed in promising situations for the pros. Guys like Matt Jones, Dorial Green-Beckham, Keith Marshall (look for him!) and… Stefon Diggs.
After not even playing the first few games for the Vikings last year, Diggs broke out in a big way to be a main waiver wire add come Week 5. The former 5-Star WR from Maryland (and now you can see why he underperformed…) followed up his Week 4 break out with two straight 100 yard games, but if you were one of those to snag him then you know he precipitously fell off from Week 8 on. I blame this on the Vikings passing attack being abysmal, the WR core outside of Diggs being even worse than Teddy Bridgewater, and defenses honing in on the only vertical attack in Minnesota. As a result, Diggs ADP is currently #108 over all (#44 WR) on FantasyPros, making him the perfect underrated target to digg for (see what I did there?!?). Why?
As Matt Vensel of the Star Tribune said:
If during the first week of Vikings training camp had you looked down at your phone to craft a clever tweet or turned to actually engage another onlooker in conversation, you ran the risk of missing another highlight from Diggs. One moment he was crossing up the legs of a starting cornerback with a nifty whip route near the goal line. The next he was blowing by the secondary to catch a deep ball from quarterback Teddy Bridgewater. And, yes, that was him, too, making that one-handed grab in the back corner of the end zone.
Diggs has impressed so far in camp, and reports are the Vikings are planning on making him Percy Harvin 2.0 by moving Diggs across the field and utilizing his elite talent in multiple ways. Add to the mix rookie Laquon Treadwell, finally another weapon in the passing game, a year of further development for Bridgewater, and, you know, that tiny little RB in the backfield, Adrian Peterson (ever heard of him?), and Diggs outlook is quite promising for 2016. He was highly disappointed in his rookie year and is poised for more than just a four week breakout. He’s ranked #44 in ADP right now, but there’s a legit chance Diggs ends up around the Top 20 come season’s end.
