My Favorite 2025 Deep, Deep, Deep Sleepers

As we reach the end of Draft prep season, and I’ve previewed everything to death, it’s time to wrap with some helpful lists. The first of them is one of my favorite things to search out, which are super duper deep sleepers. These are players going largely undrafted in redraft leagues, even the very deep ones, but players whose talent I believe in. These players are buried on depth charts sure, but guys come out of nowhere annually. Given some daylight, these players can be the 2025 shockers.

Jalen Milroe, QB, Seahawks (ADP: 294, QB37)

I’ll start with a QB. Milroe is not the starter for the Seahawks, and we just saw a very similar archetype, Anthony Richardson, flame out for the Colts and lose his starting job to Daniel Jones. That’s obviously not awesome, but Milroe is talented nonetheless and if he gets on the field, he does the one thing that almost always guarantees fantasy value. He runs.

In fact, he runs like the wind. In his final two seasons at Alabama, Milore rushed for 531 yards and 726 yards, respectively, while accounting for 32 touchdowns on the ground. He ran a 4.4-second 40 yard dash at his pro day, and earned a 99 athleticism score at the NFL combine. He’s a physical freak, and for all his passing limitations, it’s difficult to envision him not piling up fantasy points if he’s on the field. And while he’s certainly an unfinished product when it comes to throwing the football, he has far more experience than Richardson did coming in. Milroe has started 26 games in the last two seasons and posted a 23:6 TD-INT ratio in 2023. He also saw increased accuracy over the middle of the field, and at the intermediate and deep levels. That’s not to say he’s pinpoint, but he’s proven at the college level he can put the ball where he needs to on tougher throws, leaving his NFL coaches to work more on the basics. That sounds like a more palatable project than the other way around.

It makes sense for Milroe to be undrafted because he has a locked in starter in front of him, and even if the Seahawks build red zone packages around his rushing, that leaves him with a Tim Tebow-ish upside. But if Darnold gets hurt, or is benched for some reason, Milroe is a player I’ll go after hard on waivers.

Woody Marks, RB, Texans (ADP: 212, RB61)

Marks is keeping on theme with some late potential rookie values. We know that rookie RBs impact fantasy leagues every season, and in a loaded rookie RB class Marks easily is lost in the shuffle. Longtime veteran stalwarts Joe Mixon and Nick Chubb are ahead of him on this depth chart, so many folks probably don’t even know who he is.

Well, he’s undoubtedly the best big play threat in Houston’s RB room. Marks put up over 1,400 total yards at USC last year with nine touchdowns, and he has big time speed and elusiveness, which Mixon and Chubb currently lack. Yes, he looks like a boom-or-bust kind of runner, who has tons of explosive runs, and just as many doomed forays into the line of scrimmage where he gets hit quickly and lacks the power to break through. The thing is, Mixon is probably beginning the season on the PUP, meaning he’s automatically out a minimum of four games, and Nick Chubb is a pretty strong candidate to be out of the league by next year due to an accumulation of serious injuries robbing him of his signature power and burst. That leaves Marks, at worst, as a player with a clear standalone role in a good offense who can make his hay via efficiency and chunk plays. And, there’s the upside that he does really well and is the lead back with Chubb spelling him until Mixon returns. Either way, the path is there for Marks to pop.

Chris Rodriguez Jr., RB, Commanders (ADP: 248, RB73)

I wanted to double up on the RBs here because we just saw the Commanders trade Brian Robinson Jr. to the 49ers, leaving the door wide open for Rodriguez to take on early down work, goal line work, or possibly be a three down back. Everyone is focused on preseason darling Jacory Croskey-Merritt, and maybe he just is that dude, but Rodriguez actually showed us something in 2024.

Rodriguez didn’t have enough snaps to qualify for PFF’s rankings, but his grade was Top 10, slightly behind Kenneth Walker Jr., and ahead of guys like Tyler Allgeier, James Cook and David Montgomery. I can’t tell you if Rodriguez is someone the Commanders view as a quality pass catcher, but he definitely runs the ball with the best of them. He had two games with double-digit carries; in Week 9 he put up 52 yards on 11 totes vs. the Giants, and in Week 13 vs. the Titans he ran for 94 yards and a touchdown on 13 carries. I don’t want to get carried away with such a small sample, but he’s shown goal line chops in his infrequent opportunities, and rates well with folks who do this for a living. In an offense that should be high-scoring, and in a RB room where the seniormost member, Austin Ekeler, is not a three down workload threat, Rodriguez might be in line for significant volume.

Jalen Coker, WR, Panthers (ADP: 279, WR86)

Coker was very solid last season for an undrafted rookie, and the Panthers offense was on the rise toward the end of the year. It may not be anyone’s idea of a powerhouse, but for Coker to be this ignored by the entire fantasy community is strange. Coker’s a 6’3, 213 lb. specimen who operated mostly from the slot, so he shouldn’t be overly impacted by the arrival of Tetaroia McMillan.

His final line – 32 receptions, 478 yards, two touchdowns in 11 games – isn’t anything to write home about, but peek under the hood and you’ll find a guy who was beating man coverage at a 70.5% rate, and was at 78.4% vs. zone. That’s not exactly screaming future superstar, but to do that as a rookie in an offense that many felt was barely functional for much of the season is promising. He absolutely crushed it on zones and digs, and while he could use refining on many of the other routes, his success rates and youth should, again, be intriguing to us. McMillan will be the alpha here, but the WR room isn’t necessarily as crowded as you’d think. Xavier Leggette cost more draft capital, but he was outplayed by Coker. Adam Thielen could be a problem, but he could also be traded to the Vikings, or any other WR-needy outfit. Hunter Renfrow is also back, and could eat up slot snaps, but he wasn’t even in the NFL in 2024. Coker should be on the field a bunch, and he’s talented.

Harold Fannin Jr., TE, Browns (ADP: 276, TE33)

Fannin Jr. is blocked by David Njoku currently, he’s in an offense most project to be one of the worst in the league, and his Week 1 QB is Joe Flacco, while the specter of a switch to Dillon Gabriel or Shedeur Sanders looms. That’s a whole lot of hurdles to productivity for a rookie TE, and explains this ADP being not just underground, but near the core of the Earth. And yet, I just can’t ignore a college TE putting up 117 receptions, 1,555 yards and 11 total touchdowns.

Those are absolutely crazy numbers, and the Browns really have some cover to get funky. Their whole franchise has been torpedoed by the Chernobyl contract they signed Deshaun Watson to, and it’s hampered them all over the roster. This receiving corps – Jerry Jeudy, Cedric Tillman, Diontae Johnson – isn’t demanding snaps. They could get weird and run a lot of two-TE sets, or utilize Fannin Jr. as a de facto WR in the slot, or even out wide. He clearly has WR skills, and his size makes him a mistmatch for DBs, while his speed can give LBs or safeties fits. I can easily see Fannin Jr. blowing up in Week 1 and everyone scrambling and blowing chunks of FAAB like they did on Isaiah Likely after Week 1 last season. You could throw Fannin Jr. on your team with your last pick and avoid that. And if he does nothing and doesn’t see the field? Easy drop. There’s a lot of upside and zero risk.