Four weeks are in the books and everything is a disaster! The Titans are having secret practices, Cam Newton still has COVID-19, and Patrick Mahomes might get it any second now! Hachi machi, what a mess! Anyway, here are some sleeper wide receivers for week five, so we can pretend like any of this matters and there will be a full season. To make this list, a player must be available in at least 50% of Yahoo! leagues, with one player rostered in no more than 10% of leagues.
Sleeper Wide Receivers Option #1: Golden Tate at Dallas (33% rostered)
The New York Giants are pretty much the messiest team in the NFL right now, this side of the Jets… and the Texans… and the Falcons. Okay, they aren’t the messiest, but that doesn’t make them a better team. While everyone is turning toward Darius Slayton to pick up garbage time production this week after the Cowboys obliterate the Giants, I’m looking to Golden Tate. Slayton leads the team in targets (29) and receptions (15), but he has just three catches in each of the last three games, and he’s coasting off of a big week one at this point. Golden Tate missed week one but averages six targets per game on the season. He has caught all but one of his targets, but the yardage isn’t there yet.
I expect the yardage to get there for Golden Tate this weekend, as the Giants face a Cowboys team that allows the second-most fantasy points to quarterbacks. Why? Touchdowns. Lots and lots of touchdowns. And yards, too, I guess. So yea, the main two ways you can get fantasy points. In four games, six wide receivers have either 100 yards or a touchdown against the Giants, with Dallas yielding ten touchdowns to the position already this year, and five 100+ yard games.
Sleeper Wide Receivers Option #2: Tim Patrick at New England (12% rostered)
Tim Patrick is currently the WR27 on the season in half-PPR leagues and is sitting on 88% of waiver wires, right now. He has 11 targets, ten catches, 156 yards, and two touchdowns in the two games since Denver lost Courtland Sutton for the season. That number will shoot up after this week. The Patriots scheme to erase your best player from the game entirely, and that does mean that secondary wide receivers can get some extra yardage and even score. Mecole Hardman, David Moore, and Hunter Renfrow all scored on the Patriots already this year, to give an idea of a secondary receiver pulling this off. Add Stephon Gilmore’s COVID-19 positive test, and it looks like the Broncos can throw all over the Patriots this weekend, no matter who the quarterback might be.
Sleeper Wide Receivers Deep Dive Option: Damiere Byrd versus Denver (2% rostered)
After getting zero targets in week one, Byrd has 22 targets in the last three games and turned in double-digit half-PPR games in two out of the last three contests. With Julian Edelman hitting the skids of age-related decline, it looks like Byrd has a chance to fly. Sorry, sorry, trying to delete that. If you have good reading comprehension and read the Tim Patrick blurb, you understand that Byrd gets the Broncos this weekend. These aren’t your daddy’s Broncos. They’ve given up the fifth-most fantasy points to wide receivers on the season, and let Sam Darnold pull off an act where he had two receivers with seven catches for at least 80 yards.
Sleeper Wide Receivers Additional Options:
Tee Higgins versus Baltimore (43% rostered), N’Keal Harry versus Denver (34% rostered)
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