With so many great or awful fantasy performances in Week 5, the middle of the road was left somewhat lacking. Sleepers were, frankly, a little hard to come by. But there are always some.
Fantasy football stats: The sleepers of Week 5
Week 5 saw a lot of fantasy performances that tended to the extremes, but there were a few upper-middle-ground games we need to pay close attention to.
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Remember, sleepers aren’t guys who finish in the top few at the position, because there’s nothing “sleeper” about a performance we’ll be talking about all week. Sleepers are performances that are good, and could portend greater things going forward, but could also be flashes in the pan that we’ll have forgotten by Week 9. But check it out:
Sleeper quarterbacks in Week 5
Mike Glennon, TB (249 passing yards, 2 touchdowns, 1 interception, 15 fantasy points)
Through two and a half games this season, Glennon has 672 passing yards, five touchdowns and two interceptions. It's not world-beating numbers by any means, but it does fairly definitely say that he was a better option than Josh McCown to start the season. The Buccaneers have looked far better with Glennon than they did without. He'll be in the QB2 range going forward.
Kyle Orton, BUF (308 passing yards, 1 touchdown, 1 interception, 14 fantasy points)
Screw it, this is my column, and there weren't that many surprising quarterbacks who did well this week. And I love him so. Orton, who hasn't been a team's choice as its starter in years, now starts for Buffalo, and the Bills (a) won, and (b) had more than 300 passing yards. I don't really think Orton has a ceiling much higher than this, but in a fairly conservative gameplan, numbers like this are totally in play. If you're desperate or have a starter on a bye, he's potentially useful.
Sleeper running backs in Week 5
Eddie Lacy, GB (105 rushing yards, 2 rushing touchdowns, 27 receiving yards, 24 fantasy points)
OK, this is sorta cheating, because there are basically no definitions of the word “sleeper” that apply to Lacy (except, I suppose, if it’s late at night and he’s, you know, sleeping). But after a rough start to the season, a lot of people were selling on Lacy, and this was a 2014 coming-out party that silenced many of those worries. Lacy still has RB1 status, and you probably missed your chance to buy low.
Antone Smith, ATL (2 rushing yards, 83 receiving yards, 1 receiving touchdown, 14 fantasy points)
Through five games, Smith has 17 total touches. That's not special. Of course, he also has (a) four touchdowns; (b) 47 fantasy points; (c) four plays of 38-plus yards; and (d) the third-most fantasy points on the Falcons, behind only Matt Ryan and Julio Jones. You'd like your fantasy players do be a little less big-play dependent, but if Smith can keep doing what he's been doing, he'll get more chances.
Sleeper wide receivers in Week 5
Justin Hunter, TEN (99 receiving yards, 1 touchdown, 15 fantasy points)
Hunter was one of those preseason sleeper darlings a lot of people loved, only he had 138 yards and no scores through four weeks People were bailing fast, and with good reason. So of course he had 99 yards and a score Sunday, undoubtedly bringing a lot of them back. The thing is, though, 13 of Hunter’s 15 fantasy points came on the 75-yard score, and outside of that he had only two catches and four targets. He needs to prove a lot more before he can be in fantasy lineups.
Odell Beckham Jr., NYG (44 receiving yards, 1 touchdown, 10 fantasy points)
After missing the season's first four games with a hamstring injury, Beckham made his NFL debut Sunday and caught four passes, including the one that put the Giants ahead to stay early in the fourth quarter. The team has been speaking highly about Beckham for a while now, so it wouldn't be a big surprise if he continues to be a decent-sized piece of the offense.
Sleeper tight ends in Week 5
Tim Wright, NE (85 receiving yards, 1 touchdown, 14 fantasy points)
This is, more or less, how I expected Wright’s season to go in New England. He was traded too close to the season’s start to be a full part of the offense from the jump, but now that he’s been there a few weeks, he should have enough experience with New England to start rising in usage. He could be rising up the ranks shortly.
Owen Daniels, BAL (70 receiving yards, 7 fantasy points)
With Steve Smith Sr. kept in check for the first time all season, Daniels led the Ravens' receiving attack, with his 70 yards coming on five catches. This is more or less what I envisioned out of Daniels when Dennis Pitta got hurt, and I don't see much reason to think he'll stop doing this or close to it going forward.
