Deep League Fantasy Football Sleeper Strategy: Cornering The Market

There’s no one right way to build your fantasy team. That’s the beauty of this game. We have all these strategies like Zero RB, Late Round QB, Yin & Yang Tight End - and any one of them can be the key to winning a league at any given time. They are just tools at your disposal.

Today I want to talk about a little strategy that you can use in deeper leagues or dynasty leagues to increase your odds of hitting in the later rounds. When you look at a study like this one, done by Jacen Miller of FFTradingRoom.com, it’s clear that the hit rates in later rounds are pretty brutal. Anything we can do to give ourselves a better chance of success is worth exploring. And cornering the market is one option.

 

 


 

How And When To “Corner The Market” for Sleepers in Fantasy Football

We need certain conditions for this to work. First off, it needs to be a deep enough league where we are getting to really uncertain players. If your league is 10 teams with a 12-13 round draft, you might not even get to the point where you need to take shots at upside plays. Deeper leagues or dynasty leagues are where this works best. The study above looked at FFPC drafts where it is 12 teams with 20 rounds. It does not need to be THAT deep of a league for this to work.

In these deep leagues, here’s what we want to do. First, we want to look for a fantasy-relevant role that has some uncertainty as to who will get it. It could be a starting QB or RB spot. It could be a WR2 role. It could be figuring out which tight end will skew towards pass-catching. If the role doesn’t provide any sort of upside, like the pass-catching TE spot with a bad QB on a team that has multiple good WRs, it’s not worth it. 

Next, we want to figure out if there are two clear candidates. If it’s too muddled with a lot of options, you could be wasting multiple picks without hitting the winner. Looking at some WR2 situations, for instance, they might not only have multiple guys in the running, but they might not even have a full-time WR2; they might rotate with no big upside option like Arthur Smith’s teams have in the past.

Lastly, we need to make sure the ADPs for these players are affordable. If one or both players are too expensive, we are using up too much draft capital. It might not be worth it. In shallow leagues or situations where we have a serious leaning on who will win the job, you’re better off just drafting one. If the ADPs are affordable, you can draft both and then just drop whoever doesn’t get the job. We’re very likely going to be dropping our last couple of picks for the hot waiver pick-ups anyway. 
 

Past Examples of Cornering the Market for Sleepers in Fantasy Football

2023 Houston Texans Wide Receivers

In 2023, there was a lot of uncertainty with the Texans' depth chart. Both John Metchie and Tank Dell were getting some steam in the offseason as the potential WR2. Both players were also often going outside the top 200 players in ADP. We suggested at the time that it was possible to just draft both with your last two picks and see who hits (or draft one and watch waivers to see who gets the work). Tank Dell broke out fairly quickly and was a key piece of lineups.

2024 Carolina Panthers Backfield

With rookie Jonathon Brooks coming off a major knee injury, we knew he was going to miss time last year. He was going off the board as the RB35 given his upside. Chuba Hubbard was then being drafted as the RB41. Drafting both players was a reasonable and affordable move, especially if you have an IR spot to put Brooks in. As it turns out, Brooks ended up coming back and getting hurt fairly quickly, with Hubbard finishing as the RB15 overall and RB13 in points per game.

2025 Seattle Seahawks Tight End

This year, for early drafts like the Scott Fish Bowl, we recognized that the offense Klint Kubiak is implementing in Seattle could have big upside for the tight end, like similar schemes did for George Kittle and Jonnu Smith in SF and MIA. In 20-round drafts like FFPC or Scott Fish Bowl, it was easy to draft both to see how that shook out. Noah Fant ended up getting released and landing with the Bengals, while Elijah Arroyo now has a clear path to be the starting pass-catching TE for the Seahawks. 

 

 

 

Cornering the Market Potential Sleepers in 2025 Fantasy Football

Cleveland Browns Starting Running Back

As of this moment, Quinshon Judkins isn’t even on the Cleveland Browns. He’s the only rookie who has not signed his contract. After a domestic violence incident, he is now in serious danger of missing the entire season. At the very least, he is facing a suspension on top of missing the entire playbook install as he’s not signed and not in camp.

That leaves the backfield wide open. And there are two pretty clear top candidates, in my opinion. The incumbent Jerome Ford, who knows the scheme and took a pay cut to stay with the organization. And the explosive rookie Dylan Sampson, whom the Browns selected in the fourth round after they already took Quinshon Judkins in the second.

Based on the current composite ADP, both Sampson and Ford are going around round 13. Last year, Jonathon Brooks and Chuba were going in rounds 8 and 11, so it’s a much more affordable proposition. And you may say, “The Browns are bad, who cares?” but the Panthers were also only a 5-win team last year, and Chuba was RB15. The Saints one 5 games, and Alvin Kamara was RB9 in only 14 games. We don’t even know for sure that the Browns will be bad, but even if they are, that doesn’t mean we can’t pull a useful RB from these late rounds. 

Indianapolis Colts Quarterback

There are a lot of quarterback battles out there. With the Cleveland Browns or New Orleans Saints, however, the winner of those battles doesn’t present much upside. Does it matter if it’s Tyler Shough, Jake Haener, or Spencer Rattler? What is the upside for Joe Flacco if he wins the job?

With the Colts, however, there is upside. And that’s because we have two mobile quarterbacks here. Say what you will about Anthony Richardson, but this guy is willing to run. He has 10 rushing touchdowns in only 15 starts. That not only gives us a high ceiling but it also raises the floor, especially in four point passing leagues. Daniel Jones also has sneaky rushing upside with a season on his resume where he ran for 700+ yards and 7 TDs, finishing as the QB9 in fantasy. 

This strategy might be better suited for superflex or dynasty leagues where the QB options end up getting more scarce. But it could be a plausible move in a single QB league with very deep benches, like a 20-round FFPC draft. These guys often go off the board as the QB30 and 32, so it’s not that hard to double tap them and lock down a mobile, starting NFL quarterback. 

Los Angeles Chargers Wide Receiver 2

Justin Herbert is a good quarterback. That much we know. He has a season on his resume throwing for over 5,000 yards and 38 touchdowns. Last year, even after jettisoning all his weapons like Keenan Allen, Mike Williams, Gerald Everett, and Austin Ekeler, he led the team to the playoffs and only threw three interceptions. There is potential for upside here.

Ladd McConkey is also a stud. He will likely reprise his role playing slot in three WR sets and move outside to flanker for two WR sets. That leaves the possibility that leaves room for one more wide receiver to be a full-time player on the outside. The recent retirement of Mike Williams gives us a lot of clarity and makes that a two-man race between rookie Tre Harris and incumbent Quentin Johnston.

Tre Harris has already impressed Justin Herbert with his route running and knowledge of the playbook, per Kris Rihm of ESPN. He currently goes around the 11th round per our composite ADP. But, as often happens with rookies, he could end up waiting behind the incumbent Quentin Johnston - a former first-round pick who did take a decent leap from year one to year two. He quietly scored 11.6 PPR points per game, which was right there with George Pickens (11.7), Calvin Ridley (11.7), Jayden Reed (11.6), and Marvin Harrison Jr (11.6). His ADP in the 15th round makes it super affordable to circle back with one of your very last draft picks and grab him if you already took Tre Harris. Then you can just drop whoever doesn’t get the job.