NFL's Most Under-the-Radar Breakout Players of 2016

The football season is absolute chaos. If you're working a 9-to-5, it's hard to simply keep track of who on your fantasy team is or isn't hurt at this point, let alone what is happening with all 32 NFL franchises or whether there is another London game on Sunday morning.

Luckily for you, we've kept an eye on the league. Whether it's a potential fantasy pickup down the line or a free agent you may want your team to sign eventually, we're going to provide you with six of the NFL's most underappreciated gems on both sides of the ball.

With seven weeks of NFL football behind us, we have 10 weeks to go before the playoffs start. Keep an eye out for these names as we hit the midseason stretch. By January, this group of talent may have a few full-blown stars who rise like cornerback Josh Norman did in 2015.

Kerry Hyder, DE, Detroit Lions

Michael Conroy/Associated Press

Kerry Hyder is a third-year defensive end who was undrafted out of Texas Tech in 2014. After spending two years on the practice squads of the the New York Jets and Detroit Lions, Hyder finally made an active roster in 2016.

Despite playing in 11 preseasons games prior to Week 4 of the 2016 exhibition slate, Hyder had never recorded a sack in the NFL. In what might have been his final shot to prove himself to the league, he notched three sacks with the Lions reserves in their last preseason game against the Buffalo Bills.

In Week 1 of the regular season, Hyder was able to register two sacks against the Indianapolis Colts, and an injury to star pass-rusher Ezekiel Ansah forced Hyder higher up in the rotation. How did he respond? Between the last preseason game and the first four regular-season games of the year, Hyder recorded eight sacks, at least one in each game.

While he's slowed down in terms of production lately, his impact with the Lions hasn't diminished, even with Ansah returning to the lineup. In a close win against the Washington Redskins last week, Hyder recovered a fumble, only because he drove his offensive lineman yards behind the line of scrimmage, and he pressured quarterback Kirk Cousins on third down to force a field goal, which the kicker missed.

You won't see it on the stat sheet, but those two plays kept 10 to 14 points off the board in a 20-14 game. Hyder will be a restricted free agent in the coming offseason, and it will be interesting to see if any team bids on the 6'2", 270-pound lineman, who weighed in as a 290-pound defensive tackle at the 2014 combine.

Tyrell Williams, WR, San Diego Chargers

Ben Margot/Associated Press

It seems like this happens to an AFC West team once a season. A major injury to a key skill player looks like it's going to tank the offense, but that offense re-evaluates and realizes there was a more efficient way to score points already on its roster.

Last year, the Kansas City Chiefs lost running back Jamaal Charles. Instead of force-feeding a running back the ball, they wound up taking what the defense gave them and opened up the passing game to finish the year on a 10-game win streak after starting 1-5. This year, the domino that fell in the West was receiver Keenan Allen, who went down with a non-contact knee injury against the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 1.

In Allen's time with San Diego, the Chargers have been known as a dink-and-dunk type of offense, but that was an adapted personality to fit their top receiver at the time. Their quarterback, Philip Rivers, has never been limited to throwing short, but the personnel around him was.

With Allen gone, the Chargers had to adapt on the fly, and their response was to open up the deep passing game, with Travis Benjamin—a free-agent signing from Cleveland—and Tyrell Williams—a second-year undrafted player from Division II Western Oregon—being the downfield threats.

The result? Rivers has thrown 13 touchdowns and just four interceptions on his way to being in the MVP conversation, should San Diego make the playoffs. He's thrown for over 300 passing yards in four of his last five games and has posted two four-touchdown games.

Williams, who didn't have his name called in your August fantasy draft, is now 12th in receiving yardage, the highest ranking of any player with an undrafted background and the second-highest ranking of a second-year receiver behind the Oakland Raiders' Amari Cooper.

He also is sixth in the NFL in receptions of over 20 yards with 10. The receivers ahead of him are Julio Jones, T.Y. Hilton, A.J. Green, Marvin Jones and Jarvis Landry. While Landry is still on his rookie deal, the combined contract value of Jones, Hilton, Green and Jones is more than $236 million, an average of over $59 million each.

Williams is making $525,000 this year, less than 1 percent of the average contract of that group of wideouts. At his pro day, Williams was measured at a legit 6'3" and over 200 pounds, and he recorded a 4.43-second 40-yard dash, according to NFL Draft Scout.

San Diego has found a Division II gem who is worth his weight in gold in terms of contract value.

DeAndre Washington, RB, Oakland Raiders

Ben Margot/Associated Press

According to Football Outsiders' DVOA metric, the Oakland Raiders have the fifth-best offense in the league and the 11th-best rushing offense in the NFL. When you look at how they're getting those yards, though, there doesn't seem to be a bell-cow back.

The team's top back in terms of carries is Latavius Murray, who has 58 attempts for 231 yards, but DeAndre Washington leads the team with 235 rushing yards off 47 attempts. Washington's yards-per-carry average, 5.0, is just 0.1 yards behind Dallas Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott, who has the lead in terms of Rookie of the Year honors at this point in the season.

Overall, Washington is eighth in the league in yards per carry, the best mark for a player with two or fewer starts this deep into the season. Over the last two weeks, Jay Ajayi of Miami has been the young back behind a talent offensive line whom fantasy players want to invest in, but Washington has flashed the potential to be the next big thing whenever Oakland decides to invest the bulk of its carries with him.

Washington also ranks among the top 10 running backs leaguewide in terms of rushes of over 20 yards despite the fact that he has the fewest carries among qualifying backs.

He was a Day 3 selection out of Texas Tech, an Air Raid program, and he's listed at 5'8" and 204 pounds. There are reasons he's being overlooked, but the groundwork for Jack Del Rio's next Maurice Jones-Drew has already started.

Casey Hayward, CB, San Diego Chargers

Jeff Roberson/Associated Press

In 2012, Pro Football Focus named cornerback Casey Hayward, who was then a Green Bay Packer, Defensive Rookie of the Year. The second-round pick out of Vanderbilt looked great in Dom Capers' blitz-heavy scheme, but after a few injuries, some aging, and bouncing out of and back into a slot cornerback role, Hayward hit free agency in 2016 with little hype.

He did sign a $15 million, three-year contract with the San Diego Chargers, but that was almost nothing compared to the $75 million and $62.5 million contracts that Josh Norman and Janoris Jenkins, respectively, were able to sign in the open market. As far as cornerback deals were concerned, Hayward's was similar to Coty Sensabaugh's.

To put that into perspective, Sensabaugh signed a $15 million, three-year contract on March 14 with the Los Angeles Rams and was cut on October 8. In the past calendar year, Sensabaugh has played for three different franchises.

With cornerback Jason Verrett going down with another injury, many people assumed that the Chargers pass defense was going to go downhill fast, but the addition of Hayward, even as a flier, has shored up the secondary tremendously. Hayward is currently second in the league in interceptions and sixth in the league in passes defended.

The only players with as many pass deflections and interceptions are the Kansas City Chiefs' Marcus Peters—a 2015 first-round pick who won Defensive Rookie of the Year last season—and the Denver Broncos' Aqib Talib—who is on a deal that is three years longer than Hayward's and worth nearly four times as much. Hayward has been a pleasant surprise for the Chargers, who seem to be digging themselves out of a hole to get to .500 and a playoff shot.

Cody Kessler, QB, Cleveland Browns

Gary Landers/Associated Press

Here's what the six passers the Cleveland Browns have fielded this year look like statistically:

Name	Att.	Comp.	Yds.	Comp %	TD	INT	Rating
Cody Kessler	133	89	4	66.9	4	1	94.4
Josh McCown	33	20	2	60.6	2	2	80.4
Robert Griffin III	26	12	0	46.2	0	1	55.0
Charlie Whitehurst	24	14	1	58.3	1	1	78.8
Kevin Hogan	24	12	0	50.0	0	2	26.4
Terrelle Pryor	9	5	0	55.6	0	0	67.4

Cody Kessler, who was once a third-string passer behind Robert Griffin III and Josh McCown, has thrown for a higher completion percentage than any of the other five passers and accounts for four of the Browns' seven passing touchdowns and just one of their seven interceptions.

Kessler currently has a higher passer rating than established passers like Russell Wilson, Aaron Rodgers, Eli Manning, Carson Palmer and Cam Newton, and he's also higher in the metric than Carson Wentz, the second overall pick in Philadelphia whom some are quick to crown the next Andrew Luck.

It's hard to go under the radar as a quarterback in this league, but injuries—ahead on the depth chart, behind on the depth chart and to Kessler himself—have kept the third-round rookie from entering the spotlight. It's more fun to talk about Terrelle Pryor's hybrid reps behind center than make the case for a quietly good rookie leading an 0-7 team heading into Halloweekend.

According to Pro Football Focus, Kessler is second in the league behind Tom Brady, the New England Patriots quarterback who may win an MVP award despite missing four games because of suspension, in terms of completion percentage while under pressure.

For teams with losing records, we're quickly approaching draft season. Kessler has done enough to warrant second-guessing a quarterback going first overall to Cleveland in mock drafts.

Yannick Ngakoue, DE, Jacksonville Jaguars

Jeff Haynes/Associated Press

The Jacksonville Jaguars were banking on Dante Fowler, the 2015 third overall pick, being the team's primary pass-rusher in 2016 after he missed his rookie year to a non-contact knee injury. That hasn't worked out, with Fowler starting just one game.

Fowler has just two sacks in six games. Fourteen players, including New York Giants defensive back Landon Collins, have recorded multiple sacks in their second seasons in the league this year. To say the least, Fowler hasn't lived up to his top-three potential, especially compared to Vic Beasley, the second pass-rusher to come off the board in 2015. He has 6.5 sacks, the fourth-best mark in the NFL, just one sack behind Von Miller.

You can play the second-guessing game with Jacksonville. It should have taken Beasley in 2015. It should have taken Joey Bosa, who leads rookies in sacks despite playing only three games, this past draft.

The reality is this, though: The Jaguars have a pass-rusher who has stepped up to the plate this season. Their third-round pick, Yannick Ngakoue, is tied with Bosa atop the rookie-sack leaderboard with four. He has also started five of the team's six games so far.

While the 2-4 Jaguars aren't meeting the hopeful expectations set out for them, Ngakoue as an individual has proved over and over that he is currently the team's best pass-rusher. If he finishes the year with 10.5 sacks, which he's on pace for, he will be the league's first rookie double-digit sack artist since 2011, when then the San Francisco 49ers' Aldon Smith and the Denver Broncos' Miller hit that threshold.

Since Mark Anderson's 2006 season, the lowest-drafted rookie with double-digit sacks has been Clay Matthews, who was drafted 26th overall. To say that Ngakoue has been playing well beyond what anyone thought was imaginable for a player of his pedigree would be a massive understatement.