Fantasy Football Week 15: Ranking the Top Sleeper Matchups

With imaginary glory on the line during the fantasy football playoffs, we discuss which undervalued sleeper assets have the best matchups and opportunities heading into Week 15 of the NFL season.

We've seen the cycle of sleeper to stud develop quite quickly. The New Orleans Saints' Mark Ingram was top 10 among running backs in fantasy points in both standard and point-per-reception (PPR) leagues. Since going down with a shoulder injury, we've witnessed Tim Hightower earn 29 touches and sudden fantasy trust as a top-15 commodity at the position. 

With injuries atop the Seattle Seahawks and Jacksonville Jaguars tailback depth charts and several sleepers around the league emerging late into the campaign, we explore, in ascending order, which of these rising commodities can best help fantasy managers on the road to championships in the coming weekends.

As always, please feel free to share any sleepers or lineup decisions you are considering heading into this crucial week of fantasy football competition. 

Can the Seattle Seahawks' Bryce Brown Be Trusted in Week 15?

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The Seattle Seahawks are shopping from the street for tailback talent. With Thomas Rawls sidelined for the season, per the team's website, we now turn to Bryce Brown and Christine Michael, newly signed by the team, per Bob Condotta of the Seattle Times, as the next options for what has proven to be a productive running game in this era of success in Seattle. 

With no production pedigree or bankable box score history to pore over, we are left to guess which back is best suited for usage in the Seattle system. 

The sample size of workload and success is far greater with Brown, who has 135 touches and 700 total yards in 28 appearances since 2013, while Michael has just 81 touches and 319 total yards over that span. Both have proven to be journeymen, passing through multiple rosters over the past two seasons, while the big-play element also favors Brown given nearly 11 yards per reception and a big-play pedigree from his time in Philadelphia. 

The Seahawks offense is as hot as they come right now. The Cleveland Browns come to town on Sunday afternoon having allowed the second-most rushing yards in the AFC and a healthy 4.54 yards per carry rate on the season. Seattle is 10th in the league this season with 311 rushes from running backs this season and were 10th last season, as well. 

Our bet is on Brown netting the meaningful touches, given his stronger production pedigree and given he was the first name the team brought in after Rawls went down. Michael has been through the organization before with little success when afforded opportunity. It's purely speculation, but for those in difficult and deep scenarios this week, Brown is an intriguing flex commodity.

Dontrelle Inman Is a Deep Sleeper in Fantasy Football for Week 15

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Just a few weeks ago, the San Diego Chargers' Dontrelle Inman was being carted off the field in a stretcher, but he has since returned to practice this week, according to Michael Gehlken of the San Diego Union-Tribune. 

The Chargers have nine more passing attempts than any other team in football. The Chargers have lost leading receiver Keenan Allen to injury this season, while Inman and passing peer Stevie Johnson have also missed time with injury. The Chargers game script simply doesn't feature the running game successfully, as San Diego has yet to get a rushing score from rookie Melvin Gordon in over 200 touches. In order to score against the Miami Dolphins this Sunday, we'll see Philip Rivers again prove busy in the passing phase.

This leaves Inman with a potentially larger market share of a once-prolific passing game that was on pace for NFL records earlier in the season. Even as injuries have eroded the elite sheen for this passing attack, volume alone can produce worthy fantasy outcomes.

For those seeking plug-and-play commodities at wideout, Inman had 18 targets in the three games previous to getting injured, suggesting a rich receiving role could emerge in Week 15 against a suspect Miami secondary that has ceded the fourth-most fantasy points to the position this season.

Kamar Aiken Is a PPR Gem for Week 15

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Even versus the stingy Seattle Seahawks secondary and in working with a third-string signal-caller, the Baltimore Ravens' Kamar Aiken turned in another solid box score this past Sunday. 

Aiken is available in more than 40 percent of ESPN leagues, and yet has a team-leading 58 targets since Week 7, 21st at the position on a per-game basis. The sheer volume of Aiken's role buoys starting flex appeal in any format that rewards receptions.

The real sell for Aiken is this specific matchup with the Kansas City Chiefs, a secondary that has ceded the second-most yards per game in the league to wideouts and the fifth-most fantasy points to the position this season. The Chiefs enter Baltimore as heavy favorites, suggesting the Ravens could be dealing with pass-heavy game script throughout. 

For cheap shares of a high-floor receiver, Aiken makes for a sound investment in both redraft and daily fantasy football heading into a choice matchup versus suspect outside cornerbacks. In Week 16, Aiken nets the Pittsburgh Steelers secondary, a group that has allowed the most yards to receivers in all of football this season.

New England's Brandon Bolden Is Positioned to Produce for the Pats

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The New England Patriots have faced a daunting series of injuries on the offensive side of the football this season. Not only has the dynamic Dion Lewis been out for quite some time, now LeGarrette Blount is sidelined for the season, per ESPN.com. In a fantasy landscape increasingly defined by the last man standing, Brandon Bolden could become another new name capable of driving teams to success.

Bolden looks a little bit like BenJarvus Green-Ellis, but we'll take the comparison if it comes with the touchdowns. The Patriots have rushed from inside their opponents' 10-yard line 88 times since the start of last season, the most in football. Such rich usage benefits backs, of course, as Tom Brady is no Cam Newton.

With the bruising Blount out of the picture, Bolden is now poised to consume goal-line duties and even has more of a receiving pedigree than Blount (Bolden has 11.25 yards per reception since the start of last season), suggesting more snap exposure could be possible for the rising asset.

The Tennessee Titans visit New England this Sunday and just allowed bruising interior tailback Chris Ivory of the New York Jets to rush for 59 yards outside the tackles this past Sunday, Ivory's most during the last two seasons, per an ESPN database. Bolden could net at least 15 total touches with the Patriots poised as massive home favorites, per Odds Shark, thus the potential for the positive game flow that has afforded Blount his biggest box scores in previous outcomes. 

Denard Robinson Is the Top Tailback Sleeper in Week 15

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Denard Robinson still holds the NCAA record for career rushing yards by a quarterback with 4,495 for Michigan. Now a running back for the Jacksonville Jaguars, Robinson is positioned to thrive down the stretch in place of an ailing T.J. Yeldon, who suffered an MCL injury, per Ryan O'Halloran and Hays Carlyon of the Florida Times-Union. 

The Jaguars are fifth in the NFL in points-per-drive since Week 10, a signal of offensive efficiency that speaks to the emergence of signal-caller Blake Bortles. While the team has found success via the air this season, they are just 17th in rushing yards and 27th in rushing scores. 

Yeldon was a respectable 22nd in fantasy points per game this season with 9.1 per game in ESPN standard scoring. In the six games in his career, including Week 14, with at least 15 total touches, Robinson has averaged 14.0 fantasy points, which would rank as the seventh-best rate this season.  

We aren't expecting or projecting elite fantasy output from Robinson, but with two reeling front sevens with the Atlanta Falcons and New Orleans Saints up over the next two weeks, "Shoelace" might just tie up some fantasy titles for his investors (both Atlanta and New Orleans rank in the bottom three in defending fantasy backfields). The fantasy playoffs are defined by the big names and surprise sleepers alike, with Robinson poised for a memorable run with Yeldon sidelined.