Fantasy Football 2020 Cheatsheet: Draft Rankings and Sleepers to Target

A couple days ago, the Washington Football Team's Antonio Gibson would have been a top sleeper. Now, Adrian Peterson has been released, and Gibson's ADP is rightfully soaring. Following an offseason with no preseason games, fantasy managers must, more than ever, adjust to breaking news and be like water on draft day—flowing between their personal valuations, expert rankings and opponent selections to find their way to value.

Your path should be mapped by expert consensus and your draft site's rankings, as those will give you a general sense of your opposing managers' likely picks. But drafts are unpredictable, and prepared managers couple their own player preferences with reasonable cheat sheets to gauge what value is falling and being scooped up.

To help with preparing for the unexpected, we're embedding an updated overall rankings cheatsheet and positional rankings cheatsheet here. But, in the spirit of variety, you can ignore those biases and download your own league-specific sheet through BeerSheets or access well-organized tiers through Boris Chen.

For those looking for high-upside sleepers, we're also discussing two you should keep an eye on at each of the most pivotal positions: running back and receiver.

Fantasy Football Cheatsheet and Rankings

Sleepers to Target

Henry Ruggs III, WR, Oakland Raiders

FantasyPros' consensus rankings have Henry Ruggs III at WR50 this season, while Boris Chen has him at WR52. This is because people believe that Derek Carr doesn't throw the ball deep enough to take advantage of Ruggs' absurd speed and that rookie receivers flop more often than not.

Those concerns are reasonable, but they ignore the obvious: Las Vegas selected Ruggs as the first receiver off of the board, in one of the NFL's most stacked receiving classes, for a reason. Even before Tyrell Williams was declared out for the season, Ruggs did not deserve to be slept on. He ran a 4.27 40-yard dash, his tape shows a playmaking panache and, most importantly, the Raiders have used him with the first-team offense at both the slot and outside receiver all offseason.

The concern is that Ruggs struggles to adjust to the NFL on an offense that can't maximize his talents. The upside is that Jon Gruden built an offense centered around Antonio Brown's skills, then lost Brown and selected someone the following season that they felt had the game-breaking tools needed to put on a show under bright lights. Ruggs has the talent, should have the opportunity and could be on an offense that explicitly works to capitalize on his talent. 

As a bonus, deep sleeper, his rookie teammate Bryan Edwards is long, at 6'3", has also had an impressive camp and seems set to fill Williams' role directly. 

Devine Ozigbo, RB, Jacksonville Jaguars

Devine Ozigbo has been working on the shotgun with Gardner Minshew this offseason and that should have already been exciting. Then Leonard Fournette got cut. Then Ryquell Armstead got placed on the COVID reserved list. Now, Ozigbo is the 6'2", 225-pounder with a clear path to taking the brunt of rushing volume.

It was already expected to be a split backfield, with Chris Thompson occupying the receiving work while Ozigbo, Armstead and James Robinson contested the ground business. And Ozigbo was a sleeper even then, as the large back's blocking and vision have impressed alongside a surprising amount of shiftiness for his size and, even more surprisingly, particularly sticky hands as a pass-catcher.

The Jaguars offense wasn't a goldmine for running-back scoring in 2019, and it likely won't be in 2020, either. But Thompson is injury-prone, and neither Armstead nor Robinson have really jumped out of the tape. For a late-round selection, Ozigbo intrigues as a player who could easily carve out a significant percentage of his team's snap count. 

Denzel Mims, WR, New York Jets

While running backs are a coveted position, leading the majority of sleepers to be drafted relatively early, wide receivers are treated more distantly. Running backs like Marlon Mack and Zack Moss have a higher path to volume than handcuffs like Chase Edmonds and Benny Snell Jr., but all feel somewhat appropriately ranked by consensus drafts.

Wide receivers are different, though, and Denzel Mims is even more ignored than Ruggs, as he sits at WR76 on FantasyPros' rankings. This is somewhat understandable, as Mims was injured for part of the offseason and plays on an offense that is not known for immense fantasy value. But he could have massive upside at the end of drafts.

The Jets shored up their offensive line in the first round with Mekhi Becton, but their second selection was Mims, a 6'3" prospect who was incredibly productive over his last three seasons at Baylor, totaling 28 touchdowns and 2,901 yards over that span. 

Breshad Perriman would have been the sleeper here, as an obvious fill-in for Robby Anderson's role, but he's been sidelined by a knee injury for over a week, opening the door for Mims to steal snaps and trust. The competition for early-season receiving touches are there for Jamison Crowder and Chris Hogan. The former is a possession guy, and the latter is a similar player with a much lower ceiling. Mims' obvious catching pedigree notwithstanding, Hogan is 6'1" and ran a 4.5-second 40-yard dash; Mims is 6'3" and ran a 4.38. 

He's big, fast and has an obvious path to touches now that he is returning to health sooner than Perriman. The Jets will throw a lot in 2020, and Mims could be their most dangerous option, making him a tremendous value in the late rounds.