The 7 Fantasy Football Sleepers No One is Talking About
Lorenzo Taliaferro, RB, Baltimore Ravens
History isn't kind to running backs who have a breakout season for their fifth team and in their age 29 season. Yet that history is what many are expecting Justin Forsett to overcome in 2015. The lack of precedent is a big reason why I am avoiding Forsett in drafts, as is the team's noncommittal investment in the journeyman runner and the change in offensive coordinators.
While Marc Trestman has stated he will continue utilizing the running back friendly Gary Kubiak system that propelled Forsett to his career season, it's a bit of a leap of faith to assume he can coach it and call it as effectively as Kubiak.
Should Forsett falter as the lead back or struggle with durability, the team would likely turn to sophomore Lorenzo Taliaferro should he return healthy from his current knee sprain. That injury isn't expected to be a long term issue, and he should be back within two or three weeks.
As a rookie, Taliaferro rushed for 292 yards and 4 touchdowns on only 68 carries (4.3 yards per carry), and his NEP scores compared favorably to power players like Stevan Ridley and LeGarrette Blount.
Where he outclasses both of them (much to my surprise) was in the receiving game, where he caught 8 passes on just 10 targets for 114 yards. While it's a small sample size, it did demonstrate his ability to be a productive weapon out of the backfield, and not just a one-dimensional power back. It reinforces what we saw from him in college, where he posted 23 receptions as a senior at Coastal Carolina.
Over the offseason, Taliaferro made an effort to lose weight and drop his body fat percentage (#teamweightloss), which added to his quickness and burst through the hole. And remember, this is already a guy who ran a 4.58, which is plenty fast enough to break long runs at the NFL level (a similarly sized Jeremy Hill ran a 4.66, and look what he was able to accomplish as a rookie).
Forsett had a great season last year, finishing tied for second in Rushing NEP per rush (0.10) for backs with more than 150 carries. But it's just hard to forget that he is small, marginally athletic and heading into his age 30 season with only one season of production on his resume. It's a situation that clearly calls for caution, and that caution points us towards the bigger, younger and faster Taliaferro.
Meanwhile, Javorius Allen arrives as a fourth-round pick (same draft capital that was spent on Taliaferro), but he excels in the receiving game more than as an all-purpose back due to his lack of power and physicality and has struggled this preseason. If Forsett were to falter, Taliaferro would more than likely assume the bulk of the workload, with Allen spelling him as a receiver and change-of-pace complement.
