One of the greatest joys in playing fantasy football is drafting that late-round sleeper that takes your roster from good to great.
In recent years, finding players like Puka Nacua, Michael Wilson, Bucky Irving, etc. in the later rounds have been absolute difference-making moments on your way to a fantasy football champonship.
So, as we look ahead to 2026, who are some of the options later on down the ADP list that could wind up being key parts of your winning roster?
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Draft These Sleepers In 2026 Fantasy Football
What Is A Fantasy Football Sleeper?
Many different sites and publications out there have a different definition for what a fantasy football sleeper is – or isn’t.
For clarity purposes here, a fantasy football sleeper is someone you can find outside the top 120 in Consensus ADP (Average Draft Position).
In 12-team leagues, this puts them outside the top 10 rounds and outside of the most well-known names. When you come up on the clock in your league, understanding not only who these players are – but actually which ones could be potential gold mines – is a massive advantage.
For the purposes of this exercise, I will be using FantasyPros’ Consensus ADP.
Malik Willis, QB, Miami Dolphins
One of the greatest cheat codes in all of fantasy football is the rushing QB. Their ability to rack up fantasy points with their yards – and touchdowns – on the ground is dramatically easier than a pocket passer QB throwing for 300+ yards in a single game.
While the majority of fantasy managers caught up to this over the past several years, driving the price tag of these QBs up, there have been a few cases recently that haven’t worked out that have started to push fantasy managers to go in a different direction.
Justin Fields, Trey Lance, Anthony Richardson, and even Kyler Murray during his tenure with the Arizona Cardinals are all examples of rushing threats at the QB position that never put it all fully together.
Malik Willis has the rushing upside to be one of the league leaders in every single rushing category at the position this season now that he’s a full-time starter. This was his calling card coming out of Liberty University, but his passing acumen needed significant refinement and he fell into a backup role right away.
His time with Green Bay has certainly paid off though as Willis has developed into a solid passing QB – to pair with his rushing ability – whenever he’s gotten a chance to play over the past couple of seasons.
It’s an incredibly small sample size of just 47 drop backs in 2025, but Malik Willis led all QBs with a 13.8% Completion Percent Over Expected, according to NextGen Stats.
The next closest QB was New England Patriots QB Drake Maye with 9.1% on 601 drop backs.
He looked sharp in his limited opportunity and he parlayed that into a nice contract in free agency with the Miami Dolphins, who have a new coaching staff in place from the Green Bay Packers with Jeff Hafley.
Willis is currently going off the board as the QB21 in Consensus ADP and he’s QB18 in my latest rankings update. As long as he stays healthy, the rushing floor he’ll provide will offset any limitations that are present with this lackluster receiving corps in Miami.
If you want to take a chance on a late-round QB, there’s no better option right now than Willis.
Daniel Jones, QB, Indianapolis Colts
This one is a bit of a cheat answer with Daniel Jones still being available at QB25 in Consensus ADP and pick 144 overall, but the injury recovery is the main factor here.
Jones is recovering from a torn Achilles injury that he suffered in Week 14 of this past season, but he is already on the field in OTAs doing throwing work and he expects to be on the field for Week 1 of the 2026 NFL season.
If that’s the case, based on what we saw last year, Jones will shatter his ADP for fantasy football purposes.
After having virtually no expectations going into 2025, Jones was the QB5 in fantasy football from Weeks 1-10 before their bye in Week 11, averaging a stellar 20.0 fantasy points per contest.
This was a higher mark than players like Matthew Stafford, Jalen Hurts, Caleb Williams, Dak Prescott, Trevor Lawrence, and the list goes on and on. He was fantastic.
Unfortunately, the injury derailed a solid campaign and the wheels completely fell off of the Colts as a whole as they limped along to the end of the season with QB options like Philip Rivers and Riley Leonard leading the charge.
Jones was a perfect fit for this Shane Steichen offense and there’s no reason to believe that he can’t pick right back up where he left off in 2026.
Yes, his mobility may be more limited and that could prohibit some of the extended plays and things that he does really well for a QB of his size, but all of the weapons are still in place for him to deliver on his ADP.
Jonathan Taylor, Tyler Warren, Alec Pierce, and Josh Downs are all capable of bringing Jones back into the top 15 conversation at the QB position for fantasy football. No, we shouldn’t expect top 5 production like he was giving us last season, but he doesn’t have to with his current ADP.
If you miss out on Willis as a final-round QB dart throw, scroll a little bit further down the board and take a chance on Jones.
Jacory Croskey-Merritt, RB, Washington Commanders
The hype train got a little bit too far out of control for Jacory Croskey-Merritt going into 2025. He was a 7th round NFL Draft pick that had other competition in his backfield, but that didn’t stop fantasy managers from drafting him at his absolute ceiling.
And yet, while it feels like a disappointment because of where he ended up going once fantasy drafts finally started happening, it was still a solid rookie campaign for the former Arizona Wildcat.
175 rush attempts for 805 yards and eight touchdowns on the ground is insanely impressive for a rookie season from a 7th round draft pick, but it wasn’t just the pure, raw stats.
In 2025, Jacory Croskey-Merritt posted a 53.7% rushing success rate. For comparison, Saquon Barkley posted a 42.1% success rate, Bijan Robinson posted a 51.6%, and Jahmyr Gibbs posted a 46.5% mark.
He was good, but fantasy managers are now completely disinterested in selecting the lead option for this Commanders backfield and he’s going off the board as the RB41 in the latest Consensus ADP update.
Rachaad White is on just a one-year, $2,000,000 deal and will play a very specific role as a pass-catching back, while rookie Kaytron Allen is nothing more than a short-yardage option that may or may not make the team.
Chris Rodriguez Jr. is out of town, which means that Croskey-Merritt could wind up seeing a substantial workload for a much-improved offense in 2026 with a healthy Jayden Daniels.
All of this lines up to scream that we should be drafting Croskey-Merritt well above where his ADP currently is. The second-year back lands at RB32 in my latest rankings update and he could rise up even further as the offseason moves along.
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Chris Rodriguez Jr., RB, Jacksonville Jaguars
The end of the year fantasy stats might not scream it from the mountaintops, but Chris Rodriguez Jr. was a very effective RB last season for the Commanders when he got his opportunities.
In 2025, Chris Rodriguez Jr. had a 3.5 Rushing EPA mark, which was 8th in the NFL for qualified rushers, according to NextGen Stats. He did this all while seeing a stacked box on 31.3% of his runs, which was the highest percentage for RBs in the top 10 of Rushing EPA.
For context, this was higher than players like Jonathan Taylor, Derrick Henry, Omarion Hampton, and Jahmyr Gibbs.
He’s not going to be a player that rips off large explosive runs routinely (only two runs of 20+ yards in 2025), but he is an incredibly smart and intuitive RB that knows how to pick up just an extra yard than what is needed.
He was handed a sizable contract in the offseason by the Jacksonville Jaguars to reunite with Liam Coen, who was his OC at Kentucky in college, and he’s not simply going to just sit on the bench.
There’s a very possible scenario where Rodriguez handles the majority of the touches in this backfield in 2026, while Bhayshul Tuten comes in to provide the spark on offense as a change-of-pace player. A recent example of this type of projected split would be David Montgomery and Jahmyr Gibbs in Detroit before Gibbs completely took over the backfield…
This means Rodriguez Jr. would handle the goal-line work and be the lead option for an offense that is ascending. If I can get that as the RB42 off the board, 60 picks later than Tuten, I will do that every single day of the week.
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Isiah Pacheco, RB, Detroit Lions
There aren’t a ton of positive statistics you can point to for this selection of Isiah Pacheco as a sleeper in 2026.
It’s been two full seasons now since we saw him lead this Kansas City backfield and average 66.8 yards per game before suffering a leg injury and not looking the same since that point.
He lost the lead role last season to an aging veteran in Kareem Hunt and the Chiefs made no effort to re-sign him in free agency, but Detroit scooped him up early on to be the David Montgomery replacement after he was shipped off to the Houston Texans this offseason.
This is Gibbs’ backfield; no one’s disputing that. However, Detroit has always wanted to run a balanced offense and Gibbs can’t handle 25+ touches every single week.
That leaves some standalone work for Pacheco to be on the Flex radar in bye weeks, but he carries immense upside as a volume play in a good offense if Gibbs were to ever miss time.
You’re not drafting him to be a locked-in starter for your lineup – he’s going off the board as the RB45 – but a high-upside depth option for your roster is certainly intriguing at this acquisition cost.
Matthew Golden, WR, Green Bay Packers
Just like with Pacheco listed above, there aren’t a whole lot of positive statistics that we can point to for building a case of why we should draft Matthew Golden in fantasy football this season.
The former first-round pick out of Texas had just 29 receptions for 361 yards and zero touchdowns during the regular season in his rookie campaign, while having zero games from Week 8 through Week 17 where he played more than 55% of the snaps for Green Bay.
Earlier on in the year, he was routinely playing more than 55% of the snaps, but it seemed as though the coaching staff realized that they needed to go with other options as the rookie seemed to be in over his head. And it certainly helped that they had other players to turn to in their WR rotation.
Heading into 2026 though, there aren’t many other options left to turn to and bring Golden off the field…
Romeo Doubs left in free agency and is now a member of the New England Patriots, while Dontayvion Wicks was traded earlier on this offseason to the Philadelphia Eagles.
This leaves Christian Watson and Jayden Reed as the other starting wideouts for the Packers, while bench players like Savion Williams and Bo Melton make up the rest of the room.
As a result, the days of the Packers rotating WRs through heavily are most likely done. Additionally, Jayden Reed quite simply does not play in 2WR sets, which leaves Watson and Golden as the main options.
We have questions about the talent translating to the NFL level, but at the WR50 price tag, that’s worth taking the chance on for someone that we know is going to be on the field a ton in a good offense.
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Antonio Williams, WR, Washington Commanders
Antonio Williams was a favorite of mine in the pre-draft process due to his sure hands and solid route-running acumen out of the slot.
Add on his top-end athleticism that he showcased at the 2026 NFL Scouting Combine and I felt very confident that he was going to get high enough draft capital to turn heads in the NFL Draft.
Unfortunately, he slid a bit further than I was projecting into the third round, but his landing spot is incredible for fantasy purposes.
He now joins a offense that is led by Jayden Daniels, who dealt with injury last season but was stellar in his rookie campaign, and has Terry McLaurin and virtually no one else to deal with for target competition.
Williams will be the starting slot option from day one for this offense and he could easily see 100+ targets right out of the gate this season, which instantly makes his ADP of 172 overall (WR65) laughable.
He’s currently being drafted between players like Brandon Aiyuk and Deebo Samuel, two veterans who aren’t even on teams currently! Don’t let the rookie unknown stop you from drafting a very talented player in one of the final rounds of your draft.
Cade Otton, TE, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Did you know that there was only one other TE in the entire NFL last season that played more total snaps than Cade Otton?
Trey McBride for the Arizona Cardinals was the only other player at the position who was on the field more than the Bucs TE, which signals that incredible fantasy football opportunity is there.
Additionally, the Bucs had the chance to let Otton walk in free agency this offseason, but they brought him back on a three-year, $30,000,000 contract with $20,000,000 guaranteed. Due to his dual-threat ability as a blocker and sure-handed receiver in the short passing game, they view him as an integral part of their offense.
The Bucs have plenty of receiving weapons, but Zac Robinson – the new offensive coordinator – is going to be keen on utilizing Otton as an extension of the run game due to the uncertainty at that position on this depth chart currently.
Add in the fact that there are no other names of note in this TE room this season for the Bucs and Otton could wind up with a solid and safe floor for fantasy purposes each week.
He’s not going to be a top 10 option at the position, but he could provide safety for your lineup at a position that doesn’t provide a whole lot of it. And he’s going off the board after pick 180.
