The Watchlist is a unique article we will be putting out every week here at Bruno Boys. It’s considered a sleeper piece of sorts that will tackle players who generally sport an ownership level of 50% or lower.
The goal is to seek out some deep sleepers who have been trending in a positive direction but flying under the radar in popular circles in the fantasy community. This will help get you introduced to players before your league mates and before these players potentially become a hot waiver wire add in coming weeks.
This will also help provide insight for those in deeper leagues or dynasty formats where rosters are much larger and content on lesser owned players is harder to come by. Here are a few names we are keeping a close eye on this week:
Courtland Sutton, WR, Denver Broncos
Sutton is a player we also mentioned this week in our “DFS Value Pick” article and for a good reason. A second round draft pick out of SMU, Sutton offers plus size (6’3″, 218 lbs) and athleticism (84th percentile SPARQ score) comparable to a younger, more agile Demaryius Thomas.
While Sutton is seen as the future of the wide receiver position for Denver with both veterans Demaryius Thomas and Emmanuel Sanders running the show, Sutton has gotten solid run in the first two weeks as the clear cut WR3. Sutton has 11 targets through two games and while he has only managed to turn that into 3 catches for 54 yards, his performance on the field has looked better than his box score.
Sanders is off to a hot start so far with new quarterback Case Keenum and while Thomas is leading the team in targets, his performance has left something to be desired. Through two weeks, Thomas ranks 13th amongst wideouts with a 90.5% catchable target rate but leads all wideouts this season with 4 drops, per PlayerProfiler.com. Thomas also spent some time on the sideline last week dealing with what looked like a minor injury. This helped Sutton see his snap share rise from 59.46% in Week 1 to 81.82% in Week 2 which was identical to Sanders saw in Week 2.
If Sutton continues to see a high snap share going forward, he will potentially flirt with WR3 numbers with upside for more if one of the two veteran wideouts misses time with injury. The Broncos finally have capable quarterback play this season and while their defense isn’t bad, its nowhere near the stout unit that led them to a Super Bowl in 2016. This will help keep games competitive and provide positive game scripts for the passing game to put up solid numbers this season.
