7 Sleepers to Target in ESPN Fantasy Football Leagues

Aug 05, 2025

Sam Navarro-Imagn Images

Fantasy football is at its most accessible on ESPN, and with more traffic than any other site, it’s the default home for tons of casual and competitive leagues alike. While ESPN leagues are fully customizable, the standard setup is a 10-team format with full PPR scoring. Rosters include one quarterback, two running backs, two wide receivers, one tight end, a FLEX, a defense/special teams, and a kicker, with seven bench spots to round things out.

For the purposes of this article, we will stick to those default settings and identify sleepers based on ESPN’s ADP data. Any player going outside the top 150 is fair game. Using that range as our cutoff, here are seven late-round targets who could give your squad a serious edge.

Josh Downs, WR - Colts (ESPN ADP: WR56, 158 overall)

In full PPR leagues, it's fair to be a little skeptical about drafting Colts pass-catchers given the likelihood of a run-heavy offense. But Josh Downs being drafted as the WR56, a full 10 spots behind teammate Michael Pittman Jr., feels like an overcorrection.

Downs has already shown he can produce when given the chance. Before suffering a shoulder injury in Week 12 last year, he was the WR18 in PPR points per game (14.7). Over that same stretch, Pittman was sitting all the way down at WR60 (8.9). Even when expanding Pittman's sample to his full season, he only climbed to WR48 (10.4). The Colts’ WR1 has dominated target share in recent years, but Downs has shown flashes of being the more efficient —and more dynamic— option.

Of course, consistency may be hard to come by with Anthony Richardson or Daniel Jones under center, but there’s upside in Richardson simply being better with more reps. As Matt Okada pointed out in his 4for4 profile on Downs, Richardson’s completion percentage through two seasons is the second-worst by a qualified quarterback in the past 20 years, behind only Tim Tebow. There’s a lot of room for growth.

The Colts’ offense has plenty of question marks, but that also means there’s a wide range of outcomes. In the 13th round, Downs is a low-risk swing on someone who’s already shown he can deliver WR2 production when healthy.