8 Fantasy Football Sleepers for Week 16

Ian Thomas, TE, Carolina Panthers

It's only fitting that a fantasy season punctuated by terrible tight end production is being punctuated by an especially bad stretch in the fantasy playoffs.

Week 15's top six fantasy producers at the position included Garrett Celek (2nd), Chris Manhertz (5th) and Jeremy Sprinkle (6th). They were also three of the only six tight ends to top even 10 fantasy points on the week. Before Week 15, they had combined for 13.1 fantasy points through 14 weeks. "Dumpster fire" has been used to describe the position often this season, but at least dumpster fires burn consistently.

Despite the success of Manhertz, Ian Thomas is still the top tight end in Carolina. Manhertz did his damage on only 2 targets, one of which was a trick play touchdown, and he was on the field for just 26% of the team's offensive snaps.

Thomas played 93% of snaps, which is his highest mark since Greg Olsen's most recent injury, and his 4 targets weren't too bad when you consider that Cam Newton attempted only 29 passes.

Over the last three weeks Thomas has accounted for 17% of his team's targets, which is good for seventh among tight ends in that stretch.

No, it's not encouraging that Taylor Heinicke is going to be throwing the passes to Thomas this week, but the Atlanta Falcons aren't exactly an intimidating matchup, ranking 30th against the pass in our metrics.

Thomas' strong volume puts him in play once again this week.