Five Breakout Fantasy Football Players for 2016

The preseason is finally in its home stretch. Maybe you've had your fantasy football draft, or maybe it's coming over Labor Day Weekend. Either way, in less than a week, we'll be presented with the fun of NFL games that count. Thank heavens.

August was the cruelest month. So much speculation. So much parsing of coachspeak. So many depth chart shenanigans. So many injuries. You've been looking at my 2016 season ranks for weeks, reading player updates, finding sleepers and non-sleepers alike. Personally, I know I'm ready to stop wondering and start watching game film.

But how about one more list for the road? And let's keep it positive! Let's dig beneath all the silly-season talk and find a few good old-fashioned breakouts. I give these five guys a chance to become unexpected fantasy factors by the end of 2016:

Tavon Austin, WR, Los Angeles Rams (Average Draft Position: 124; 49th among WRs). Fantasy drafters have rightly sussed out that ten touchdowns will not happen again for Austin. He scored five TDs receiving, four rushing, and one on special teams last year, a menagerie that befits his quickness as a player, but given that he's such a small guy and red-zone scores aren't likely to be his calling card, a reasonable mind will probably cut that total in half for '16.

But Austin did show progress. More than anything, it was how the Rams used him: as a rookie, Austin ran from the slot on 80 percent of his routes. As a second-year player, that number was 53 percent. And last year it was 21 percent. I'm way more interested in taking a shot on a guy as quick as Austin if he's outside the numbers: less traffic, more chance for big plays. I think Austin might be a sneaky member of the Antonio Brown phylum, and while, no, I don't think Case Keenum and eventually Jared Goff will be good, they only need to be good enough.

Devontae Booker, RB, Denver Broncos (ADP: 132; RB #48). I don't love watching preseason film, because I don't think it tells us much. Certainly it doesn't tell us much at all about regular-season player usage, and even player performance is suspect, because we can never know whether a defense was playing its full first team or whether it was avoiding exotic coverages and blitzes. But I did watch the Broncos' Week 3 preseason tape, because of all their quarterback drama. There was nothing wrong with C.J. Anderson—he got stuffed a couple times, found a crease and took one for a 19-yard touchdown—but I think Booker looks a little different on tape, a little quicker than Anderson.

Maybe that's what I wanted to see, but the larger point is that Booker didn't look out of place and I maintain what I've said: CJA is being treated like a feature back in fantasy circles and Booker is basically being ignored. The likeliest scenario is that Anderson comes out of the gate fine and carries the biggest portion of the early-season load. But for the price of an 11th-round pick, I'm willing to roster Booker for a few weeks.

Phillip Dorsett, WR, Indianapolis Colts (ADP: 150; WR #56). I may also have accidentally allowed the first few plays of the Colts–Ravens Week 3 preseason tilt into my eyeballs last weekend, and saw Dorsett make a couple plays early: one little screen that he took for good yardage, one deep "out" where he wasn't the primary target but Andrew Luck went through his progressions and saw Dorsett was open.

This is probably another case of confirmation bias: "See! See, I like this player! That means this nice preseason performance means I'm right!" The fact is that T.Y. Hilton didn't suit up in that game, and when Hilton, Donte Moncrief, and Dwayne Allen are all playing, Dorsett probably comes fourth in the aerial pecking order in new offensive coordinator Rob Chudzinski's system. But Hilton and Moncrief are getting expensive in fantasy leagues, and Dorsett is dirt cheap. He's got the same long speed as Hilton but with more quickness, and if things break right for him, he could be terrific. He's at least worth a look as one of your final draft picks.

Will Fuller, WR, Houston Texans (ADP: 147; WR #55). Like Booker, Fuller is a rookie and as such may not get enough work in his first season to maintain week-to-week fantasy value. But I'd draft him in a 12-team league just to see. We don't know whether or not new Texans QB Brock Osweiler is good enough to keep DeAndre Hopkins in fantasy nirvana, let alone whether he can throw often and well enough to support two receivers. Not to mention Fuller has small hands and drop problems that go back to Notre Dame. But he's lightning. He reminds me of Ted Ginn, DeSean Jackson, maybe T.Y. Hilton. There's no guarantee he beats out Jaelen Strong, Cecil Shorts, or Braxton Miller for the No. 2 spot in Houston's pass offense, but he's not a terrible commodity on which to take a shot, either to fill in some weeks when you're in search of upside or even to trade, when he starts looking good on paper.

James White, RB, New England Patriots (ADP: 116; RB #45). I'm a lifelong Patriots fan, and in my heart I don't believe White will actually break out and become the kind of fantasy star that Dion Lewis was last year. But I have to admit that the Lewis role is there for the taking.

White has spent two largely nondescript NFL seasons generating expectations that he could be a consistent producer in Tom Brady's short-passing offense, but outside a nice late-season run of TDs in '15 he's been a disappointment, just as Shane Vereen was a perennial fantasy disappointment in a Pats uniform. Meanwhile, Lewis was amazing before he tore his ACL last year; White has never shown that kind of quickness. But Jimmy Garoppolo will need all the screen help he can get for the season's first four games, whereupon presumably Brady's finely honed aerial circus will begin anew. White has a chance to be part of it, and that's all we can ask for out of a tenth-round pick.

For fantasy football advice based on film review every single weekday from now until 2017, listen to the Harris Football Podcast at www.HarrisFootball.com.