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Welcome to Learning from History, where I dig into every fantasy season since 1985 to find historical comparisons for modern players.

Today's subject is O.J. Howard, a young tight end of whom much is expected in 2019. Last year, Zach Ertz caught more passes than any tight end in history, George Kittle had more receiving yards than any tight end in history, and Travis Kelce scored more fantasy points than either of them; in drafts this offseason those three tight ends are naturally the first three players selected at the position. But Howard has emerged as the consensus fourth player off the board, and many believe he has what it takes to join the three luminaries above him in 2019. Given what we know about Howard, how realistic are those expectations?

Before we begin, here's the quick introduction that dives into the methods and the goals of the series. If you want a better explanation of what I mean by "value", or if you wonder about the advantages or limitations of historical comparisons, that's a great place to start. (If you enjoy the series and want to read more, that page also includes links to every installment.)

On the other hand, if you just want to know what might lie in store for O.J. Howard based on the players who have come before, read on.

Comparison #1: Highly-Drafted Tight Ends

If you've read my analysis of Eric Ebron, this chart will look awfully familiar to you. This is every tight end drafted in the first round between 1985 and 2014, along with how much career fantasy value they produced. (No tight ends were drafted in the first round of 2015 or 2016 and it's far too early for first-round tight ends from Howard's class of 2017 to provide any meaningful points of comparison.)

As always, we begin with a bit of bookkeeping. First, tight end is unique among the skill positions in that it's essentially two different positions in one: part blocker, part receiver. Some players (especially players from earlier in the sample) had long and productive careers as the former despite contributing little as the latter. Kyle Brady, Mark Bruener, and Marcedes Lewis have combined to play 571 games over 40 seasons. They also combined for just 248.3 points of fantasy value. This doesn't mean they were disappointments, it means they were blockers.

To account for this, I have marked any player who played more than 120 career games despite contributing fewer than 250 points of career fantasy value with an asterisk. I feel this does a good job of capturing players who weren't disappointments despite the overall lack of receiving production. These players are not included in the average at the bottom. (Ebron is also excluded from the average since he's still in the middle of his productive career.)

Second, to understand these numbers it's helpful to have a sense of scale. While there's a lot of fluctuation from year to year, typically 40 points of value will rank a player within the ballpark of 12th at the position, whereas 100 points of value is the general threshold for a top-5 positional finish, and 150 points is where you start getting into league-winning, #1 fantasy finishes. As a result, 250 points of value is roughly equivalent to six low-end TE1 finishes or two high-end TE1 finishes. In all, 46 tight ends have finished their careers with 250 points of fantasy value, with recent examples including Julius Thomas (250.3 value) and Jared Cook (252.2 value). Meanwhile, that 437.2 points of value that the sample as a whole averaged would rank 26th at the position since 1985, settling somewhere between Delanie Walker (411.2 value) and Heath Miller (443.2 value).

One last note: the focus of this piece is obviously O.J. Howard, but most of these comparisons and statements will also apply equally to Evan Engram, David Njoku, and— to a slightly lesser extent— Hunter Henry. All three are young, were drafted in the first round (or the third pick of the second round in Henry's case), and showed positive production through their first two seasons. If I were to do individual "Learning from History" pieces on any of those other tight ends, I'd largely just wind up reproducing the same cohorts and analysis that you see here.

Anyway, this comparison is very favorable for Howard (and Engram, and Njoku, and Henry). Tight ends drafted in the first round from 1985 to 2014 typically either had long careers as blockers or else produced the equivalent of four high-end TE1 seasons, on average. In addition, the hit rate was extraordinarily high; more than 75% of tight ends drafted in the first round either had long careers, produced at least 250 points of value, or both. (Counting Ebron as a hit with 244.4 points of value and counting.) It's not entirely outside the realm of possibility that Tyler Eifert could still push that hit rate up near 80%. (If not for a litany of injuries, he likely would have already.)

Yes, there are busts. But if you take away one thing from this series, I hope it's that there are always busts. No matter how can't-miss a player looks there are always other players who looked comparably can't-miss and who... missed. (See: Trent Richardson.) A 75% hit rate is very strong.

But this comparison assumes the only thing we know about Howard is that he was drafted high. In fact, we've gained new information about him over the last two years.

Comparison #2: Tight Ends Who Were (Marginally) Productive As Rookies

At first glance, it might not seem like Howard was especially productive as a rookie; by my methodology he was the 20th-most-valuable fantasy tight end in 2017, making him a mediocre backup at best. But it's noteworthy that Howard produced any value at all as a rookie. Since 1985, there are 249 tight ends who produced any fantasy value at any point during their careers. Only 49 of those players managed the feat in their first season, roughly one out of five. Howard's 15.3 points of value over a street free agent tight end ranks 31st among rookies since 1985.

Here's every tight end to add between 10 and 20 points of value as a rookie. Again, 10-20 points of value represents a barely-rosterable asset, a below-average backup. This is a very low threshold for rookie production.

That's... probably not what you expected to see when I talked about how little value 10-20 points truly was, but the simple fact is that it's exceptional for a rookie tight end to give fantasy teams anything at all. You could say that Tony Gonzalez and his absurd career total is dragging the average up, but even excluding him the group averaged 318.7 points. Four of the eight retired players finished their careers among the top 25 fantasy tight ends of the last 30+ years, and all three of the active players are off to a tremendous start to their careers. (By average draft position, they're the 3rd, 4th, and 6th tight ends drafted at this point in 2019.)

One other aside: ordinarily, I'd filter this list by draft position too, but with the exception of Alex Higdon (3rd round, 56th pick overall), Zach Miller (2nd round, 38th overall), and Hunter Henry (2nd round, 35th overall), all of those guys were first-round picks. That's probably not a coincidence.

Comparison #3: Tight Ends With Solid Sophomore Seasons

Last year, despite playing in just 10 games, O.J. Howard produced 66 points of fantasy value. That was 19th-best sophomore season by a tight end in the sample. Here's every tight end with at least 60 points of value in his second season.

Note that both Howard and Engram rank near the bottom of this set of comps. Ideally, you'd like your target players to fall towards the middle of the range. Both Howard and Engram missed significant time, though; their 16-game pace would have given them 102 and 96 points of value, respectively, situating them right in the middle of this group.

Anyway, this... is a list. For Howard fans, this is THE list. If you wanted to make the maximally optimistic case for Howard, this is exactly where you'd want to start. There are 20 names on that list, but Howard, Engram, and Kittle have yet to follow up their sophomore season, and Aaron Hernandez was... sui generis. Unique.

Of the remaining 16 players, here's where they rank in total career fantasy value among all tight ends since 1985: 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, 29th, 41st, 42nd, 43rd, 51st, 89th. The median finish was between 16th and 17th in total career fantasy value over the last 30+ years. 31.5% finished in the top 10 and 62.5% finished in the top 20.

Another way of looking at it: the sixteen players take up as many spots in the Top 10 and Top 20 as all 229 players who don't appear on this list... combined. If Travis Kelce finishes anywhere among the top 12 fantasy tight ends in 2019, this list will almost certainly account for six of the top ten fantasy tight ends since 1985 — everyone except for Tony Gonzalez (who just missed the cut with 51 points of value as a sophomore), Shannon Sharpe, Ben Coates, and Wesley Walls.

Final Thoughts

Based on history, the hype behind O.J. Howard seems very much warranted. Highly-drafted tight ends are good bets, and while his production to date might not seem eye-popping, it's phenomenal once you adjust for the slow transition most tight ends experience in the NFL.

History, of course, isn't destiny, and these queries turn up plenty of similar players who disappointed. I personally remember the great Jermichael Finley bubble of 2009-2011 quite keenly, and any list that turns up Aaron Hernandez as a point of comparison should serve as a poignant reminder that expecting the future to be constrained by what has happened in the past is a fool's errand.

O.J. Howard might not turn out to be the next great fantasy tight end. But I would go so far as to say that if O.J. Howard was the next great fantasy tight end, his career would look... pretty much exactly like it's looked to this point.