This series distills NFL charts into easily digestible fantasy football information for opportunity and upside. In this installment, the tight ends are the featured position.
Links to entire series:
The Good
With 13 high-upside options, the possibilities for many top-5 or even top-8 party-crashers from outside the subset are minimal. Typically stalwart tight ends like Travis Kelce and (smaller sample size) George Kittle and Mark Andrews continue producing year over year with minor hiccups. The most intriguing options to potentially make the top-3 in 2020 are Evan Engram and Hunter Henry. Engram has three straight seasons of top-8 production in terms of adjusted points per game and Henry has two seasons inside the top-10 of the same metric. Henry does have more of a quarterback question mark plus competition for targets.
Jared Cook is another underrated name on the high-upside list with TE5 and TE9 aPPG finishes the past two seasons. Of the potential high-upside list, Austin Hooper and Darren Waller have stumbling blocks for a repeat performance of last year's TE3 and TE6 aPPG finishes respectively. Hooper changes teams - always a variable - with a potential drop in quarterback level from Matt Ryan to Baker Mayfield, plus a more run-centric offense. Waller faces expanded competition for targets with the Raiders boosting their close-to-invisible wide receiver corps from last season.
The Eagles are in an enviable position with Zach Ertz one of the most consistent performers of recent seasons and Dallas Goedert producing despite a strong starter in front of him on the depth chart. Goedert has a top-30 and top-15 season in his two-year career even with Ertz firmly in the top-5. If Ertz were to miss time, Goedert is a top-5 weekly option with upside from there.
The Bad
The Cardinals have easily been the least productive tight end franchise for more than a decade. Their highest finish for a tight end in aPPG over the span is TE29 in 2017 and the team continues to dabble at the NFL fringes of talent with Maxx Williams and Dan Arnold as their notable options.
Washington added Thaddeus Moss of the rookie crop, but the LSU fell out of the entire draft, speaking to his lack of global appeal for the potential Day 2 selection to start the draft cycle in 2020. Jeremy Sprinkle is a ho-hum younger option who has shown little receiving upside to-date. Logan Thomas, the former quarterback, has bounced around the NFL with more than a passing flash. Richard Rodgers, a former Day 2 pick of the Packers, is on a similar low-upside and journeyman track.
The Bengals boosted their passing game with a (hopefully) healthy A.J. Green returning in 2020 and adding Tee Higgins notably in the draft. Joe Burrow is a question mark at quarterback in Year 1 as even a 1.01 NFL Draft selection is typically in the QB20-25 range as a rookie for fantasy purposes. C.J. Uzomah has been a decent streamer in his fantasy timeline but has leveled off as a volume-dependent and de facto option at best as the seasons pass. Drew Sample was a Day 2 selection who sparsely played in 2019. Expect the tight end to be the fourth or fifth option in the Bengals passing game.
The (Potentially) Ugly
The Jaguars have not produced a top-12 tight end since 2010 and the committee is headed by oft-injured Tyler Eifert who is running out of NFL opportunities since being a Round 1 selection years ago. Add a redshirt season from Day 2 pick Josh Oliver in 2019, journeyman (and recovering from injury) James O'Shaughnessy, and minimally-pedigreed Gardner Minshew at quarterback, and there is invisible potential from this depth chart.
The Patriots are long removed from their dominant tight end production with Rob Gronkowski gone and Tom Brady's exit this offseason as well. They drafted two Day 2 rookies in Devin Asiasi and Dalton Keene, adding to Matt LaCosse as the notable veteran. With Jarrett Stidham or Brian Hoyer as the current starting quarterback options, this has the potential to struggle to produce even a top-30 tight end in 2020.
The Bears added Jimmy Graham and drafted Cole Kmet amidst an uninspiring tight end rookie class to boost a lagging depth chart featuring a bust-to-date former Day 2 Adam Shaheen. With Nick Foles at quarterback as another band-aid addition and Allen Robinson a strong WR1, the upside is lacking even if there is full clarity on the starting role snaps.
