Fantasy Football 2018 - Early TE Rankings

The draft price. What's fascinating, and I know this is really early, good ADP is not set, but I feel like Gronk has not gotten the buzz that he usually gets after one of the number one years. And if you look at the early average draft position, he is right where he was last year, actually a little bit behind where he was last year.

And last year he was an extreme value. We, you know, we drafted grunk in a lot of different places. He is the one tight end right now that I think I will desire to have. If I'm in the middle of the second, I would take gronk. He is that big of a difference maker. And, you know, so I'm willing there. It's probably, it's at the late second right now because of the rumors about his possible retirement. Yes. Yes.

I do agree with Mike, though. I don't think it gets into the first round. Your price for these guys right now is basically you're going to spend a second rounder on Gronk, you're going to spend a third rounder on Kelsey, and you're going to spend a fourth rounder on Earths. And so that's where they're going to go in right now. And I would expect it to be right for the regular season. So that's the cost that you're going to have to give up a big position player somewhere else. And look, if Gronk slips to the back of the second round and I'm in that draft,

I'm going to think about that. Like you said, Jay, I mean... When you give up another big, important position player, you have to have basically the best. And that's why, like, Kelsey will never be drafted by me next year. I'm not giving up a big, important positional player for a really good tight end, who has a lot of question marks. And even though I love Zach Ertz, he's got question marks too. We'll talk about those two guys. But Bronk, to me, is the only of the big three that I will actively try to...

Target. Well, our consensus number two, my number two, Jason's number two, is Zach Ertz. And I have Ertz ahead of Kelsey because there are less variables there for me. Kelsey, while he has been elite longer, is changing quarterbacks? Is Ertz changing quarterbacks? No, he's not. No, to start the season. No, he's not. So you have 100% faith that Carson Wentz is ready to go week one. Yes, I do.

I do, which has been all of the news that we've had as well. It's not just me speculating. I don't really like having to do this again because of the Andrew Luck situation last year. At this point, last year, Andrew Luck was playing week one. Correct. But that doesn't mean that Wynce isn't going to. No, no, of course it doesn't. Just saying it's it, there are some little bit more risks.

110 targets, okay? So he's in that same range last year, more than Gronk, less than Kelsey. 110 targets, 74 for 8, 24 and 8 touchdowns. Obviously a monster year. Finish the year at number three. And frankly, look, he's the best pass-getting weapon that the Eagles have. Caught, what, almost 20 more passes than Elshone Jeffrey did in that offense. He's reliable, 58 yards a game. Jason, why do you have him at 2 over Kelsey?

Same reasons or? Yeah, very, very similar reasons. I do expect Carson wins to be back. I don't think he's going to be the same mobile quarterback. But if he's in the pocket, his first read was Zach Ertz. The breakout was clear with Ertz. He is an extremely talented pass catcher, a mismatch all over the field. I believe that the target volume, I am supremely confident it will be there with Zach Ertz. Whereas with Travis Kelsey.

Now you have Sammy Watkins added to the mix, which will take some targets away. There's another weapon there that, you know, you're not dealing really with that for the Eagles. I mean, Mike Wallace replacing Tori Smith does not make me feel like the target share is going to change drastically. Here's my, I have Ertz at 3, so I still like him. But this is my devil's advocate cautionary tale for Zach Hertz. It's all about the touchdowns.

And we talk frequently on this show that touchdowns can be, they can rise and fall with a high variance. Zach Gertz played 14 games both in 2017 and 2016. He only had four more targets last year. He actually had four fewer receptions, barely more yardage, but he went from four to eight touchdowns. And two years ago, people were disappointed.

with what Zach Gertz did for them for what they were expecting. And here's where it's somewhat cautionary, identical stats, but more touchdowns. And now everyone thinks that Zach Gertz is elite. Carson Wentz had a 7.5% touchdown rate. That's way too high. The league average is 4.3. Those numbers are going to come down. And Zach Gertz went from in the red zone, 14 targets turning into three touchdowns to...

18 targets turning into eight touchdowns. I think Zachertz is great. He's still my number three, but I want to at least have the caution out there that I don't think it's locked and loaded that you're getting a top three finish from Earths. Go ahead, Jay. I was going to say this is why, you know, we're debating the value of will Zacherts repeat? I want the target volume. I think that's there. The same argument with the Sammy Watkins.

red zone work and the red zone work that was the touchdowns that were abnormally high for Kelsey this last year. I think you've got the argument for both of these guys. That's why I said, even though I obviously I would love to have Kelsey on my team, I'd love to have Zach Gertz. I'm not really targeting either of these guys because I think there's a bigger chance that they underperform the total stats they did last year. But because of what they did last year, their draft position is much higher than what we had in 2017.

Yeah, it makes sense. I mean, Kelsey is our three. He's Mike's two. And the same argument can be made for him. Previous three years, five, five, four touchdowns last year. It jumped up to eight touchdowns. He loses his quarterback. He actually had about 100 fewer yards last year, but the same beautiful 80-plus receptions. And that's what you got to love about Kelsey. Obviously, you have stability with the head coach. They know what Travis Kelsey can be. I'm not trying to overemphasize the quarterback change.

Now, Andy, I am a little surprised that Travis Kelsey is your three considering Pat Mahomes. You have slated for 82 touchdowns this year. Yeah, per game. Top two quarterback Pat Mahomes. Your new man crush. I like Pat Mahomes potential, gentlemen. Yeah, I mean, we need to remember. I'm excited to watch that offense. For all intents of purposes, he is a rookie. Yeah. On the field. And so my argument against Travis Kelsey is if you pull out your podcast app against him.

It just to make, he's my number two. Yeah. But I'm just saying he was identical, just like Ertz. His stats, his yardage and receptions were almost identical, except he had four touchdowns two years ago and eight last year. So let's distill this then for the listener. Because the message here is that you have regression points, but possible for Ertz and Kelsey. Sure. You can 100% bank on Rob Gronkowski to be a high touchdown guy because that's what he does. Yeah.

Therefore, it might be better to wait and to value a guy like Ingram or Henry or somebody else on this list. And so Kelsey, we have them at three. You've heard the arguments for both guys. Let's talk about Evan Engram. Let's talk about some more of these interesting tight ends. I think Ingram is a gamble in the sense that, look, you are either banking on him to repeat what he did last year on an offense that will get Odell Beckham Jr. back, which should have a healthy Sterling Shepherd for the year.

likely to add some more offensive pieces. Last year he was the, what was he, fourth best tied in? Last year, yeah, I think he was. Depends on scoring. Consistency rank number four, 722 yards, 6 touchdowns, 150, 115 targets. Can he repeat what he did and does he belong here at number four?

So he's my number five. I don't quite have him repeating his performance from last year. I remember early in the offseason wanting to, we had a segment where we were talking about regression or watch out for these. And I had Evan Ingram as kind of my potential bust. Like, look, I know he had the unbelievable, the best rookie tight end season for fantasy since Jeremy Shockey even better. And, you know, he's great, all that jazz. He came out to do this. But I was going to make the case against him.

Because like you said, he lost O'D Beckham, he lost Brandon Marshall, Sterling Shepard for part of the year. He was a huge center of the offense. But as I looked more and more, he was a rookie. He's going to take a step forward as a sophomore. His catch rate was actually atrocious. It was real bad. I mean, really bad. So if his targets go down or stay near the same, but he gets better at.

you know, his craft at this tight end role and catches a higher percentage of the balls, especially when you have O'Dell Beckham taking defense away, I think he'll be near the same. I mean, I've got him five. I'm pretty confident in his ability to be a quality tight end. But this is where, and, you know, we've said this for the last several years, I can't wait for the year that it changes and the tight end landscape is full of awesome studs. But right now it's, it could be that, though.

I mean, you could have that with some of the names in this year's group. You don't just have the elder statesmen. You have guys like Jordan Reed that are going to be way down the list just because of injury, but he could actually perform. Are you talking about coming into a season where you know that like seven, eight guys are going to do it? Yeah, I guess my point is just I feel like all the middle tier, all the middle tier guys, I just don't care enough about them. I'm pretty much a gronk or I'm double-digit round drafting.

Since 1992, the only rookie tied in with 100 plus targets, the aforementioned Jeremy Shockey and Evan Engram. And the games where he played with O'Dell Beckham, he averaged about half a target fewer or less. I don't know the grammar for that, but he essentially was getting the exact same target share when Beckham was on the field compared to the rest of the season. When you look at catch percentage, do you worry about Eli? Maybe.

Maybe you can attribute that to him, but yeah, his catch percentage was 55.7, which was... How much? Oh, my goodness. Hit me! Hit me! I can't believe I had to call you out on that, Mike. Because there was a decimal involved. Fios 55.7. There you go. 55.7. But that's... And that's tight ends with over 100 targets. There were six players. His was by far the lowest. Second lowest was Gronkett. 65.

0.7. So there's, you can look at it's either way of saying it was, it was very poor performance or with like Jason was saying, is he going to get better? He was a first round pick. They're going to continue to. I don't think I want to spend a late, fourth, early fifth on Evan Ingram. Yeah. No, that's exactly that's rough. That's rough. And I don't want to keep repeating this for every player, but basically everyone we're going to talk about unless you're getting to like the.

seventh, eighth round, if I love you, I'm not drafting you at tight end. I'm just not. What a waste of a show. Why are we even here? It's not a waste of a show. It's just like going through rookies, which we'll do here pretty soon. You need to understand these players for the rest of the season because these guys will be dropped and traded and all that jazz. All right. But in the draft, don't do it. All right. Don't draft our number five tied in. Hunter Henry.

Oh, wait. Oh, Jason will disagree. Jason has been at four. Jason's ready. Four, five, six. He drops to the seventh. He's ready for goose. Oh, my gosh. Do I have him? Here he is. Oh, that was a painful week. Weeks. Weeks. Weeks one and three. One and three, yeah. Yeah. Nothing. I just remember. Squadoosh. I remember the feeling. Didn't you lose by half a point in one of those weeks? Yes, I needed one catch for seven yards in week one. There's a reason that Mike's the lowest on Hunter Henry.

All right, 14 games last year, 45 receptions, 579 yards, four touchdowns. Pedestrian. Pedestrian numbers. Tight in 14 on the year. This is all about, I think, the torch being passed, right? The baton being passed. This is... Don't pass the torch. It's very hot. This is about... Don't pass that. It's not just about that. It's Hunter Henry being another year into the system. And Antonio Gates...

The Hall of Famer being gone. Antonio Gates, look, he was a decrepit old man on the field last year. Oh, come on. He was, though. I mean, he didn't perform. Decrepit old men don't catch touchdowns, for my knowledge. Sure, he had put it this way. Antonio Gates had 11 red zone targets, which converted into only three touchdowns. He had 500 snaps. Antonio Gates was very involved. If Hunter Henry takes over.

The predominant past catching tight-end role that has always been with Philip Rivers and always, he also has the talent and skills. Because he's always had Antonio Gates. Yeah. But, but Hunter Henry was a highly touted, I mean, he, I'm not saying Hunter Henry is Antonio Gates. It's going to be a Hall of Famer. But I'm also saying it's not like, you know, I'm not sitting here going, well, you know, the next guy up.