Fantasy Football 2018 - Early TE Rankings

Jimmy Graham will get overdrafted this year. The reason he will get overdrafted is because he's got a big name. You think the seventh round is a problem for him, though? I think that's some average. In your league, someone's taking them in a fifth because they're a Packers fan who believes in Aaron Rogers. It only takes one guy. It's not going to be me in the fifth, that's for sure. It only takes one. The best six, seven, Jason, and you're all on height-based. The best fantasy finish for a tight end who played for Aaron Rogers was Jermichael Finley.

at the tight end six in 2011. And that was a 24-year-old Jeremiah Finley, not a 31-year-old. 31-year-old who had lost his kneecap a couple years ago. Just found it. Jimmy Graham, no, thank you. All right, tied for nine. Kyle Rudolph, Jordan Reed. Too low for Kyle. Okay, whatever. I don't want to have another Kyle Rudolph battle.

But Kyle Rudolph, Jordan Reed, kind of polar opposites when it comes to consistency. You look at Kyle Rudolph, 16 games played, 16 games played, 16 games played. You know he's going to be out there. Last year regressed from that number two finish to number seven. Eight touchdowns, though. Got to love that. 57 for 532. He doesn't catch passes for yardage. No. We know that about him. Above 50 yards twice. Yeah, he's a red zone above 50 yards two times. Two times. Yeah. So that.

You want to make that case about, you just made it about Jimmy. Yes. It applies for Kyle Rudolph, for sure. However, however, that is far more of an issue. I think that was a case Keenham thing in the sense that he was, you know, a yard lower per reception than the year prior when he had 840 yards. You've got a tight in two finish, a tight in seven finish, and now he gets your boy, Kirk Cousins.

I mean... He is my boy. This is his whole... But we have seven years now. I have to make the same argument about Kyle Rudolph. He has a player like Jordan Matthews with an exact certain skill set. Is not going to change. Well, my point is 9.3 yards per reception was a last year thing. If you look at the majority of his career... He's 9.8 for his career. He's 10.1... If you're taking his rookie year... No, I'm talking... Three different years.

13 before last year. So a four-year sample of him being in the prime of his career. He's 10.1 yards per reception. And he dropped down to what? 9.9.3. Okay. So he'll get to 60 yards per game twice. What's crazy here is that sounds terrible. And I like it. And I'm fine. Do you ever talk about a player and you have no, you have no clue why you'd be arguing the yards per catch between 9.3 and 10.1? Why does that matter?

It doesn't matter. One number is higher. It's better. Thank you, Mike. I don't dislike Kyle Rudolph. I would rather wait and draft Kyle Rudolph than Jimmy Graham 100 times out of 100. You want to wait and draft your guy, Jordan Reed? Number eight on Mike's list, 10 on Jason's, 11th on mine. Better have a backup plan. Oh, yes. And I'm talking to you, Redskins. You need an emergency parachutes. But look, we've talked about it. He's elite. He's an elite receipt.

Receiver when he played. Three years ago. When he played 14 games. Still a top 10 tight end. Yeah. Three years ago he was the second ranked tight end. But last year was. So this is an upside pick. Yeah. I mean, this is a swing for the fences. Take a pick late that could finish. I mean, most of the guys that you're taking late, they don't have top three potential. Jordan Reed has it at least.

I don't think it's going to be actualized. And so you can just avoid, if you want to take Jordan Reed off your draft board, I got no qualms about that. But this is a risk versus reward, a type of draft guy where if you want to swing for the fences with your last pick and know that the odds are probably against you, but the upside is definitely worth taking that gamble. I got no problem with that. And that's pretty much how I look at tight end. So I'll have some shares of Jordan Reed for one week. Two years ago, he was the fourth round pick.

One year ago he was a fifth round pick. Now he's a seventh round pick. Ooh, that's still too high. That kind of tells you the trajectory of Jordan Reed. But the promise of a player like Reed is what tempts player. Do I want to go get Kyle Rudolph or do I want to spend the same type of pick on Jordan Reed with the potential of him being a top five guy? That'll depend on your team's makeup a lot of the times. Do you have other risky players on your team? Injury concerns? Or are you pretty solid and can take a...

Take a shot on Reed. All right, 11 and 12 on our tight-in rankings. Trey Burton. Hey, Trey Boo-boo. And Tyler Eifford. I think some people surprised that these two names are in the top 12. We snuck them in. But Trey Burton is my nine. Mike's nine. Jason's 12. And look, you've given Trabiski weapons. Trey Burton is going to be in the Kelsey roll that's already come out. Nagy's talked about how he's going to use Burton.

So you are certainly projecting here. But in the two games in which Zach Gertz was unable to play, Burton was the Tideon 7 and the Tideon number one. The ability is there. The athleticism is there. The usage. That's the huge question. But you give him that contract. You've already come out and say we're going to put him in the Travis Kelsey role. And that Travis Kelsey roll while Matt Nagy was the play caller for the Kansas City Chiefs turned into nine targets a game.

So yes, please. There's some comparisons to Delaney Walker when he was with San Francisco and playing second fiddle to Vernon Davis and then Burton doing the same thing to Zach Ertz and then getting that contract to go out and show people, you know, he got paid to be a great tight end, to be a pass-catching tight end. I hope we can do it. I'd love to see it. Yeah, and I would just say this. It's not just the two-game sample from last year without Ertz.

You go back three years. You've got five games without Ertz, and he averages over 12 points PPR per game. If you look at the last two years, he's 14 points a game of PPR without Ertz. You're exactly right. I've always loved Trey Burton. My ranking of him at 12 is not because of...

my belief in him. It's a little bit more worried about Trubisky, and I want to see, I want to see preseason. He's going to be a guy, and by he, I'm probably speaking to everybody on the Bears, where I'm going to be watching. Universal. Universal. I mean, this preseason, I'm going to be so focused on, are they clicking? Do they look like they're, you know, getting it done and moving the ball and getting guys in space and that Trubisky is understanding it? Because.

The upside is certainly there for, I mean, if he finishes, you know, six, seven, I wouldn't be surprised at all. Four years, $32 million contract, 18 guaranteed, signed to be a big time tight end. Sorry, Adam. I know we're almost an hour into the tight end show, but this is finally the first tie down. I'm actually excited to draft. Tyler Eifford? No, Trey Burton. Oh, okay. I didn't think you were that excited about Tyler. I mean, I'll take him. But Eifert stays home, stays in Cincinnati. He is on the

cusp of the tight-in-two area here. We all got him in about the same range, and we're just hoping he returns. I mean, he's still young. This is Jordan Reed Light. He's a talented guy who's got high touchdown potential, high usage history. 27 years old. And, but he's probably, you know, going to miss games and be injured. The nice thing, though, is, I mean, if they both cost, if they both cost to the same, I'd definitely lean Jordan Reed's route. But with Tyler Eiffert,

He might go undrafted in a lot of leagues this year. So when you have him with your last positional pick and you swing for the fences there, I'd rather do that than I'm never spending a seventh for Jordan Reed right now. The last three years, he's only played in 23 games. That's very low. And those 23 games, though, 18 touchdowns. Yeah. That's insane. There was a time we were talking about him in the same vein as Gronk, and he was producing touchdowns at a higher rate than Gronk.

during his heyday. And Tyler Croft, in that system, as the backup tied in, put up seven touchdowns last year. The Tomb Raider. Andy Dalton missed Eifert. Yes. Big time. As did AJ Green, just for, I mean, they needed those guys. All right. Grancowski, Ertz, Kelsey, Ingram, Henry, Olson, Walker, Graham, Rudolph, Reed, Burton, Eifert. All of our early season rankings will make their way to the website, the fantasy footballers.com.

Pretty soon. We've got the NFL draft coming up here just days away. And let's finish with this. Name a sleeper tight-in that we didn't mention in that top 12 that you think could actually finish in the top 10. I'll kick it off here with Mr. Kittle and Bits himself. George Skittles. I like this one.

George Kittles, 64-247 coming into his sophomore year, a tight-in that a lot of people liked coming out of college. He now has the good-looking, the handsome one. He has the handsome one throwing him the ball. San Francisco kind of struck out on adding that extra powerful wide receiver that everyone expected early.

The one note, I'm going to, they also struck out on Trey Burton. There was a lot of whispers from the bushes. They wanted that. So that's my only hesitation with Kittle is that they wanted to replace him with Trey Burton. Do you worry about Gareth Selleck at all? No, I'm not really. I mean, Cassella caught, I think he caught quite a few passes last year. He did. He actually stepped it up a little bit. And, and, but I think them going after Trey Burton shows that the tight end.

position matters for this scheme and this offense. Or they're discontent. It could be. It could be. But, I mean, we're talking about a guy who's going late that could finish top 10. If that role matters and Jimmy Garapolo involves him in it, Kittle could take a sophomore step up. I think a lot of people like Kittle and what he brings to the table. And you can say Kittle and bits. Yeah, great nickname. I'm going to go with David and Joku.

I'm actually going to take the shot at David and Joki. My pineapple. Yeah, your pineapple. My pineapple man. From previous shows. The right player on the wrong team. But David and Joku actually might be on the right team now. Maybe Tyrod Taylor brings a little of that Charles Clay Magic to Cleveland and uses Joku and that skill set to be all that he can be to take a page from the Army. David and Joku.

Is my sleeper tied in? I can finish in the top 10. And I've mentioned his name as you should have picked him up as a dynasty sleeper, but I want to mention it here for redraft sleeper. And that's Luke Wilson. Detroit picked him up. He's on a prove it deal. But the Detroit Lions lost Eric Ebron and Darren Fell's 112 targets, seven touchdowns. Luke Wilson is 6521. He is bigger and faster than Eric Ebron. Shut your mouth.

I understand. I understand, Jason, that when you see the athletic measurables of Luke Wilson, you cannot believe it. But he's going to get a chance. We've seen huge plays from him a few years ago before the Seahawks picked up Jimmy Graham. Maybe this is his chance to break out from the shadow. And I like him as a sleeper. Can he, if he catches more than 50 passes this year, Mike, will he earn an extra L for his name?

Could he get a third L? You know what? Because that would be Wilson. No, no, no. I'm going. You know how they have the case? When you go to the baseball game, they put up the case. Every touchdown Luke Wilson gets. You're adding an L? I'm slapping an L in. In the pronunciation for the remainder of the year? Yes. Nice. See, that just makes sense. That's why people come to this show.

for things that just plain makes sense. All right, that is it for today's episode. Thank you very much for tuning in, subscribing, listening, supporting this show at Jointhefoot.com. And please check out Draft.com slash ballers. You need to play basketball. You need to get that ADP. Draft Luke Wilson. And Draft Luke Wilson. Goodbye. Bye. You for listening to another episode of the Fantasy Footballers podcast. Join our fantasy football community on Join the Foot.com.

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