Top 10 TE Rankings + Fantasy Nosedives - Fantasy Football Podcast for 8/17

literally taking it with my last positional pick because there are a handful of guys that will be there that even if my projections, my own projections, say, well, I've got them finishing a little bit behind some other guys ahead of them, they have big opportunity to win a job, to have the skill, the talent, and, you know, every year there's a breakup. Mark Andrews, last year was a big breakout pick. Jared Cook, the year prior was a big, these were...

Last round picks or at least. Darren Waller last year? Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, so I'm not going to linger very long on our top, you know, as we go through the top 10, I want to make sure we have some time to talk about those breakout candidates. So I'm going to include the big boys together to start this off. Number one, Travis Kelsey, number two, George Kittle. Both got contracts this off season. Both have been absolutely dominant fantasy forces. I was just asked why I have George Kittle ranked ahead of Travis Kelsey in a dynasty league.

Someone felt like that was disrespectful. I'll tell you why. He's four years younger. And I think both of these guys are absolutely, you know, dominant. But last year, points per game, they were the same. Both been paid. And Kelsey, I believe, is 30. Kittles 26. But we have Kelsey in a redraft at number one. Yeah. Mike and I have Kelsey in our shared dynasty league. If we could trade him for George Kittle, we would do that in a heartbeat. Because you're adding four years and they're both great players. But in redraft leagues,

These two guys are dominant. They are the number one target for their teams. There are not many tight ends out there who are pretty much clearly the number one target. They are physically able to make fools of people, which is both fun to watch and also good for fantasy points. There's not much to say here other than consistency and known, you know, there are known commodities. Travis Kelsey last year was the tight-in one, which is...

Pretty good. The year before he was the tight-in-one. Three years ago, he was the tight-in-one. Yeah. What about four? The year before that, he was the tight-in-one. So I think there's, you know what you're getting. The reason Kelsey's ahead of Kittle is the quarterback. I mean, you have Patrick Mahomes. They throw the football, Andy Reid's offense, guaranteed targets, guaranteed production. That's the difference maker for me between the two, but I won't be surprised if Kittle ends up number one.

Yeah, and so where do you draft them? You draft them when they fall in the second round. Yeah, second round, I'm fine. Okay. Right now, their average drop positions, the eighth pick of the second round for Kelsey, the very last pick of the second round for Kittle. I would love to get one of these guys at the turn. If I, you know, if you start with Christian McCaffrey, and then you can come back. Yeah, that'd be pretty great. And that next round, get a running back that dropped and pair them with Kittle or, or, uh, Kelsey? Fantastic.

Okay. Mark Andrews at number three and Zach Ertz at number four. Mark Andrews last year, 64 receptions. So a huge, you know, step down from the big two reception-wise. But he had 10 touchdowns. He had 98 targets. If you watch Baltimore, you could see that rapport between Lamar Jackson and Mark Andrews from the get-go last year.

Lamar loves throwing the football to his big tight end. And Andrews, he struggled with a little bit of injury last year, playing hurt in a couple of games, missed one game overall. I think that was just week 17. That was sitting, yeah. But he had a couple games where people were a little worried about his availability going into them. But, you know, he had the most deep targets among all tight ends. He had 20. That's as many as Tyreek Hill down the field. Lamar Jackson, extending plays and finding Mark Andrews.

You love big play opportunities with Mark Andrews. That's the difference maker between you and your opponent. Now, the question for Mark Andrews is where you're drafting him, you know, at the back of the fourth round, can Mark Andrews make the jump this year that he is now considered? Now we have a big three. It's Kittle Kelsey and Mark Andrews. And so Jason is the resident Mark Andrews, Truther. Do you believe that them trading away Hayden Hurst?

will lead to actual more snaps because what is pretty shocking about Mark Andrews here, 98 targets. I mean, that's still incredible volume for a tight end. But he's doing that on under 50% of the Baltimore Raven snaps. Put the dude on the field. What are you doing? Yeah, we ironically, last year we called for the Mark Andrews breakout. Loved.

But what was really funny is part of the narrative of his breakout is that he wasn't on the field enough. And just imagine if they put him on. They didn't need to. That's because 50% of their snaps were kicking the extra point. Yeah, that's true. No, I don't think he's going to be able to jump up to the tier one. And the reason why is because this is still a lower passing volume offense. You know, you would say the same thing about San Francisco. But the difference there is he is the clear number one.

Target, especially coming into this season where Debo is injured and there's a rookie in Ayuk. But I expect Hollywood Brown to take a step forward this year. And I think that it'll flip-flop as far as who's the number one and number two target in the offense. Still love Mark Andrews. We'd be happy to have him. But I think it's an interesting conversation when you talk about Andrews's ceiling is higher than Zach Ertz. But I feel like Zach Ertz's floor.

is higher than Mark Andrews, if the touchdown regression that we see for Lamar Jackson comes true. So I'm starting to rise on Zach Ertz. I started this offseason kind of just down, but the reality is Alshan is still banged up. We don't know if he'll start the year on the pup. And every year, Zach Ertz outperforms where you're drafting them. And we always give excuses. Oh, these receivers were injured. Or if you look at this game stretch, it's because of this.

is every year. And now coming into this season, I feel like he's still the number one target for this offense. Greg Ward is starting in practices right now. It is happening. Yeah, so Zach Ertz. Which guy do you prefer in your draft right now based on where they are going, where they're being drafted? Would you rather take the upside, the young gun in Mark Andrews, who is going ahead, currently the Titan 3 being drafted at the back of the fourth round? Or Zach Ertz, the Titan 4 being drafted.

in the middle of the fifth round. I'm a Mark Andrews fan. Mark Andrews for me. 98 targets on 41% of snaps is insane. I mean, 98 targets was like nine fewer than Greg than George Kittle got last year. He goes to the, Lamar Jackson goes to the huddle, looks around and goes, oh, Andrews is here, break. Yeah, I mean, I do think it's for a couple of reasons. One is I want smash games. I mean, the old Grankowski type of games where I can get Mark Andrews scoring two times.

and just obliterating my opponent. And I think he'll have a better floor than he did last year, just coming into this third year with Lamar and the opportunity there. So I like the upside. I think, let me ask you this, because we had an article on the website. Mark Andrews, can he be the Titan one in 2020? Do you believe Mark Andrews could be the tight end one? Yes, I do believe that. I believe that's a possibility. Yeah, people could get injured ahead of him. I mean, he has the talent.

and a quarterback. So, yeah, he could, but I would put an extremely small percentage. All right. And then Zach Earth, you guys talked about it. The wide receiving core right now in Philadelphia is Greg Ward, Jalen Rager, and Deshawn Jackson. That is correct. And Mike is, I'm trying to read through the tone of voice, but your confidence level in Greg Ward seems to be lower than what you were hinting at. Look, I came into the off season very low.

on Greg Ward? Yes, yes. I remain very low. I don't think that's fair to the man. But he's nothing special. He's just, you know, he's a third wide receiver for an NFL team. Let me see if I can get through the weeds here again. Your defense of him implies he may be a my guy on Thursday. I mean, stay tuned. All in. Stay tuned because, and, you know, look, he's a junior. So Greg Ward Jr., he could, this is the Greg Ward.

Show, right? This is where... This podcast? What do you mean he's a junior? How is that relevant? This is what I know about Greg Ward. Oh, okay. All right. End trivia knowledge. I think some Eagles fans will be sad that we didn't get the Greg Ward respect. He did step up when he was called upon and showed flashes. He plays wide receiver. And he plays wide receiver. So Zach hurts. We have another tight-in we're going to talk about. Number five.

Darren Waller, he's at four on Mike's list, five on Jason's six on mine. Last year finished the tight-in number three, 117 targets, unlike Mark Andrews on the field 91% of the time. And this was a breakout campaign for Darren Waller. We didn't have quite the target share over the back half of the years we did in the beginning.

To Jason's point at the top of the show talking about Brian Edwards. It's a little murky in the wide receiver court even still. Yes, you spent draft picks on a couple of rookies, but we don't know which one's going to be on the field when. The press around Tyrell Williams is very negative right now. Fell off over the back half of the year. May not even be. I mean, look, Brian Edwards could be starting. It could be rugs. Renfro can get in there. Waller still seems to be the most.

It's almost like the Zach Ertz and Philadelphia situation. Yeah, very, very much. You saw Darren Waller coming in with just under 24% of the targets, which is an insane number for the tight end position. And you have, what's crazy is Waller should have been better. Yeah. He had over 1,100 yards. And since the year 2000.

There's only been nine times a player has hit that mark of 1100 yards and scored three or fewer touchdowns. Nine times. And Darren Waller is in that. And eight of them were Julio Jones. Yeah. No, three or fewer touchdowns on 1100 yards is impossible. But the question. I mean, it happened. The question is, is he going to come near to that 1,100 yard mark this season? Last year you had.

Tyrol Williams get injured. You had Hunter Renfro not involved in the beginning, and then he got injured a little bit. You know, I completely see the argument that, look, this is a young core of Brian Edwards, rugs, Aguilar, like it's a mishmash hodgepodge. They're still going to need Darren Waller. But I also think that they don't want 28% of their yardage coming from their tight end. That's just, I mean, he was by far the most in the league.

percentage of teams yards at the tight end position. And I just don't think that's how they want to run, right? I don't know. I don't know, but I like Waller. Based on their transactions, based on the fact that they have put a lot of money and capital into the wide receiver position, that's where I would say, I don't think they want to, I mean, they say the offense runs through tight ends and that, and that's fine. But I think they.

They need explosive plays from the wide receiver position. And we saw in the middle of the year when Hunter Renfro started getting more and more involved, there was a corollary dip with the Walrus. I think following the transactions just says that the tight end cannot be the only reliable weapon on this team. You need the ability to go elsewhere when you can't. When you have Waller doubled up.

the biggest question to me in the draft because he's still, he's one of these guys that we were, I was just talking about at the beginning of the show. Once you're past these top four, you go, man, Darren Waller is way better than taking a shot on Jono Smith. Yeah. He is. Like that, that's true. But he costs a fifth round pick where there's quality wide receivers in those rounds that we are, that are more known commodities. Are you willing to draft Darren Waller in, you know, the fifth round this season?

Are any of the wide receivers in that round a walrus? None. Okay. But my answer is actually no. Even the fact that he is the wallerist does not overwhelm. I have not taken Darren Waller, I believe. I have not either. It's just right in that middle where I'm taking the shot at the wide receiver that I've got on my breakout list. You'd be choosing Hollywood or Darren Waller. And yeah, I see what you're saying. Tyler Lockett.

Keenan Allen, Devante Parker. Chark is in there somewhere. Yep, DJ Chark is after him. Matt Keff Woods is after him. Do you think it's because it probably won't be better? We all acknowledge it won't be better than last year for Waller outside of like some spike and touchdowns. So the probability is that the targets come down a little bit. When a player is projected to do a little bit worse than the year before, that's not as exciting of a pick. Last year you got Waller for free. Got him in the double digit rounds. He was dart throw and he came through. Free Waller risk. And, and.

It didn't cost you anything. You weren't giving up a good piece. But here, you're giving up on DJ Charger Robert Woods to draft them. I'm not doing that for my roster. All right. We'll put some of these thoughts on late round tight end to the test right here with these next two tight ends on our rankings. Because Jared Cook comes in at number six. Jared Cook was the number five overall tight in the year prior in Las Vegas before Darren Waller took over. Last year he ends up at number seven in 14 games in New Orleans.