The TRUTH: Top 10 Fantasy TEs + House of False Hope - Fantasy Football Podcast for 2/8

He threw more touchdowns in those games, and that is, you know, you brought it up earlier. Leporta had so many more touchdowns than anyone else at the position. That's why he finished number one. So the question in everybody's mind is going to be, I mean, I just revealed the truth of his consistency as a rookie, which he set tons of records, most receptions, most tied gronk for the rookie tight-in record. But should he be drafted as the? tight-in one next season. I think that's going to be our debate all off-season. Yeah, it will be. I probably will be out on that. This is not me saying I don't think Leporta is good. I think Leporta showed everyone. He's got a, I mean, first of all, he's from tight-end university. He's physically everything you want in a tight-end. But then you've got the natural instincts of finding the open spot.

leaking out at the right time, faking defenders. He put it all together and he's worthy of being, like I assume next year he's going to have a good pick. But considering we only have one year and that he went to double-digit touchdowns, which is not necessarily, we don't know if that's sticky for him. It'll be hard to invest how high he's going to be going and take him as the first titan off the board because you would just assume, well, he was a rookie, so he's going to be better. That's not always what happens in the second year of players.

especially after a huge rookie sensation. Yeah, I mean, I think it, my personal opinion is stuff like this is probably more sticky at tight-in. I guess my question would be one, what does that equate to? Is the tight-in one going off the board at the end of the second this year? Is it the top of the third? Yeah, it certainly won't be a first. People aren't going to spend a first round pick on the port of the way that Kelsey was the fourth or fifth pick this past season. So, um, It'll be interesting. I'm probably with you in that regard, but of all the places where it can get sticky, I mean, tight end is one of them. Yeah, I mean. That sounds a weird sentence. That's just a weird sentence. Yeah. I wish I said it differently. Yeah. But you didn't. Of all the places. Yeah. Of all the places. You had Jameson Williams miss the training camp. Beehives. The first.

Part of the season. Movie theater floors. And he's looked better as of late. So with an offseason extra, I think he'll be more involved, not be like that 40% snap player. I don't know that that makes a huge effect on LaPlorida, but that's at least a path for targets to go elsewhere. Believe it or not, the number two tied in. And this is done by total fantasy points produced this year, not fantasy points per game. So that's an important thing to note because this player finished it too. But in fantasy points for game, he would have been six. Evan Ingram. Evan Ingram drafted as the tight end eight ends up at two in overall scoring. 53% good, 18% great, 24% bust. And, you know, the number was, I mean, 143 targets for 114 receptions. He was, what, two away from breaking the record? Or breaking or tying. So when you talk about values at the tight end position, Ingram was extremely valuable for your team. I want to do this next year.

I want to take the eighth tight end off the board. It is better for my team if you can identify the guy that's going to finish in the top three or four and draft them at eight or nine off the board. That's a great pathway to success. And a lot of people won late in the season with like David Najoku and things like that. So it lets me draft more of my twosy positions. That's my ideal situation. I want to find next year's Evan Ingram. That's going to be the goal. super consistent, not necessarily your week winner the way that Leporta would do it because he only scored four times. But at the very end of the year, it's been back-to-back seasons now where Evan Ingram from week 13 on has been pretty incredible for your team. Yeah, it's wild. All their players get injured through the year. Well, it's like they forgot, oh, hey, we can go to this guy over and over and over. I don't think they forgot. No?

No, because the targets were, I mean, 8, 8, 8, 8, 7, 7, 7, 10, 7. They did it a little bit more at the end, but you had. That's what I mean. Like at the beginning of the season. He just scored, he scored all four of his touchdowns from week 13 on. He never scored a touchdown before week 13. Give anger him the ball. Good things happened. But they did. They did give him the ball 8-1. They gave him the ball. A hundred reception pace and he had no touchdowns. And we need more. Yeah, I mean, if all you care about is Evan Ingram, yes, you're right. He needs more. That's all I care about. But he correlated with Travis E.TN's touchdowns. Right. ETN was touchdown heavy in the top half of the year. Yeah, I mean, obviously, you can't have two players scoring the touchdown on the same play. You know, my only issue with Evan Ingram, 26% of his total season's fantasy points came in two weeks.

Came in that big, monstrous explosion week against the Browns where he scored 27 points. And then the last week, you could tell, at least you know, watching, they're just trying to get him the record as they force feed him the ball. He was close. That's exactly. You guys had recorded that show where Jason, you were debating whether they would go for. I was listening because I wasn't on that show. But when the record was that close, I 100% was on Mike's side because I was like, they're going to try to get him the record. Which they really tried to. But then the game became 13 targets. You know, the game became like a problem for them, playoff wise. But that was week 18. Nobody played like that didn't matter for your fantasy teams. They gave up on Calvin Ridley's target per outrun situation in the first half of the year two. So that went up for Ingram when they said, okay, this guy is not consistent. And that was a big difference. So right now, I mean, here's my belief about Evan Ingram. I believe that the.

The Jacksonville Jaguars are going to invest a very, very important pick or free agent signing on a wide receiver that they want to be a big-bodied help for Trevor Lawrence. And I think that that will mean that this is the best year you've seen from Evan Ingram. Yeah, Evan Ingram is very mid to me. And that is how that you just threw a spike through Mike's heart. I mean, we're talking about the truth, right? He didn't bust a lot because he had so many targets. He didn't help you win a lot either. He was just okay. That's what he was all season. Didn't miss a game. He was okay for the majority of the season. I think that that is excruciatingly fair because he did not have a top six finish in the first 12 weeks of the season at tight end. So if you're not in the upper half of your entire league scoring for 12 consecutive weeks, you did not help. Yeah.

I would disagree of like if you go go look through weekly rankings of who's actually in the top 10 and on a weekly basis, I don't know, I don't have an actual number for any of it, but it's going to be littered with guys who were, you didn't even think about starting because they had two catches for five yards and a touchdown where over the first, like Evan Engram, this is half point scoring, 7.487, 10.2, 9.4. That's the whole first month. Like, Those are numbers that I would take at the tight-in position. Oh, you said that perfectly. What? They're ones I would take. Yeah. We'd all take them. I mean, that's what I said. He didn't bust, but he didn't really help you, like, win either. So if that's what you're looking for, he wasn't bad. I'm not saying bad tight-in. He was the number two tight-in on the season. Your opponent wasn't DMing you or texting you at the end of the week for the first 13 weeks and going, stupid Evan Ingram. Yeah. He got me.

Yeah, that's fine. He is an important part of this offense. I think even if they invest another great pick in a wide receiver, obviously they're probably losing Calvin Ridley, so I don't see that as a big change. I think Evan Ingram next year is a lot of what he was this year, which is an important part of their offense. PPR dependent. PPR dependent. And you just hope, I mean, touchdowns aren't sticky, right? You only had four this year. If he ends up with eight next year, it's going to end up as a good tight end. It's going to be his eighth year. Is that right?

Let me look here. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. It will be his eighth year. Yeah, I mean, credit where credit is due. Finished it too in overall accumulation of stats. His career high in touchdowns is six in his rookie year. Three three one three four four. Yeah, he's not a touch. The odds are not high there. Because that's not his, his makeup is to, you know, he's a really agile. He's a short, serious tight end. He's not Leporta. But. Got to give him credit. But we're just talking our opinion on the future. Travis Kelsey finished at three. This is interesting. Drafted as a tight-in one. His consistency rank was number one. I don't like it. His first half, number one. Second half, six. He still had, you know, I just talked about in the first 12 weeks, Evan Ingram had zero top six finishes. Kelsey had one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

So I got texts for seven different weeks where my opponent was like, screw you and Travis Kelsey. Yes. And that's what is very powerful in the position. Now, the very end of the year was tough. 13, 14, 15, 16 and championship week. Like the playoffs, this is the first time you, like, you were actively hurt by having Kelsey. Yeah, I mean, the actual three playoff weeks, he was the tight end 24, 21, and 37. Now, the rest of the season was so good that he ends up as. You know, the truth metric is number one. He's also number one in fantasy points per game. Yeah, I mean, it really sucks because he was so much worse than you hoped. He was still Travis Kelsey and over the course of the season, the number one point per game, tight end had so much greatness in the first half of the season. Early on, it just seemed like, man, I was so right to get that number five pick, you know, spin that first rounder on Kelsey.

No one won a championship with him because of just the happenstance that the last three weeks of the fantasy playoffs were basically his three worst games of the season. Now, we have a Super Bowl to be played on Sunday, but he has been dominant in the playoffs. Yes, he has. If you look at the numbers, and I think it's very interesting to look at the consistency numbers from Kelsey over the last three years, he's had basically the exact same percentage of good games, which is fifth. What is that number? Not 15 or more. It's eight or more. Eight or more. So 75% in 2021, 76% last year, 73% this year. So those numbers stayed the same. His bus percentage last year was zero. This year's back up to 20. In 2021, it was 25. So last year was really wild. And his great game percentage last year was 53%. That was insane. Yes. This year, 27%.

That's the, that's where it is. So you kind of got a reversion to 2021 in some ways. Yeah, I mean, we, we, you know, we said this. It's hard to, you know, know, know, know, but like there's no way he was going to completely repeat the, the otter sheer domination of. Otter? Yep. Otter. Like the animal? Oh, he just hates otters. He dominates otters. What's wrong with otters? I love otter. This isn't a me thing. This is a Travis Kelsey hates otters. Hmm. I mean, everybody knows that. What do you otters do? They swim. But they're not the, see, I get, I get them mixed into the beaver category. And the beavers are building, they're building things and the otters are what, just swimming up to them and turning around? They're like, yeah, like buddies. But they're hanging out, right? Yeah. Do they have big tails? I get them confused with seals. Ooh. Otters? Yeah. Otters, I think of as freshwater.

And otter is small. Like a freshwater otter. They're small. Yeah, I'm looking it up. They're far smaller and cuter than I'm. Are they in the ocean? No. So they're. So seals, Jason, seals are in the ocean. That's the line you need to figure out. I got to remember that. Thank you. The singer. All right. Travis Kelsey next year, I think you're on the one-year rental plan. You're on the waiting for the expiration. You're on the Derek Henry plan. Where's he going to go? I think he'll still go pretty high in the draft, but Lapporte will be the tight and one consensus. And then Kelsey will be there probably what, third round? I'm guessing. Third round Kelsey is going, no one will have the fortitude to pass on that. That's, I don't think anybody. I don't even think. So late second then? Late second, I wouldn't do it, but I think that's where he'll go. Okay. It's too tantalizing. The.

The end of the season was just so destructive of all of our view on Travis Kelsey. People were like legitimately mad in fantasy football at Travis Kelsey, who two week 14 was still having a fantastic year. It was three games for a player who has the most consistent record you could ever look to. And so if he was. I'll put it this way. If he was 30 years old, none of us would be talking about it. No. Three games, you would not even mention it. You'd be like take them in the first round. Yeah, you go, that sucked. So it's three games combined with being 34 years old that makes you think, oh, we're all sitting here with bated breath saying, oh, when's he going to fall apart? That's why the playoffs matter to me. The fact he's dominated in the playoffs, he's probably going to be fine. He says he's not done playing. Yeah, he emphatically said that. He said he's loving this. Why would he ever walk away? I'll take him in the third. Okay.

If he's there. All right. Let's take a break. Let's come back with a player that was dynamic, incredible, and now we're stuck wondering what's going to be. Number four, T.J. Hawkinson, drafted as the tight-in four, fourth round pick. First half of the year, number four, inconsistency. Started the year at number six, number one, and number eight. Great start. 60% good. 20% great. Which. But that's not too far off of where Kelsey was. But he didn't bust. 7% bust games. And then he got hurt. And then he tore his ACL. And then he didn't get surgery for a while because it just happened. So what are we hearing first on the injury front from Betsy? The injury front is basically the timeline is such that you would expect him to start on the pup. If he somehow.

and he will be ahead of schedule because that he is right now yeah the there is no player not ahead of schedule um if but if somehow he makes it to week one you would expect that he would not be at 100% strength i think it'll be really really surprising if he doesn't start the season on the pop and you're dealing with an injured player who's just normal timeline after this surgery says he's not back until later in the season like i could see it being you know I think when we did the math on what is normal, expected, that would have been about Halloween from his surgery date. Let me ask you this, because Hawkinson through the first 12 weeks would have also pushed the all-time reception record. He was on pace for 113. So he would have been in the same boat as Ingram. He also had five touchdowns in that span. You give him another couple. He would have been the only other player above that six mark. We know.

If Kirk Cousins is back, this is a go-to receiver, and yet you have the injury. So will he be a player that somebody is going to be willing to put on their bench for a while? So that you have somebody potentially elite when they return, or do you not expect him to return to form immediately? And I would also bring up, like, over the first six weeks, you know, it started out, okay, the tight end six in week one with... Sorry, trying to pull up those points. It was seven and a half. So as Jason would say, that's not good enough. Yeah, it didn't win you the week. Right. Didn't bust. Had a huge week two, but then like weeks three through six, you know, you had a four game span where he's just, he's kind of okay. His real dominant stretch there, which was weeks seven through 12. Let's put it there. Those are no Justin Jefferson weeks. Like he.

clearly benefited with the target share going up. You had eight games where he played with Jefferson, seven without, and five point six receptions with Jefferson, that jumps up to over seven. His touchdowns jump from like 0.25 up to almost a half a touchdown a game. I mean, so it's like there was a really big difference for Hawkinson. And that was healthy Hawkinson when Justin Jefferson was out. So I think Ham Hawk. Yeah, that is a, and that's kind of a, like a sneaky, if you're not paying attention to everything, you just look and go, oh, man, it took a little bit for Hawkinson to get going, but then he was great. When did they lose cousins? They lost cousins of week eight. So really what you want to look at is those first five weeks. That's a crazy combo too, yeah. So the first five weeks, let's take a look at the first five weeks, and if you extrapolate that over the course of the season, what would he have done? He would have finished with 102 receptions, which is great.

863 yards, which is awful on 100 plus receptions, and 6.8 touchdowns basically averaging 10 fantasy points per game. That's above average for sure. That's Evan Ingram. Yeah, exactly. Evan Ingram only had 963 yards on 114 catches. I think Ingram, let me just double check it. But Engram averaged 10.2 fantasy points. Yeah, so that's Evan Ingraham. It's not as good as what you hope for. He's coming off of a very late injury, so you would expect when he's back. Is there a chance he's not drafted? I don't think so. If he starts the year on Pup? Yeah, I mean, obviously in IR leagues, if you've got an IR spot, he's going to be one of your favorite, like, oh, round eight, round nine, take him and stash him. Might be later than that.

Yeah, maybe, but I will say that if peak health, he's averaging 10.1 fantasy points per game, you would imagine right when he's back, I don't know, he takes a little hit. And if you're stashing a guy for eight fantasy points a game when he comes back, might not be worth it. George Kittle comes in at five, 30 years old, drafted as the tight in three, consistency rank of four, first half was fifth, inconsistency, second half was second. The second most consistent tight-in over the second half of the year. 38% great games. That's a huge number. It's higher than Kelsey. I believe, let me take a quick look. Is that higher than LaPorta? LaPorta was 35. Yes. So you talk about like hot, cold, red green. That's what he's always been. It's always been maddening of knowing what George Kittle could do if he were unleashed. But he...

is only, that only happens some of the time. It's not every single week that you even have the chance. Three straight number. That's going to be a George Kittle game. Three number one overall weeks at tight end, a number two, a number three. He's a 38% busts, 38% great. Yeah, exactly. He's a roster construction question of like, do you want to have a week winning capability at tight end knowing that you will also get bust weeks that? actively hurt you. Is that worth it at the tight end position? And to me, that's a matter of what am I giving up where he's drafted? You know, when he's being drafted. You were out on him this year. I was out on him. He was in the fourth round. He was a fourth round pick. And I felt like the players that you're selecting in the fourth are still really, really good. Now, I mean, he helped people win a lot of weeks. I don't think it was necessarily

a win or a loss to be out on Kittle this year because he was so boom-bust. Well, let's go to, let's go live to the field here. Okay. Brooksie. Yes, sir. George Kittle is your tied in in Dynasty. Is this correct? Yep. What was your vibe? How did it feel? What was the ride like? Are you buying tickets again? It was pretty good this year. Yeah, yeah. Okay. It's just nice to know that he is a guy you can put in your lineup every time and he has that potential and it matters. deal with the rest. It's him versus Evan Ingram is like the philosophical. Yeah, that is what kind of fantasy player are you? Do you want to just like Evan Ingram will be a safer on a weekly basis, but his ceiling will never hit. So let me ask you, what kind of player are you? I think I'm in the Kittle versus Ingram side. I would prefer Kittle to Ingram. Yeah, 80P still.

Exactly. You have to factor in what you're giving up, which is the whole reason I was out on George Kittle is not because I think he's bad. I would love to have a George Kittle. It's just, would you rather have a George Kittle in the fourth or an evidentiary of him in the eighth? The splits are wild. Guys, I don't know if you saw the home road splits. Oh, my goodness. At home, he averaged over 15 points per game and on the road, under seven. Wow. He's a hype man. He likes the crowd. You get two tight-ins is what you do. And you just play George Kittle when he's at home. Dave Najoku came in at six, guys. He was sixth in consistency, but over the second half of the year, he was number one. Oh, man, that finished. He was so good. Tiny-in two, two, three, three. Yeah, the last four weeks was an unbelievable finish, but really from week seven on, which is crazy, right? Seven on, he was just unbelievable. Yeah.

9.2 targets per game in that stretch, six plus receptions and six of the final seven games had to deal with four quarterbacks over the course of the entire year and yet delivered really an impressive, meaningful fantasy finish. First and yards after catch, I mean, he caught, every crossing route he caught, he would just run wild. He was. really hard to tackle for these guys. And the neat thing about him, he's a big, strong guy that can break tackles. But oftentimes when he caught the ball, it wasn't him breaking tackles. It's him just running away from guys. He's a supreme athlete. He's still very young, even though he's been in the league this upcoming season will be his eighth like Evan Ingraham. They came in together. But he was drafted as like a 12-year-old man child back eight years ago. So it's neat to see him break out.

I think his breakout was so dominant that as an organization, as a coaching staff, you say, how can we get him part of this game? Focal point. A focal point in the offense. I will be much more in on him than I thought I would be based on how he played with Sean Watson because he wasn't as good with Watson. You know, he dealt with four theoretically inferior quarterbacks than Voldemort. later in the season, but he was better with him. You're talking seven fantasy points. He was better with flaco, right? Yes. Yeah, but I mean, he was good even in non-flaco games. 10.6 fantasy points per game without Deshawn Watson, seven point one fantasy points with Deshawn Watson. Yeah, I'd be curious what those numbers were non-flacco, but say the month run where he gave you what is like the Kyle's showing the

the fifth best final four game span for a tight end over the last decade, where he was 2, 2, 3, 3. Those were all Joe Flacco games. So that's the real question, Jason, you'll think you laid it out. Did he force the organization to figure something out? Because it will take, it will still take a bit of a leap of faith because we, you hit the dominance, none of the dominance was with Watson. He had. 123 targets this year, which was more than 30 above his career high. And the dude burnt his face off. He had 23. That's right. We forgot about that. He had 23 receptions. That's a man. More than his career high. He had his career high in receiving yards. He had his career high in receiving touchdowns. I do think he. And he burns his face off. I do think he created himself as a focal point of this office. I can't imagine you do.

what he did down the stretch, and you come into the next season, where you really do need weapons still. You've got Cooper, but, you know, Elijah Moore showed he's just not that guy. They don't have another guy. It's those two. Most annoying players in the NFL, Elijah Moore is on the upper. Let me ask you this, no draft consideration. You just have to put one of them on your team next year and lock them in your tight-in spot. George Kittle, David Njok. No draft costs. I'll take it. I'll take Kittle. I'll still go Kittle. Okay. Just wanted to see where that buzz was. Cole Kemet finished at 7. Look at that. Consistency rank of 11. First half of the year, he was 7th and consistency. Second half, 18 against all odds. Busted 29% of the time, good 41%, great 12%. Honestly, I feel like Cole Komett was one of the least talked about players in fantasy this past year. Yeah. Because the lows at times were very low. Dealt with some injury.

So people didn't play him even on weeks when he did perform. Like the Arizona game, you know, he was banged up going into it. He ends up at number five on the week. I don't know how many people had him in the lineup. Justin Fields missed time. Saw a ton of red zone targets. And honestly, the Colquette discussion, like, I feel like we have to just tell you what happened and then wait to have the discussion. We don't know who the quarterback's going to be. We don't know if they're going to invest. They have two high picks. So if you tell me next year, you're going in with.