Fantasy Football - Top 10 TE Rankings + Most Improved Offenses - Podcast for 8/5

You know, are you drafting Fanon automatically ahead of Pitts? Probably. Yes. If the cost was the same, I would much rather have Fanon. All right, Sam Leportez, who we're talking about now. Nobody knows this man better than Jason Moore. He's been on his team in a bunch of mocks in a row. I got him at nine, Mike at eight, Jason at seven. I mean, Sam LaPorte, he's a great tight end. He's going to be out there every snap for the most part.

The team has an incredible schedule. They're favored in 14 of the first 15 games. They also have a ton of weapons. Jamir Gibbs, Alman Ross St. Brown, Jamison Williams. There will be, I think games are you're going to end up with the short end of the stick. He can make big plays. He has a chance of double-digit touchdowns. But we have seen, you know, I mean, Leporta's a pretty safe pick, I think. Yeah, I mean, that's what it is. I don't see Leporta. Like, he can't.

differentiate himself from the other target monsters at the position. He's never going to have 140 targets the way that a McBride or Bowers or some of these second year tight ends might get to. But the touchdown upside is clearly there. He's already had double-digit touchdowns in his career as a rookie. He's on a team that is expected to score a ton of points. And I think this is just a player where you're going to have consistency. When he doesn't score a touchdown, it's not like he just disappears.

But you're going to have a lot of touchdowns. And if you end up with, let's say, nine touchdowns this season, very reasonable for him. That means there's, I mean, when you're tight in scores a touchdown. Every other game at least. That week, you have a good chance of winning. And so I would rather have a guy who can get in the end zone. Like I think Leporta has way more touchdown opportunities than.

Pitts, pits might have more targets, but I'll take the touchdowns at the tight end position personally. Last year in his nine games, you know, Leporta had four of them were over 10 points. Like, yeah, I would rather, I would rather hitch my wagon to Leporta. All right. Number seven. Tucker Kraft comes in at number seven. I got him at five. So I thought this was only Mike's dude.

No, I have him ranked at five. Right. Team Tucker. Which means he is above Fanon in my rankings and below Bowers, McBride, Loveland, and Warren right now. I do think he'll be there from week one. I think that, look, I think their offense is interesting top to bottom. I think you have players that were excited about Christian Watson. Yeah. You know, Jaden Reed getting some talk about some two-wide receiver sets. All the feedback, I know we're bitter towards Matthew Golden.

But all the camp talk has been very positive around Matthew Golden. It's an interesting offense, but Kraft was kind of what made it go last year. And I do think he's going to be back and healthy. He was the tied in two and fantasy points per game, so I don't think ranking him at five is insane. And this is not a one-hit wonder either. You have the breakout from last season. That was a, you know, it was a handful of games where he was upper echelon top tier. But you go back a season.

This was the tight-in nine with 8.1 points per game the year before. They already knew what they had in Tucker Kraft and just built him into the offense a little bit more. He's a complete bully in man-to-man coverage. You know, tore the ACL. That's the whole storyline. But I think he's going to be good. They're favored in their first six games of the year. It's a nice slate for him to come out and get acclimated. I'm pretty in on Tucker Kraft. Consensus-wise, we have him at seven.

Jason, you're the most bearish. Yeah, so to speak to that, it's really injury and ADP. So he's coming off of an injury where the expectation early in the offseason was he'll start the season on the pup. Then as time went on, it got more and more positive. We've seen him at camp now. He's looking great. If he's running straight, he looks amazing. He's running straight. He's looking great. He should be there for week one. And Tucker Kraft?

straight as enough. Yeah, just that's all I need. Bold people over. Hey, in line, run a seam route. Yeah. And then run line feeling fine. Well, the nice thing is even with that you've got you you have a lot of bars for TK. You have a lot of plays that the Packers set up like play action where they kind of leak craft out. You don't have to be cutting these amazing routes to catch the little dump off in the flat and then just go mow guys down.

It's almost unfair to talk about his points per game because his last game he got injured and wasn't really involved. He was 14 points per game in the game, you know, full games that he started on pace for 1139 yards. So I don't blame either of you guys for just taking the shot, the swing of saying if he is healthy, he is going to, he was truly dominating. However, for me, like he's going right next to Harold Fanon. If I wanted to take a tight end,

He's healthy and looked great and scored more fantasy points last year. But he's also going next to other guys at other positions. I'm saying he scored more than the guy who played in eight games. Availability is the best ability. Oh my gosh. But Jordan Tyson is right next to him. Okay. Whatever. People do not like that. Is it, do you think. He scored more than Tankdale too. Do you think if Tucker Kraft plays 17 games.

that he definitely scores more points than Harold Fanon. If Tucker Kraft plays a full season, yes, he will score more points than Harold Fanon. Yeah, the difference in that offense is just going to be pretty large. I mean, Fanon's going to be great, but you did add a couple more weapons in that offense than our quarterback. That's the differential to me. The quarterback's the offensive system. I still love Fanon. That's why he comes in at.

Number six. Harold Fanon, 22 years young and the tight-in five last year in Cleveland, with shared time with Njoku, with no wide receivers, with no quarterback. This is only one of two rookie tight-ins to go 70 for 706. So he is an electric player. Harold Fanon is awesome. And if they were smart, which it seems like Monkin's going to do, he's going to use Fanon a ton. So if you want to hedge against injury,

These guys are back to back in my rankings. I don't blame you at all. If you have a, you know, this is where, um, this is where I think for you, where you have like a tier of superstars, right? So you've got McBride, Bowers, you've got Warren and Loveland. Yes. And that's your core. That is my core for. And I can kind of see that where it's like, then you can make some really different decisions with like Fanon and Kraft, Kittle, if he's healthy to start the year.

You can throw Laporta or Pitts into that group. It becomes more muddy. It becomes more plant your flag on the offense that you like a little bit. You know, you talked about a reason to like Leporto over pits is they're going to score a lot more touchdowns in Detroit than they will in Atlanta. You can make that. That's part of the craft call over Fanon, I think, is that I think Green Bay is going to be a great offense on a great, you know, great team. I think Cleveland is going to be better than people expect, but offensively not a top.

you know, 20 teams. None of us picked them to be the team to score 13 more touchdowns this year. I did think about it. I did. They improved their offensive line in the draft. They've got, you know, an offensive minded head coach now. Some good rookie wide receivers. Yeah, I think that they could be a surprisingly, you know, much better offense. To me, Fanon is the one player. I am very fearful of getting wrong because I'm pretty much out on sixth round tight ends. So like if.

And that's what it is for me. Because I don't have Kraft and Fanon in the tier of the elites, I don't think they are, do I think they're better than the other Titans I'm going to get later? Absolutely. But I think it's a point a game. I think it's irrelevant for winning and losing in fantasy. This was one of my 10 things to remember is that the difference between the Titan 2 last year and the Titan 12 was pretty meaningless last year. And so if you're not one of the elites, I would rather have a fifth round, a sixth round, a seventh round pick.

of the running backs and wide receivers there, take the shot of those guys. But Fanon, what he did in college was so productive. And then to come in rookie year and be that productive is like, oh, maybe he is just that dude. But on the offense. Can he finish top three? No. No, I don't think so. No, and I'm my, the argument against Fanon is just the Cleveland Browns. I'm with you guys of, he is an awesome player.

But looking at the competition for Harold Fanon last year was Jerry Judy. I know he had to overtake David Najoku, but it's like Judy had a 20% target share. The next highest wide receiver target share would have been Cedric Tillman, or I'm sorry, Isaiah Bond at 8% and then Tillman. Njoku's at 9%. So it's like these, a first round wide receiver, a second round wide receiver.

Let me give you the counter argument there. The counter argument is the Cardinals. The Cardinals have Michael Wilson, Marvin Harrison, Jr. as part of that offense. But Trey McBride is the bona fide number one guaranteed target in that offense. Yes. I wonder if, because when I see Fanon, the part I'm worried about getting wrong is that this guy could lead the league in receptions at tight end. That's my worry is from a quantity. I mean, he had 107 targets last year.

as a rookie. That's the part I'm worried about getting wrong is that he is the PPR winner of the year. It's actually better than the 107 targets. If you look at when Shadur took over in week 12 and you take out the injury game at the very end of the season, he was on pace for 142 targets with Shadour. And to McBride, like those guys don't take away from McBride leading the league in receptions at tight end. So rookies are not going to do it. Maybe. Maybe. These are, but these are unknowns where it's like Marve and Michael Wilson, there's,

some unknown about them of where they could end up this year, but we have no idea how Concepcion and Boston are going to factor into taking away from the target. Is there any chance he has fewer than 100 targets on this office, though? I don't think so. I don't think so. Okay. So at least that's built in as a floor for Harold Fanon, I think. Yeah, I mean, I love Harold Fanon. When I say I'm not drafting him, it's really just draft price. If he was in the ninth round and I'm giving up a mediocre sixth, I believe, right now. Okay.

Yeah, that'll be a tough decision, I think, for where people want to tear him mentally because of the Brown situation. And I'm curious, I'm going to have Kyle pull some data on top three tight ends over the last decade or so. And how many of them are on sub 500 teams? Because I'm very curious about that. So I'll give you that information shortly. Number five. Well, I can tell you, last year, he was on a sub 500 team in Trey McBride.

You're talking about the number one time. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. George Kittle. Come on, George. Comes in at five. We all got them right there. Mike at five. We're at six. This one's been evolving. It's going to continue to evolve over the course of this month. Major injury. Not a spring chicken. George Kittle almost 33 years old. Also not as old as Travis Kelsey by any stretch. And, you know, the touchdowns with Brock Purdy have been there. That was an early career situation with.

Kittle where you're like, he's going to catch a bunch of passes. He can make a big play, but he's probably getting up with five or six touchdowns. He's got higher upside now in this offense. And for goodness sakes, they don't have any wide receivers that are healthy. No, George Kittle is the entire, the entirety of the bet for George Kittle is health. And so it's like, there is no, there is no doubts of, of how dominant George Kittle can be for, for the NFL, for fantasy football.

You know, his rookie here wasn't great. Five point seven points per game. But since then, his lowest is 10.7. That's huge. Like, he's a double digit point machine at the tight end position. And things like the ceiling that, the connection he has with Brock Purdy, it raises the stakes even more in my opinion. So everything is just, do you think George could be healthy? We have them at five, which is way above market.

My bet is a season-long bet. I think it starts slower for George Kittle, but over the course of the season, I think he returns to form and becomes the true dominator that we have seen every year, and it's tight-end 10. So if you want to protect yourself, you know, if you want to take George Kittle and then Dallas Goddard. Or one of the, you're like likely or even Travis Kelsey, because Kelsey will give you a floor.

That's a draft strategy that is plausible, taking Kittle in the 9th or 10th round and then coming back and taking Travis Kelsey. I think it's an interesting strategy for this year. The splits with Brock Purdy over four years, if you spread them out over a season, it would be 81 catches on 106 targets for 1145 yards and 11 touchdowns. That has been the, you know, that's much better than his splits with a different.

quarterback in San Francisco. Now, Mike, you did read the tea leaves on CMC's health last year. Yeah. Would you mind letting us know the exact... It's pretty important situation for George. I actually would mind. Oh, you would. Yeah. I thought we were going to get the answer. No. I am much more worried about the injury. I mean, my ranking says how I believe... Yeah, your ranking says you believe he's going to be there for 17 pretty darn healthy games. I do think second half of the year he might be good.