Early Top 10 TE Rankings + Rookie Steals

Everybody, we've beat it into the ground, the unknowns, right? Where do you draft? What did you just bring up about Todd Gurley for the high stakes? Yeah, the FFPC. So there's like, you're talking really high stakes fantasy drafts. And now it's very high stakes and it's early on in the process, but people are already getting their drafts going. And I think it was Evan Silva had pointed this out. Todd Gurley went at 210, the back of the second round. So that's how concerned.

High stakes players are right now with Todd Gurley. Yeah, you don't, I don't think any of them want to bomb their first selection. Right. Or apparently their second selection. It's interesting. So I think the range of outcomes for Gurley is, I mean, he was incredible. You just look at last year, even a year when he was hurt, still 17 touchdowns on the ground, a monster. So you probably will feel the cloud above Todd Gurley for a lot of this offseason.

But there's a lot of good underneath it if he's healthy. Stay healthy, my friend. Stay healthy for Jason's Dynasty team. We're not going to get into any specific news, knows, nothing huge today. Do you want to remind you to check out the Sleeper app for the latest breaking news. Also a great platform for Dynasty Leagues, for Redraft Leagues, Modern Design, Infinite Customizations. Check it out. All free. Otherwise, let's look, it's, it's super ridiculous.

But it's low-key interesting to me that the Bucks brought in Kerwin-Williams, that Bruce Ariens is getting the old gang back together. Yeah, Carson Palmer is coming out of retirement. Just saying he brought in Andre Ellington. He's brought in Kerwin Williams. Bruce Ariens likes players he's familiar with. Is crying in Oakland right now? He could be. Didn't they sign him before they signed Tyrol Williams?

Off the top of my head, I cannot recall. I looked at that Oakland Dept chart this morning, and I just threw my hands up because it was like... A hundred wide receivers. Yeah, Antonio Brown, Tyrell Williams, what, Hunter Infro? Yep. It just goes on and on. All right, early tight ends. Let's do it. It's a vicious announcement. Tight ends. Travis Kelsey.

is our number one tight-in. Yes, nothing to see here. Move along. The gap is big for me. The gap is pretty big. Travis Kelsey is number one on all three of our initial early tight-in rankings. And by our, you mean everyone's. Well, yeah, consistency rank last season, number one, finishes the number one tight-in, 103 receptions, over 1,300 yards. I think he briefly broke.

the record for? Yes. For an hour or so. He broke the record for shortest record holder in the NFL. Ten touchdowns, 150 targets last year. And as of right now, with all the Tyreek Hill unknown, I mean, just so much more cemented, solidified as Patrick Mahomes' number one target. You know, distributing targets beyond Travis Kelsey is difficult right now.

Yes, it is. You sit down and you're looking at Damien Williams and you're looking at Sammy Watkins and Mikul Hardman, DeMarcus Robinson, and this is why Travis Kelsey is where he is. Close to the record for targets at the tight-in position that Zach Ertz had, which was 156. Kelsey had 150. He's been a top two tight end in each of the last three seasons, guys. I mean...

what can you tell listeners about Kelsey they don't already know it's just about the draft stock where are you willing to take him he was a he was a top 10 wide receiver like if you give him if you put him in the wide receiver category he was very helpful for your team now he's just it's a onesie position we talk about we don't like taking those guys early in the draft because it's easier to replace them since you only need the one but Travis Kelsey and you said you have a wide gap between him and

You're number two, who we won't reveal yet. Because that would be a massive, massive spoiler. So are you willing to pay up the price, which come draft time is going to be a high-end second round pick for Travis Kelsey? Yes. I think so. I think I'm willing to pay that price for Travis Kelsey. I do think he's in his own tier. Now, you guys might answer that differently. You might put Zachars in there. Oh, he's S-class for me.

S class? Yes. If you buy that goes by video game rankings, by the way, if you're not familiar. Yeah, no, I still don't know whether that means he's in his own tier. S class is above A. Okay. By himself. Yes. All right. I would put him by himself as well. I would be willing to take him in the second round because barring injury, which can happen to any player in a position, he is a locked and loaded stud that will give you a positional advantage. The reason that I've got him there over Ertz, who I love Ertz, but the,

You know, if you look at the jump of targets that Ertz had this past season, going from being around 105 targets the last several years, which was great, he jumps up to the record breaking 156. Well, Travis Kelsey, you know, over the last few years, 117 targets. Then he jumps up to 122 targets, then 150. This is where he's going to be living. I'm much more confident, especially you look at. You confident in those touchdowns? Because that was the big jump for Kelsey. That was the big jump.

But it wasn't. He's always struggled with that aspect of the game. He's never been a gronk. Yeah, I mean, he had eight touchdowns the season prior. And I think that I trust Patrick Mahomes to throw touchdowns. So I am 100% confident that Travis Kelsey, if he plays 16 games, he's certainly not going to catch fewer than eight touchdowns. That's his baseline to me. And his ceiling.

I mean, if he ends up as, you know, a 14-15 touchdown guy, I've probably got him projected. I don't have my projection right in front of me. I've probably got him projected for 10. Let's use it to, let's continue the conversation into Zach Ertz, who we have at number two. One of the reasons that, you know, Ertz's target totals went so astronomically high is you had really no one else. You know, there was a bit of the same story between Ertz and.

and what happened with Kittle last year in San Francisco, you know, we know there's two sides to this to me. One is that Ertz and Carson Wins, they are thick as thieves. Right. And if you look at the first half of the season, when Wins was available, the target count for Earths was even more astronomical when averaged out over the season. That being said,

You didn't have a healthy Alshon Jeffrey. You didn't have Deshawn Jackson. You didn't have our Sega white side. It was Mike Wallace. I mean, Mike Wallace was brought in to be a huge part of this offense, and he went down, you know, two games into the season. Huge difference. And they didn't really have weapons even out of the backfield in the passing game to start the year. Right. So I think that by nature of just the career arc of Zach Ertz, it's unreasonable to expect anything close to 156 targets this year unless.

Jackson and Whiteside and Aguilar and these guys go down. So I think that's why there's the tier gap, in other words. Yeah, I would agree with the tier gap, but the real tier gap is either right here or after the third tight-in. And that's why, you know, you talk about the onesie position, how it's easily replaceable when you only need one player to start every single week. Usually you can grab guys off of waivers. But unlike the quarterback position,

where it is easy to replace because you have literally 25 guys who are great. 40 different players that are going to score as a top, you know, top 12 quarterback on the season, on a weekly basis, through the season. You don't have that a tight-in. The tight-in, you've got those top guys and then you've got utter trash. So I'm willing to take a risk on Kelsey or, you know, as far as high cost on Kelsey, on Ertz, and on Kittl. The last thing I want to point about,

point out about well you got it we got it about hurts is yes the target count had a huge jump had a count of plus 40 plus 44 44 yeah the previous two years though you're talking zackertz appeared in 14 games so and if you pro rate out what his target share was looking like he would have been in the 120s so the jump wasn't as extreme as uh as 44 but it's i'm at 127

Okay. For the upcoming year. Yeah, I think that's a very fair projection. In case you forget, last year, 156 targets, 116 receptions at the tight end position, NFL record, 1,163 yards and 8 touchdowns. So that was a target share of 23%. That's bonkers. Give that to my tight end, please, yes. You know, even when you look at, you know, Kelsey, that's what Kelsey had, 23% targets here. Those, that's why those guys are.

Elite. Monsters. Did you bring up Goddard at all? When we're talking about all the other people that could possibly encroach on targets, Deshawn Jackson. No, he should be brought up. Second year. Yeah, Goddard, I expect to take a step forward, them to use more two tight-end sets. I think Goddard is actually going to be a guy.

that is deserving, you know, by the end of this season, I think he'll be a weekly startable asset. And if that happens, says that scare you off of Hertz. It doesn't scare me off of Hertz, but it has to be something that mitigates his true upside potential. I don't see him having the 150 targets that he had this last year. But he's going to be, what, a third round pick, maybe four. Zach Erds? Yeah. Yeah, we'll have to wait and see. He's probably the best.

It's hard to say. I would rather pay the early second for Travis Dels. Yeah, I think I would too. All right, before we jump into our third ranked tight-in, I do want to take a second. I want to thank Seat Geek. Look, the ticket industry has not changed in a long time. They're a bunch of big companies. They've been around forever. They don't care about making the experience easier. And if you know this show, we like a thing's easy. We like them easy. Well, there are more than 50.

thousand five-star reviews for the C-Geek app. That's a lot. They are a ticket company that puts people first, millions of tickets all over the web. They search them, they find them, they show them on the deal scale of 1 to 10, put them on a map. They just make it easy. Two taps, you got it. I've bought tons of tickets to Diamondbacks games. My son loves going to Diamondbacks games. We've grabbed Cardinal primetime games with C-Geek. It's easy.

You pull out the app and you're done. I love not having to think about where to find tickets. I just use Seekek. And our listeners get $10 off their first C Geek purchase with the promo code Ballers. Seagique supports our show. So go and support them. That's $10 off your first purchase of concert tickets, sports, comedy, whatever you're listening to, whatever you want to check out. Promocode Ballers.

And we also want to thank Lisa, who knows how important rest is to a better life. Lisa is the foundation of a healthier, happier you. All of their products have been thoughtfully designed to go beyond just creating a comfortable bed and transform your bedroom into a sanctuary that you want to spend time in. They're a great company. They donate.

For every 10 mattresses that they sell, they donate a mattress to nonprofits. Those who are in need, they've donated to more than 32,000 different people in need of mattresses, which is great. I personally have their Sapira mattress. If you're looking for that hybrid, the best foam, the best springs that come together, give you edge-to-edge support. It's awesome. Highly recommend it. Don't miss out.

You can live healthier, happier by resting deeper. Order today and get 15% off your purchase for a limited time at Lisa.com slash footballers and use the promo code footballers. That's Lisa L-E-E-E-S-A.com slash footballers. And keep in mind, you also get a 100-night risk-free trial plus free shipping and returns. All right, guys, let's talk about George Kittle. I think he's very interesting. He's our number three.

All three of us have them at number three. Last year, the second most consistent tight-ins finished the season as number three tight-end broke the record for yardage from the tight-in position, 88 receptions, 1,377 yards, and five touchdowns on 136 target. Last year during the off-season, we sat around this table, and we talked about Evan Ingram. We talked about Evan Ingram's explosive breakout rookie season. We talked about...

the fact he was the beneficiary of injury on the New York giant offensive side of the ball. Big explosive plays, but we looked at his numbers and we looked at the stats and we said, I don't know if he can do that again. When you look at George Kittle, obviously we all have him at three, but I do see a significant gap between the top two guys and Kittle. And I just don't know how he repeats a season like this again. You have the variables of different quarterbacks last season? You had the injuries?