Early Top 10 TE Rankings + Rookie Steals

Throughout the entire offense, Pettus. Goodwin. Goodwin, Carson, McKinnon. All of them. All of them. So, Kiddle was, now, that being said, you know, I brought this up around the office this morning because we're kind of talking about Kiddle. And I want to get your guys' thoughts on it. But Brooks brought up this video of when I said, go spend a kiddle on him. I spent my 44 Fab on Kiddle. And it was on the basis of one game with Jimmy G.

A very small sample. Running downfield routes and looking like a new Grankowski. Somebody that could stretch the field from the position. Somebody that could go. And we saw it last year. Massively explosive plays. Week 14, 30 and a half fantasy points. Week 17, 25 fantasy points. Those are weak winners. You get that from your tight end. It's over. Right. Yeah. And it's hard to gauge him. I mean, the game you saw where you were real excited week one. That was with Jimmy Garoppolo. Obviously.

lost Garoppolo early on in the season. And the splits are more in favor for a kiddle playing without Garoppolo this past year. But I feel like the sample is just too small to really make any type of conclusion. And I think having him ranked at number three is going through the process of saying he is going to regress slightly. We don't think he's up in the level of Zach Ertz just yet. But he is an absolute.

athletic monster has the opportunity to be. Let me ask this. Do you think he can still be the number one option when they're with the Pettison his second year and Goodwin and maybe Debo Samuel's getting involved? Yeah, 100%. Yeah, he can. I don't necessarily. Which is different than most tight ends.

are nowhere even near being the number one target for their team. That's fair. That's what I basically wanted to bring up is that he is not like other tight ends exactly the same way that Kelsey isn't. I mean, Kittle is, you know, an athletic freak. He's one of those guys that when you watch him break tackles and do things. He's just, he is an absolute beast and there's, you know, you just can't teach that. So he has the opportunity. Can't teach beast. You can't teach beast.

So he has this opportunity. Marshawn's been saying it for years. Where, you know, you have an offense that we, I think we would all agree across the board. We expect the San Francisco 49ers to take a major step forward on offense this year. Would you guys agree with that? Having their actual starting quarterback and healthy wide receivers, they drafted a couple guys. Do you expect them to go up or down from last season as an offense? I don't, I'm not expecting major, but definitely.

It's maybe like a step and a half. It's not so much about what's the gap. But my point is, they're trending upward. Sure. If the offense is better for San Francisco, even if he has fewer targets, that's still more opportunities around the goal line, things like that. So this is why he's number three. But he does carry risk because if Pettus breaks out and now all of a sudden they've got more, you know, with Debo Samuel and Jalen Hurd and these guys that are not allowing.

Kittle to be up in the 130 targets, then there's risk there. 88 receptions last year for 1,377 yards. Four-year college career, 48 receptions. Yeah, well, he went 20 receptions in his junior year, 22 in his senior year. So I'm looking at fantasy football. That just makes me laugh. They just didn't use it. But right now, Zachertz is the 212 and George Kittle is the 305. Are you...

willing to pay the price for either of those guys if that ADP were to hold. But you just said Kelsey is... No. I said Ertz is the 212. George Kittle is the 305. I think I would pay up for Ertz. I would. You know, the truth is what you're sacrificing there. Where's Kelsey? 205. Yeah, that would be the target. That would be the guy I would want the most. We all agree on Travis Kelsey. That's why I left a matter of question. Yeah, if you said 112 though.

You know, there have been years in the past where Gronk has been a first round pit. I was like, hey, you guys want a Snickers bar or you want this broccoli? That's why I didn't put the Snickers bar in the question. Well, I think there was a time, though, this off season. And it was before the Tyreek stuff happened. But it just looked like on paper. Like Kelsey was going so high and Kiddo was going so low that Kiddo was the obvious pit to me. I don't feel that way anymore. Right. You got a round difference. So, um.

Let's go to number four on our early tight-in list. O.J. Howard out of Tampa Bay. I have him at six. Jason, you got him up at four, Mike, at five. O.J. Howard needs to stay on the field. If O.J. Howard stays on the field, he's too talented to not produce. I think that's what we can all agree on. He's in our number four overall tight end. Last year, he finished at 13, but he was the fourth most consistent last year when he was actually on the field.

So has to take a step forward. We know Cameron Brates in the rearview mirror. Bruce Ariens hasn't traditionally used tight ends. But again, I still go with the two talented rule. All right. Yeah, I mean, that's my thing is whatever Bruce Ariens wants to do and he's going to put a better offense in place, James Winston uses tight ends.

James Winston will look for his tight-ins running down the field, and there's no way they're not going to use O.J. Howard and capitalize on the gifts that he has. If that's the case, and he plays 16, I mean, you just said it. He was one of the most consistent tight-ins when he was playing. If he stays healthy, I don't see how, I mean, right now I've got him down for only 86 targets, total. And we've been talking about comparing that to these guys who are up at 130.

plus targets, and this is coming out as my tight-in four, because I think his red zone opportunity, his ability, like Kittle, to just break away on an 80-yard run. Not every tight-in can do that. O.J. Howard has done it multiple times, and we'll continue to do it. So when you have those big, massive games, you also have a tight-in coming into, what is this? His third year in the league, that's usually how long it takes a tight-in to really come into their own. At least. His pace last year in games played.

77 targets, 54 receptions, 904 yards, 8 touchdowns. That's great for a tight end in this landscape. Yeah, I mean, I think, and then you have real opportunity there. They didn't spin up in the draft to go get another wide receiver option. You lost Humphreys? Yeah. You lost D. Jacks. He's going to be used. And, you know, coming out of college, if you remember, if you've been with us for the last three plus years, when he was a rookie.

This was a generational talent. O.J. Howard was like, okay, since Gronk, he was, you know, we've talked a lot about T.J. Hawkinson and Noah Fent this year. Two really good prospects. Neither one are close, in my opinion. And I think, I don't think either one. Those are fighting words. No, no, no. I'm saying in the, I don't even think this is controversial. I think if you look at what the normal scouting takes were at the collegiate level, from then until now, O.J. Howard was, was well above.

any tight-in that's come out since then. Evan Ingram at number five. Mike, you got him at four. I got him at five. Jason at seven. Last season, regression, 45 for 57 and three. Also injury. He missed six games during the season after the breakout rookie campaign in which he had finished number five at the position. Evan Ingram, in my opinion, is potentially one of the sneakiest best values in the draft. Do you know where he's going right now, Mike? Do you know? Don't tell me. It's not.

5.05. Is he really? He is. Do you like that value for Evan Ingram? No. You don't. And I'm, I feel like I'm in the front of the bus driving team Evan Ingram, but I wouldn't pay a fifth rounder for him. Here's one of the reasons I like. Now, you have Golden Tate, you have Sterling Shepard, and both of those guys are going to soak up targets. But no, O'Dell Balcom Jr. I just think Ingram has the opportunity to.

Yeah, do a lot more with no OBJ. Yeah, I completely agree with that. Last year, you're talking the four games without him, without Odo Beckham, where Evan Ingram was actually playing. He literally doubled his fantasy output. When he was given opportunity, he would come through almost every single time. And if you were watching any Giants games, if you had Evan Engramstock, it could be incredibly frustrating of just,

Why are you not even giving a target? Why is Evan Engram on the field right now if you're just going to waste what he's doing? So I completely agree that he absolutely has the opportunity. Golden Tate, despite what Dave will say in his plan, Golden Tate is not a replacement for Odell Beckham Jr. It's a completely different player, completely different playing style. Golden Tate is not going to stretch the field entering his, what, like 15th season?

Golden Tate's been around for a while. So Evan Ingram absolutely has the opportunity, but it's not like George Kittle where I feel decently confident that George Kittle can be the number one target on his team. Evan Ingram can be that. He could become the focal point of the offense. He is absolutely on a Jordan Reed player spectrum where you could run the offense to ring him. They did two years ago. But I'm not, I'm not fifth round positive.

that that's what I'm going to get. Yeah, it's all about risk. And you're 100% right. If Golden Tate becomes the primary target, then Evan Ingraham will be an afterthought. There's just not enough. Eli's not getting better at this stage in this career. Hey, sorry, Dave. It's me. Dave. Yeah, sorry, Eli's not getting better. So it's three years. The offense isn't better without O'Dell Beckham.

But if Evan Ingram is the number one target, if he becomes that, then he's well worth a fifth round pick. If I had to put the odds out there, my odds are that he will not be that number one target. I think he'll be the third or fourth target on the team. Third or fourth target on? On the Giants. Okay. Because you've got, I mean, you've definitely got Sterling Shepherd probably ahead of them, Sequin ahead of them, and then it's a question of whether Golden Tate's ahead of them or not. I'm only to give Kate and Saquan the knot.

Yeah, I would take one for sure. But does he keep pace with Golden Tate? And I think he's still going to be good. He's my fourth rank tied in, mostly because the other tight ends are garbage. He's not going to block. Oh, no. I don't want him to block. And that's great for fantasy. Yeah. Don't you start learning how to block, Evan? It's one of the problems that O.J. Howard had early on, though, right? Too competent a blocker. It's one of the reasons people like Ingram over Howard in year one. Number six, Hunter Henry. Chargers.

Tight-in returns. Didn't play last year. In 2017, 14 games, 45 for 579-4. He's a forgotten man. Yes. Had he played last year and dominated, he could very well be the third or fourth on this list. He is coming off of an injury. However, that goes. It does go for any player.

Had they played last year and dominated. If any player dominated last year, they would be near the top. Every player that we're talking about other than this one played last year and we know what we have in him. But if they play last year and they dominated. Then we would be talking about it was a top three pick. Okay. Fair. Guilty. Guilty is charged, Your honor. But the point is you have Philip Rivers.

Who has always utilized. I mean, Antonio Gates has been. Hunter Henry is 24? Yes. Wow. That's a young boy. I mean, Philip Rivers has always used the tight end well, especially around the goal line. Now, you could obviously credit that to Antonio Gates being a Hall of Fame caliber, and some of that is rightly deserved. But it's a system and a team that wants to use a tight in. And then you lose Tyrell Williams.

They don't bring in a replacement. So targets have opened up for the offense when he comes back. You obviously also lost gates. Not that there was a whole lot of volume there. But the opportunity is there for this to be pretty much a three headed offense to me between Keenan Allen, Mike Williams and Hunter Henry. And if this offense is, you know, trucking along, I mean, Hunter Henry is not going to be, he's not going to cost too much. I mean, well, I mean, well, yes, he is. You think he's.

If Evan Ingram is going at the fifth round on fantasy football calculator. So that's that's the source I'm using. Hunter Henry is going six seven seven spots behind Evan Ingraham. Get. No, thank you. People, look, he'll thank you. He's not as forgotten as you think. Apparently not. People love Hunter Henry. I thought for sure highest he would be would be eighth round.

For the people. People were stashing Hunter Henry through the ACL injury with the news that he might get on the field at the end of the year. People love Hunter Henry. Last year, tight-ins in the charge of his offense demanded only 14.4% of the targets. All the years prior. Come on, Virgil. 21, 25, 24, 21. So, yeah, the history is there. He has to stay healthy, though. I'm not willing to spend a fifth, six-round pick on the...