The TRUTH About Fantasy TEs + Reaper Returns - Fantasy Football Podcast for 2/8

between weeks 7 through 14. Man, tight ends suck. I mean, the reality is the other great tight ends. There were other great tight ends this year, but they didn't play enough. They were points per game. Exactly. They were points per game great. They were far better than the doctor here. But the doctor. He accumulated. Yeah, he accumulated. I mean, look, you say whatever you want, but when you are a doctor, health is important. And he played all 16. You know. 17.

Thank you, 17. I will say that the stretch in the middle where it was, it didn't go very well. Michael Gallup came back from his injury week 10. So five of the seven poor weeks were when Gallup came back. And that was, that was a concern. Now, Gallup is a free agent, also tore his ACL. So we'll have to wait to see. I think that the reality is what Dalton Schultz is next year.

is one of those, assuming that he, yes, assuming that he resigns with the Cowboys is that he is a, I don't think anyone's hop in the fence to get Dalton Schultz. He'll still be a late round guy to me. Is that afraid? I'm picturing. I want to picture this one. Yeah. They hop in the fence because they got to get in there? Yeah. Is this, is this a hop a fence like you're, there's a concert or something and I'm.

I don't want to buy a ticket, so I'm hopping the fence or they're sold out? Exactly. Maybe there's a little fence, you know, that's... How high? Is this a, is this like the metal gate fence? Is this a... It's a metal fence, but it's five-footer. I mean, so you got to jump. You're not just scissor walking over this fence. You know, I remember one time backing down my street and watching you jump a fence.

Because I was picking you up to go to the Sun's game. Tell me you weren't impressed. I videoed because I didn't expect it to go as well as it did. You videoed and you were disappointed. I was disappointed. You thought I was going to eat it. You did not fall. Yeah, he's a free agent. You still have Jarwin under contract. Jarwin doesn't really concern me because it's kind of a binary thing here. If you bring Dalton Schultz back, you're doing it because he's your guy because he proved he can be the guy. And then if he's gone, it's because he's taking money somewhere else. And then we can talk about Jarwin again.

Dalton Schultz is probably coming back. What? See, I... I think he'll be back. I think he will leave because what he did will get him paid more than it should. I think he might get franchised. They call that... Yeah, I guess if they don't have anywhere else to put it, but I could see him going the route of Austin Hooper. Okay. That makes a really good year where he just kind of was solid and then someone goes and spends way too much for him. Okay, let me give you some... Let me give you two destinations for Dalton Schultz. Just to...

kind of tease out your reaction, okay? It's going to be bad. Go on. Indianapolis. Nah, me. Because they'd be a rumor. Who's their quarterback? They'd be a rumored destination. It'll be, it'll still be wince. I mean, it's, if they pay up for him, it's interesting because you have Pittman and who else for pass catchers. It sounds a lot like Austin Hooper. They had some other tight ends there.

but they paid up for him. And it was like an average, above average quarterback Baker and... Right, but we've also now found out the truth of Baker just... He destroys fantasy football. Tennessee. Tennessee's another top destination for a titan. That one is better to me. Yeah. I mean, Julio, AJ Brown, just to your ceiling. Yeah, I mean, they missed Ajano Smith this year. I feel like they...

They could utilize. The Patriots? You FERC Daddy? Didn't get it done? No, the FERC Daddy is a placeholder daddy. Yeah. All right. We'll move on. We don't have to talk about him anymore. George Kittle. Consistency ranking number four. Missed time again with injury. First half of the season was the number nine inconsistency. Second half was fourth. Look, this is a big discussion topic here. He was 71 for 9, 10, and 6.

25% target share. Cool. That's great. Second among tight ends. But, you know, busted 43% of the time. This was not elite level tight in play. No, it was very disappointing. And so now you have new quarterback. Trey Lance is going to be the guy. George Kittle has shown, would you call him injury prone? Behind his back. Behind his back. But I would, I would, if it's behind his back, I would still.

cover my mouth and whisper it. Okay. Yeah. And deny it. Oh, yes. Like later. Yes. Really pronounced like that? Yes. Okay. Yeah. The, where I'm intentionally making it look like I'm telling a secret. Yeah. I mean, he does play through injuries. He's a tough guy out there. I think he's had a little bit of, you know, all jokes aside, I don't think I would personally view him as injury prone. I realize. One full season.

Yes, the last three years, it's been 14 games, 8 games, 14 games. But I do think that he is right up there with the other two big names. Mark Andrews, Travis Kelsey, and George Kittle will be there. Darren Waller. He'll be above Darren Waller to me. I would put.

Kittle in that third spot for redraft next year. And you might end up with a pretty good discount because of the quarterback change to injuries over the last couple of years. And he certainly had, you know, some dominant, dominant games. Let me give you one more trend. I think the discount's going to be like shopping at Coles. Oh, it's fake. They just mark it up and then say it's discounted. Uh-huh. So this is too many years to not make this a correlation. Or Kyle Shanahan runs his offense a certain way.

And that way means that George killed. He just doesn't score a lot of touchdowns. I mean, he just doesn't. You're talking about a stretch of 5-5-2-6. And so... Career high this year. Yeah, there was a career high. Six touchdowns. So to me, that is something that has happened for so long. And because you have consistency at the head coach position, look, around the goal line, they hand the ball off, they dump it to Debo. They do inventive stuff. They do stuff like...

Like Andy Reid does sometimes, you know, where you've got inventive play calling. And for some reason, it's not just go to George Kittle. Well, you've got to establish it. Well, yeah, yeah. And so the question is it's kind of like, have we, let me ask you this, have we seen the best season of his career already? And what is he in a dynasty league?

Good question. I don't believe we have seen the best season of George Kittle's career. He had six touchdowns this year, but they all came in a stretch of six games where he actually looked like a touchdown dominant machine for that small stretch. Debo stayed healthy this year, which was great. Obviously, those, you know, his touchdowns take away a little bit from George Kittle. George Kittle is 28 years old, so he still got...

you know, three solid years left of tightened premium age production. So you're not, you're not shopping him in a dynasty league? Because I think that there might be the, might be the time. I would be kicking the tires for George Kittle personally. Mike, where are you on the? I tried to get George Kittle this year because I have before or after? It was before. Okay. It was before and like ended at the midpoint. Any regrets? Would you have been mad if you had gotten him after that, what happened this year? I was just, I was going all in on the trailing stack.

Mm, how that worked out. Those two games I got to play him were pretty sweet. Oh, my gosh. All right. Well, Gronk came in at number five. He was great. But there's not a lot to say because I... It's done. The truth is it's over. It's probably done. I mean, he likes money. Even if he comes back. I'm not...

Yes, okay. If Gronk plays next year without Tom Brady, I'm not drafting him. I won't draft them at any point. There's other tight ends that I'll take a shot on of they're going to take a step forward. I don't need Kyle Trask's touchdowns. No, this is much more like Romo Whitten, where like Witten really wasn't physically what he could have, should have been to make production happen on the field, but the relationship was so tight that it just worked.

But a great year, 50% great games. I mean, if he had played the whole season, he might have been the number one tight end or really close, just because he would have probably scored 12 times and still went 55 for 802. Oh, I thought you had. I pulled back. I saw you go quick. I got it. We're out of practice. We are. Number six was Zach Ertz of the Arizona Cardinals. We talked about, you know, he's a year younger than Travis Kelsey.

There's also, he's a free agent. He was number 10 in consistency. You know, he was necessary to Arizona in a bigger way towards the end of the year because of the absence of DeAndre Hopkins. So there is maybe an argument that consistency will go down if he's brought back. Only 6% great. So he didn't give you weak winning weeks. He was just kind of, to me he was Dalton Schultz light. Yeah, that's fair. He was, he was.

better than I think most people expected coming to this year. Obviously the trade helped going to Kyler Murray, having him be more of a centerpiece of the office. I don't know if you realize he was number two in targets at the tight end position. Yikes. Like, yeah, he was, he was heavily. 112. Wow, that shows how many targets Mark Andrews got.

Yeah, and it also shows how many targets you need for Zachars to do something? I think if he goes back, if he's re-signed by the Carls, he's currently a free agent. He will be an interesting name that people might not really want, but he will be a medium, reliable tight end. If he goes somewhere else, I think that I'm OUT. When did the Hopkins injury was against Green Bay, right?

I'll pull up his game long. I was hoping you guys remembered it off the top of your head. Because Ertz had the big game right after the trade. Well, you know, 66 and a touchdown. Hopkins was gone weeks 9 through 11 and then 15 and after. He missed. So exactly when Zachert was having some success was 50 through 18. We watched a lot of Zacherts. He is still physically able to go give you a decent season of football. But he's not.

going to produce fantasy numbers for you without massive volume. Was that a fair summation? Yeah. Kyle Pitts came in at number seven, consistency rank of 16. That was not the name of the game for Kyle Pitts. Poor guy. 12% great games, 18% good, 41% but he had 110 targets. So he was the third highest targeted tight end. 68 for 1026.

I say that there. There's... And one. Yes, the touchdowns were an absolute trap. How dare you use a plural word? Yeah. The touchdown. Oh, I... Yeah. Yes. I was referring to the metric. Yes. No, no. The touchdown was a big problem. He's never heard of a plural metric like touchdowns. 120 targets turned into 763 yards for Zachards. Yeah. 110 targets turned into over a thousand receiving yards for Kyle Pitts. He was the best...

yards per catch of all the tight ends. He was 15 and a half yards per reception. So massive, this is why, you know, a lot of optimism, but you had no touchdowns. You give Kyle Pitts three more touchdowns to an awful four total, and it's a different year. But it was difficult. They had nobody else, and Matt Ryan did not play well. He was better, more consistent against bottom defenses, makes sense.

Tight ends just get so much better. Tight ends grow. Tight ends don't stay what they are their rookie year. There's so much more to learn at the position, and I realize he was almost more of a wide receiver than a tight end. But I mean, Sky is the limit to him. If they can get him a quarterback over the future, and next year, he's good enough. I think next year, I'm really curious where Kyle Pitts is draft. It's going to be high. Yeah, it will, and it may not be worth it.

We'll see. Since 1990, there have been 18 rookies. So this is spanning wide receivers with 1,000 receiving yards. Kyle Pitts is the only one with fewer than six touchdowns. He had a lot fewer. Every other rookie who's been over 1,000 yards had at least 6, which is crazy. He'll be a second round draft pick. Do you think he'll jump to the two? For sure. This year? In redraft? Yeah. No chance. Where do you think he's going? Third round. Yeah, it's going to be very high. Here's why.

The dynasty excitement, I get it. But they're going to rebuild the entire wide receiver court. Everybody they have is a free agent. Their entire wide receipt, they'll get a flashy free agent. They'll get a veteran free agent. They'll get a rookie pick that everybody is in love with. Is there a flashy free agent that they can get? Sure. Who? I don't know. Chris Godwin. Alan Robinson. Robinson's flashy? It's flashy enough to push him to the third round, Mike. The money might be flashy. Beep.