With Coby Fleener now in New Orleans, the sky is the limit for Dwayne Allen (pictured)
There is an old adage concerning quarterback competitions, saying that when you’ve got two, you’ve really got none. It could be argued, especially last season, that the Indianapolis Colts had a similar problem at the tight end position. Faced with a choice of Coby Fleener and Dwayne Allen, the Colts invariably went with Fleener.
This is evidenced by Fleener seeing a healthy 66.5% of all offensive snaps, while Allen saw fewer than 46. Thus, Allen endured a largely irrelevant fantasy campaign, finishing with just 16 receptions and a single touchdown, this after an eight score season in 2014. Hardly the stuff of legend.
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But with both players contracts expiring at the end of the season, the Colts chose to keep Allen and let Fleener walk, and so he joined the New Orleans Saints. While this is good news for Fleener, as no offense uses the tight end quite like the Saints, it is bloody marvellous for Allen and his prospects.
Without Fleener to battle for playing time, Allen should see the field on a lot more offensive plays and, given his skills as a blocker, he can be a headache for defensive game planners throughout the league. They cannot simply commit to stop the pass when Allen is around, as he is quite adept at punching holes for the ageing Frank Gore to rush through.
His targets in the passing game should also increase. Last season, he saw just 29 targets. He was aimed at 50 times in 2014, and back in his rookie season in 2012 (he missed most of 2013) he was targeted 66 times, which he converted into 45 catches for 521 yards. With Andrew Luck returning from his injury-ravaged campaign, the Colts should have more opportunities to score touchdowns.
Last season, a paltry 27% of their offensive drives made it to the red zone, the seventh worst in the entire league. In 2014, they were the eighth best, getting inside the 20-yard line on 38% of their positions. Of these red zone visits, touchdowns were produced on 66% of the visits, good for 10th.
If they can get inside the red zone, this is where Allen should be used to full effect. In his career, he has been targeted inside the opponents’ 20-yard line 22 times and has scored 10 touchdowns. If we believe that Luck can be the catalyst for the Colts to return to something like their old self, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that, with Allen’s touchdown upside, he could push for low-end TE1 numbers.
According to our current ADP data, Allen is the 18th tight end being drafted, somewhere around the 16th round of standard drafts. Given the high hopes I have for him, I will have zero qualms drafting him a lot earlier than this, potentially as early as the 10th round. His every down upside in an offense that I believe will score a lot of points this season makes him well worth the investment.
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Neil Dutton is a correspondent at FantasyPros. To read more from Neil, check out his archive and follow him on Twitter @ndutton13.
