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Fantasy Impact: Eric Ebron Signs with the Steelers

Fantasy Impact: Eric Ebron Signs with the Steelers

The Pittsburgh Steelers announced on Friday, March 20th they signed former Colts tight end Eric Ebron to a two-year deal worth $12 million. This looks like a fantastic move on the surface for both real-life and fantasy purposes, but let’s break it down a bit here and see exactly how this move affects the Steelers, Colts, Ebron himself, and the stock of teammates both old and new.

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Ebron’s Career Performance

Eric Ebron has had an up and down career since coming into the league and being selected as a first-round draft pick (10th overall) by the Lions back in 2014. If you asked anyone in Detroit, Ebron was a flat-out bust. During his four-year tenure with the team, he only played a full 16 games once while accumulating just 11 touchdowns over that span. He also brutally struggled with drops, something still is still an issue to this day. He was credited with nine drops in 2018 which was the most amongst all TEs according to FantasyData.com and had five drops in just 11 games last season which tied for fifth-most amongst TEs.

Despite Ebron’s drop issues, his performance with the Colts the last two seasons should largely be looked at as a success, especially considering his breakout 2018 season that saw him reel in 13 TDs. That was more than he had in his entire four-year stint with the Lions combined. It was also largely due to the fact that fellow TE Jack Doyle only played in six games that season and the wide receiver situation behind TY Hilton was completely barren, making Ebron the easy favorite to be the second target for Andrew Luck that season. He saw 16 targets in the end zone alone that year giving him a 35.6% end zone target share which was the best amongst tight ends that year per PlayerProfiler.

Outlook with the Steelers

The Steelers are certainly hoping they get that 2018 version of Eric Ebron in this deal and not the drop-plagued and often injured version that he has been for the majority of his career. The Steelers have gotten flashes from tight end Vance McDonald in the past, but he has been largely inconsistent and dealt with a plethora of injuries himself.

Ebron should immediately move into a solid role as a top end-zone target for Ben Roethlisberger in 2020 which could come with great benefits on a Steelers team looking for a huge bounce back after a disappointing 2019 campaign. Last year with shaky QB play, Steelers tight ends only combined for three end zone targets and one end-zone TD according to Next Gen Stats. We should see those numbers significantly rise with Ebron in town.

 Players Affected by This Move

The two players most affected by this move outside of Ebron himself are probably Vance McDonald and Jack Doyle. McDonald had a mini-breakout of his own back in 2018 with Roethlisberger under center. He was third on the team with 72 targets that season well behind target hogs Antonio Brown (168) and JuJu Smith-Schuster (166). Before that, McDonald was primarily the second receiving option at tight end behind Jesse James who saw 63 targets in 2017 while McDonald managed just 24 in 10 games played. McDonald’s contract was restructured recently so it doesn’t seem like Ebron coming in will be to completely replace McDonald, but they will both be fighting for targets and will eat into each others value. It will be interesting to see how the target share shakes down between these two. Each have TE1 upside any given week but guessing which one will hit in a particular week could become super frustrating. Ebron is the more athletic of the two, but we can’t forget what McDonald can do after the catch. Chris Conte certainly doesn’t.

Jack Doyle‘s value should be considered on the rise with both Ebron out of town and Philip Rivers taking over under center. Before Ebron came to the team, Doyle was really the only tight end that mattered on the Colts in 2017. He saw 108 targets that year, just one behind team-leader TY Hilton. We also know the history Rivers had connecting with both Antonio Gates and Hunter Henry with the Chargers.

A sleeper to watch with Ebron moving to Pittsburgh now also is Colts TE2, Mo Alie-Cox. A former basketball standout at VCU in college, Alie-Cox is entering his third season in the NFL. He doesn’t have the same athletic measurables as Ebron does on paper, but has shown flashes in limited opportunities.

Bottom Line for Eric Ebron

The bottom line here for Eric Ebron with all things considered is that joining a Steelers team with another capable pass-catching tight end on roster isn’t exactly the best-case scenario. In a perfect world, he would land somewhere where he would be more of a focal point on an offense and the primary pass-catching TE. However, if we get a full healthy season out of Ben Roethlisberger this season, there could be room for Ebron to carve out TE1 value in fantasy this season. We can’t forget that despite Roethlisberger’s advanced age and constant retirement threats, he still led the league with 675 pass attempts and 5,129 passing yards in 2018.

Ebron is also only entering his age 27 season and still could have some of his best years ahead of him. You have what will easily be one of the highest-volume passing attacks in the league with limited proven experience at WR behind JuJu Smith-Schuster in an offense that has been fairly friendly to tight ends in the past. The biggest thing to watch really will be how the role is divided between Ebron and McDonald. I’ve never been high on McDonald, so I’m a little biased there by giving Ebron the easy edge on a greater workload.

Looking at early ADPs here at FantasyPros, McDonald is currently being taken as the TE8 on average while Ebron is at TE10. I would expect them to probably swap spots now with Ebron being a top-eight option at TE while McDonald will likely struggle to stay on the TE1 radar in redraft leagues.

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John Ferguson is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from John, check out his archive and follow him @FantasyFerguson.

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