Whether you are playing best ball or preparing for your redraft fantasy football draft, it’s important to keep an eye on fantasy football rankings and average draft position (ADP) throughout the summer. Gaining early insights helps you prepare and take advantage of those managers that start their prep the day before your draft. Andrew Erickson is here to help. Erickson shares his top-10 early fantasy football takeaways on the tight end position.
10 Early Takeaways on the Tight End Position
- Dalton Schultz is an elite fantasy tight end disguised as a middle-round tight end. He has superior ADP value to Waller and Kittle.
- The same case can be made for T.J. Hockenson. When you average out the TE3-7 it creates an average 16% boom rate, 36% top-6 finisher rate and 60% TE1 rate. Simply put, either Schultz and Hockenson should be drafted closer to Kittle/Waller or those players are being drafted much earlier than they should be.
PLAYER TE ADP Overall ADP BOOM TOP 6 TOP 12 Travis Kelce 1 13 27% 60% 73% Mark Andrews 2 17 25% 63% 75% Kyle Pitts 3 31 13% 19% 38% Darren Waller 4 46 10% 40% 70% George Kittle 5 47 23% 46% 62% Dalton Schultz 6 71 19% 31% 63% T.J. Hockenson 7 76 17% 42% 67% Average TE3-TE7 16% 36% 60% Average TE4-TE7 17% 40% 66%
- The same case can be made for T.J. Hockenson. When you average out the TE3-7 it creates an average 16% boom rate, 36% top-6 finisher rate and 60% TE1 rate. Simply put, either Schultz and Hockenson should be drafted closer to Kittle/Waller or those players are being drafted much earlier than they should be.
- Stop chasing Mark Andrews‘ production from last season in round two.
- Zach Ertz: The ultimate late-round tight end. 70% TE1 hit rate with Arizona last season. Although just one top-6 finish, so he’s not likely the league-altering tight end.
- Dallas Goedert still has an extremely high weekly upside, but a crowded Eagles receiving room will make him a headache to own in redraft formats. #betterinbestball
- Shook by this stat: Rookie Brevin Jordan finished as a fantasy TE1 at the same rate as Kyle Pitts last season. Jordan remains one of my favorite late-round sleeper tight ends.
- Fade Cameron Brate. With reports already circulating that Cade Otton will take on a larger role for the Buccaneers in the wake of the Rob Gronkowski retirement, Brate’s inflated ADP needs to be hands-off. In 15 games played last season, he busted in 13. He had one week as a top-12 TE after finishing Week 16 as the TE12.
- Just draft Hayden Hurst instead, who benefits from playing in an elite passing attack and somehow busted less than Brate did a season ago.
- Buy Mo Alie-Cox in the last rounds of Best Ball drafts. He busted a ton last season (13 times) but did flash two top-12 finishes. Former Colts tight end Jack Doyle (retired) also posted two top-12 tight end finishes to go along with 11 busts.
- Keep drafting Cole Kmet. His former teammate Jimmy Graham posted a higher TE1 finish rate (20% vs. 19%) than him in 2021 but is not on the roster anymore.
- Noah Fant might be the safest bet on the Seattle Seahawks. He was a fantasy TE1 all last season with horrible QB play on the Broncos.
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