Cameron Brate Fantasy Football Outlook (2022)

By Andrew Erickson (FantasyPros), Thu, Sep 1st 2022, 10:27am EDT

Gronk's departure from Tampa also impacts the Buccaneers tight end room massively because it thrusts Cameron Brate in the starting tight end role - the Harvard man is under contract till 2024.

Although Brate was a non-factor in the games he filled in for Gronkowski last season. He averaged just three targets and 3.8 fantasy points per game. However, he was splitting snaps with O.J. Howard (signed with Buffalo this offseason), so there's reason to believe he will have a more fruitful role in 2022. Not to mention his competition for targets last season - Chris Godwin, Mike Evans, and Antonio Brown - will look much less menacing to open the year between mostly Evans and Russell Gage.

He's easily worth drafting in Best Ball drafts while his price remains cheap, but don't go out over your skies to snag him in redraft formats. His sub-9% target rate per route run while Gronk was sidelined doesn't necessarily enthrall confidence that Brate is Brady's guy. You're hoping he emerges as a boom-or-bust TD scorer based on his 20 red-zone targets - tied for 2nd with several tight ends - from last season. It wouldn't be the first time Brate would be a fantasy TE1 having finished top-8 in 2016 and 2017.