Fantasy Football Player Notes

If there's one player who saw his stock significantly rise when Aaron Rodgers announced his return, it's Tonyan. He wouldn't have been in my top-15 tight ends had Rodgers not played, but instead, he's now inside my top-eight tight ends. While doing research for my "Which tight ends were better/worse than expected" article, I found out that based on the opportunity he received, and more importantly where he received it, Tonyan was supposed to finish as the No. 18 tight end. He scored 61.2 more fantasy points than the average tight end would've, pushing him all the way up to the No. 3 tight end on the season. That's a 15-spot leap over opportunity. No other tight end jumped more than six spots than their opportunity. To be fair, that screams regression, and that will happen on a per-target basis, but we can't forget it was Tonyan's first season in a full-time role, so there's some natural career progression. The chemistry between him and Rodgers can't be denied, either, as he caught 88.1 percent of his targets, a new record for tight ends. Tonyan isn't going to see 100-plus targets like the top-tier tight ends, but he's one of the best bets for a touchdown each and every week, which is all you can ask for when taking a tight end in the later rounds.