Tight End Opportunity Study: Revisiting 2015 and a Look at Potential Breakout Players for 2016
Tight ends are an odd position for fantasy. You have a player like Gronk who is amazing, and gets fed the ball non-stop. Then you have a player who is very gifted in Kelce, but barely sees the ball more than Russell Wilson gets laid. We also can’t forget about the consistent TE in Greg Olsen who sees the ball a proportionate amount to his talent.
In PPR leagues, finding TE’s who are targeted often is very valuable. This year, ALL TE’s who finished in the top 10 received over 100 targets except Tyler Eifert, who was a TD machine. To further look at how the top 12 TE’s faired and to potentially identify which players could become a TE-1 next year, I looked at a few different statistics.
Explanation of each category and correlation:
Offensive snaps didn’t seem to have a huge correlation with how TE’s finished this year, but shows how often a player was on the field. (From football outsiders)
Clearly the amount of Targets that a TE receives helps their cause towards being a top 12 TE. (These numbers came from ESPN and may be a little bit different from other sources.)
This is when I thought it may be interesting to see how often a player gets targeted, when they are on the field. This is the “TGT per snap %”. While this metric can be skewed by an excessive amount of offensive snaps spent blocking, it generally shows how a player is utilized when they are on the field. This also can give some insight into a player’s usage by an OC and how much a QB likes throwing to them. This didn’t have direct correlation, but players who finished the year near the top TE’s had good percentages.
I decided to throw in Reception % which shows how often they actually caught their targets.
RZ Targets per game and RZ Targets are pretty self explanatory. (From Rotogrinders.com)
Then I decided to take a players total RZ targets, and divide it by their total targets to get their RZ/Overall TGTS. This number can also be skewed by an abundance of targets, but helps to show how often a player is targeted when in the red zone compared to anywhere else.
Quick takeaways from the top 12:
Gronk is a beast. He is so talented, as long as he gets targeted enough he will produce. Interestingly enough though, Gronk finished last in the top 12 in reception %, right in front of Greg Olsen. Two names I did not expect to be there.
Delanie Walker and Jordan Reeds eye popping 20.56%, and 16.5% “TGT per snap %” led them to posting top 3 TE numbers this year. Reed also had a high RZ/Overall TGTS % receiving 20 targets in the Redzone this year. He will be able to remain a top tier TE if he can stay healthy. If Walker can continue to stay healthy and develop more chemistry with Mariota, he could be a steal come draft day. Interestingly enough, Reeds ADP is a few rounds higher than Walker in MFL10s at the moment.
Gary Barnidge posted solid numbers across the board last year and came pretty much out of nowhere. He could have a good 2016 if Cleveland figures out their QB situation.
Greg Olsen didn’t benefit from not having Kelvin Benjamin out there. I thought a few more targets would be funneled his way after that injury but he did about the same. Always a solid producer, he is a good bet to finish in the top half of TE’s again next year.
Tyler Eifert’s TGT per Snap % number was very low for a player that finished as the #6 TE this year. Though, as I said earlier, he was an absolute monster in the redzone. If you look at his Redzone TGT% you see that an absurd 21.43% of his total targets came in the redzone. He also finished as the #1 TE according to Football Outsiders DYAR. If he can stay healthy and be targeted more often, he is in play to be a top 3 TE next year.
Benjamin Watson finished at seventh at the position. None of his statistics popped out to me too much and now that he is on the Ravens, his usage may be suspect.
So Kelce does get targeted more often the Russell Wilson gets laid. I was wrong. But seriously whenever I watch Kelce play I want to see more, and Alex smith can’t seem to be able to provide that for him.
Zach Ertz would have finished better if he was utilized in the Redzone more. He received a lot of targets, but didn’t do a whole lot in the red zone.
Old faithful Jason Witten played the most snaps out of any top 12 TE. He is a good football player, but not one I would draft in my fantasy league anymore.
Richard Rodgers posted some interesting numbers but was overall fairly underwhelming. With Jordy coming back, Rodgers won’t be on my radar in 2016.
Antonio Gates was killing it before injury and was being targeted at a very high rate. He would have finished much higher on the final standings if he was able to play more and the Chargers offense didn’t implode. With Ladarius Green gone, he could still have an impact in fantasy this year.
Now for the fun part. We are going to take a look at some tight ends who didn’t finish in the top 12 this year, but either showed promise, or may have an opportunity for a bigger role next year.
Some Potential Breakout Players:
Austin Seferian-Jenkins posted some very good numbers in this study. His TGT per snap % was above Delanie walkers who just finished as a top 3 TE this last year. His RZ% was similar to Tyler Eiferts, as he averaged a healthy 1.17 RZ targets per game. A combination of these two %s could be insane. The problem with this data set is it is very small. ASJ was hurt most of the year and struggled to get back in the Offense. Another alarming number was his reception %. He struggled with drops, but that is an overrated statistic in my opinion, especially if he is receiving ample targets. Despite the drawback there are other reasons to be optimistic for his 2016 season.
Jameis Winston loves his big receivers and if you look at ASJ, he is 6’5 and 260 lbs. Going back to his FSU days where he threw to Kelvin Benjamin, he has been throwing to big receivers a good portion of his career. This is actually already pretty well represented by ASJ’s TGT per snap % which is very high. When ASJ is on the field, he is getting targeted, especially in the redzone, as 21% of his targets came there. I don’t think both of these percentages are fully sustainable, but the fact they are so high shows promise for 2016.
Matthew Berry went to the combine and got the chance to speak to some coaches and Dirk Koetter was one of them. Berry said, “I spoke with new Tampa Bay head coach Dirk Koetter and mentioned how -- at least when he had the talent -- his previous offenses had featured the tight end, so I asked him about Austin Seferian-Jenkins. Dirk, in essence, said he can do everything you want a tight end to do. He just was never healthy last season. ASJ still needs to stay healthy, but if he's out there, expect him to be a big part of the offense.”
Just for fun, I projected out what ASJ’s numbers would look like if he played 800 snaps, which isn’t unreasonable based on Koetters desire to use the TE more and what starting TE’s normally play. I also adjusted his reception % to 60, because that should become closer to the mean.
This would lead to 165 targets, 99 receptions, and 29 Red zone targets. Now is that likely? No, but I also said the same thing when projecting Julio Jones numbers last year.
A more reasonable projection would be 120 targets with 75 receptions and 20 RZ targets.
His MFL ADP of 9.03 is a little steep due to not having proven anything yet but this will most likely fall.
Eric Ebron was the 2014 10th overall pick. He has struggled with drops and hasn’t been playing to his full potential. Now that Megatron has retired, this may change. I expect Golden Tate to get an uptick in targets as well, but if Ebron keeps developing, he could be a force to be reckoned with. The signing of Marvin Jones should help to keep the offense running, but he needs to take a big step next year. The talent is there, he just needs to put it all together. None of his numbers from this study seemed to be very conclusive, as his TGT per snap% looks good, but his RZ% numbers are low but with the departure of Megatron, Ebron could play a big role in the Lions offense in 2016.
His MFL ADP is 9.07 and may rise with the hype of the offseason.
Zach Miller just signed a new contract with the Bears this offseason. He could be a big sleeper this year as many people may forget about some of the solid games he had. 5-107-2 against the Rams (helped by the long TD though), 5-85-1 against the Redskins, as well as two average performances against Tampa Bay and the Vikings. Now that Martellus Bennett is gone he could play a big role in the Bears offense. His TGT per snap % was very low, but I believe a lot of this had to do with him being a backup. Many of these numbers are useless because of his changing roles for next year.
His MFL ADP is 15.04 and is an absolute steal at that price for a player bound to put up a few great weeks.
Will Tye could play a bigger role in his offense next year. Reuben Randle has left and he was not playing very much. With only 476 snaps, he was used sparingly. When he was on the field he was targeted 13% of the time, which isn’t great, but could lead to a top 12 TE season if he plays more. Nothing about his ability jumped out at me, however opportunity is an important part of being a TE as explained earlier. At his current ADP of 16.09, he is a straight upside play.
Julius Thomas was just getting into a groove when his season was derailed by injury. Now that the Jags are getting their act together on offense and have two good receiving threats in A-rob and Hurns to go along with an improving Bortles, Thomas could have a good year. He played in 12 games total, but was clearly less than 100% in a few of them. He showed flashes of his upside with a 7-78-1 game against Houston, and a 9-116-1 game against San Diego. His TGT per snap % was 14.58% which could vault him into the top half of TE-1s with more snaps and staying healthy. His RZ% wasn’t as high as I thought it would be, but it should increase this year as he was a great redzone threat for Denver in prior years.
His MFL ADP is 9.02 and is a solid bet to give a good rate of return on that pick.
Jimmy Graham is the last TE I will talk about in this article. Despite his unhappiness at usage and fantasy owners negative thoughts about his season, he actually was on pace to have a solid one. Everyone was pissed at his stats because they drafted him in the 2nd-3rd round. I was luckily not on that train and had zero shares of him. Now his current ADP is 10.04 which has seemingly been swayed by recency bias. I love him at this price and have drafted him in many of my MFL10’s so far. Looking at his TGT per snap %, he was at 12.78%. This isn’t good, but also isn’t that bad. Unfortunately, Graham wasn’t part of the Seahawks scoring bonanza that took place at the end of the year once they shifted away from their classic power running game. His RZ% was not that great either, but both of these should improve going into next year. As long as he recovers well from his injury, he should be able to have a bounce-back year.
Comment below, or tweet at me (@Fantasy_Matrix) with other players you would like me to include in my next study!
