Best Fantasy Football Picks: Which top-tier TE should you target?

Billy Heyen

Best Fantasy Football Picks: Which top-tier TE should you target? image

No matter which site you consider your go-to fantasy football source (hopefully it’s this one), you’ll come across the same three names at the top of the TE rankings: Travis Kelce, Zach Ertz and George Kittle. Depending on the format, some places could rank Kittle ahead of Ertz, but these three guys are basically an impenetrable fortress at the top of cheat sheets everywhere. There’s also a substantial gap between these three and every tight end who comes after them. 

If you hadn’t paid much attention since the end of the 2018 season, this all makes sense. Kelce, Kittle and Ertz were the top-three TEs in fantasy a year ago, so it follows that they should all fit at the top of the list again. It was career seasons that put the trio atop their position in '18, so it’s worth wondering whether they can equal (or top) the best seasons they’ve ever had.

DOMINATE YOUR DRAFT: Ultimate 2019 Fantasy Cheat Sheet

Each player did it slightly differently: Kelce relied on yards and touchdowns, Ertz was carried by targets and receptions, and Kittle had a historic season in yards after the catch. It stands to reason that some of those numbers are more likely to face regression than others. For example, it could be telling what each of the past leaders in YAC did the following year. 

Picking a top tight end isn’t for everyone, but if you try that strategy, you won’t want to whiff. Below, we’ll take a look at what made each TE so effective in 2018 and try to determine who’s most likely to fall back to less historic levels in '19. Hopefully, if you’re picking a tight end in Rounds 2-4, this analysis will help you get it right.

2019 PPR RANKINGS:
Running back | Wide receiver | Tight end | Top 200

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Travis Kelce fantasy outlook

On paper, Kelce’s career year was a logical progression of his prior four. In 2014-'15, he averaged 69.5 catches and 868.5 yards. The next two seasons, his average rose to 84 catches and 1,081.5 yards. Enter Patrick Mahomes and the '19 final product of 103 catches, 1,336 yards and 10 TDs seems about right. In an offense that threw more than Kansas City ever had, Kelce’s targets and counting stats all went up.

The first thing to examine is whether the target shares in KC should change. The short answer is no, not really. A fully healthy season from Sammy Watkins could siphon a few targets away, but not a significant amount. Rooke Mecole Hardman threatens to garner targets out of the slot, but those weren’t Kelce’s anyway. 

The running-back situation could also affect Kelce. If the Chiefs chose to run the ball more, it would make sense for their receivers to all get fewer targets. Kareem Hunt is gone, though. No matter how Kansas City chooses to break up the carries between Damien Williams, Carlos Hyde and Darwin Thompson, it seems like the Chiefs would only end up throwing more, not less.

2019 STANDARD RANKINGS:
Quarterback | Running back | Wide Receiver | Tight End | D/ST | Kicker | Top 200

Everything in Kansas City seems to point to a similar year from Kelce. What about history? Surely, the greats at the TE position could tell us something about what’s next for Kelce. We’ll look at four: Tony Gonzalez, Antonio Gates, Jimmy Graham and Rob Gronkowski. For the sake of this analysis, I’ve picked out what was each player’s first superstar season (at least two of 90 catches and/or 1,000 yards and/or 10 TDs). We’ll compare that to the season that followed.

Gonzalez 2000: 93 catches, 1,203 yards, 9 touchdowns
Gonzalez 2001: 73 catches, 917 yards, 6 touchdowns

Gates 2004: 81 catches, 964 yards, 13 touchdowns
Gates 2005: 89 catches, 1,101 yards, 10 touchdowns

Graham 2011: 99 catches, 1,310 yards, 11 touchdowns
Graham 2012: 85 catches, 982 yards, 9 touchdowns (in 15 games)

Gronkowski 2011: 90 catches, 1,327 yards, 17 touchdowns
Gronkowski 2012: 55 catches, 790 yards, 11 touchdowns (in 11 games)
Gronkowski 2012 (extrapolated to 16 games): 80 catches, 1,149 yards, 16 touchdowns

None of these all-time great tight ends followed up their first superstar season with a terrible year. So, if you’re drafting Kelce, this historical precedent should give you some solace. Only Gates increased in catches or yards, though. They all saw declines in touchdowns. Admittedly, Kelce’s 10 scores seems like a number that could be reached more easily again than Gates’ 13 or Gronk’s 17 in their huge years. 

In Gonzalez’s 2001, he was still the most-targeted Chief but his targets were simply down. The same is true of Gates in his two seasons, although even a healthy Keenan McCardell in '05 didn’t hinder his counting-stat growth. Graham’s numbers may have declined due to New Orleans having Marques Colston for all 16 games in '12, unlike in '11. Brandon Lloyd’s presence may have hurt Gronk in '12. 

Combining Kelce’s situation in Kansas City with the history of these top tight ends, it seems like it’s safe to expect another very good season. As these all-timers have shown, though, it’s hard to follow up such a huge season with another of the same magnitude. Given Patrick Mahomes' excellence and proliferation of passing offenses in the modern NFL, maybe Kelce won't see a decline. It’s worth factoring in, though, as you decide whether to use a second-round pick on a tight end.

DRAFT STRATEGY AND RANKINGS TIERS: 
Quarterback | Running back | Wide receiver | Tight end | D/ST

Zach Ertz fantasy outlook

Ertz led all tight ends in catches in 2018, pulling in 116 on his position-high 156 targets. Per catch, he was much less effective than Kelce, turning it all into 1,163 yards and 10 touchdowns. A lot of the lessons we learned from the all-timers above could apply to Ertz, too, as '18 was his first season that would fit the superstar definition we used above.

Unlike Kelce, though, Ertz faces his biggest risk from the pieces around him in 2019. The Eagles’ offseason addition list reads much longer than Kansas City’s: DeSean Jackson, JJ Arcega-Whiteside, Miles Sanders, Jordan Howard. Philly’s No. 1 WR, Alshon Jeffery, also missed three games last year, and Dallas Goedert will enter the season as Ertz’s talented backup with a season under his belt. On the bright side for Ertz, he's slated to get a full 16 games of Carson Wentz, which may not affect his target frequency but could affect the quality of throws relative to Nick Foles.

FANTASY CONSISTENCY RATINGS:
Quarterback | Running backWide receiver | Tight end

Season-to-season target numbers by position are hard to come by, so it’s tough to set up a historical comparison for Ertz. Instead, we’ll try to do simple target math. The only significant target-getter that the Eagles won’t have this year is Golden Tate, who saw 44 passes his way in 2018. Even if we assume Jeffery only equals his 13-game target total, the new faces will shift things. Jackson received 74 targets in Tampa last year, and that sounds about right for this season. We’ll assume that Arcega-Whiteside slides in and could take the 44 targets Tate had. Jeffery really isn’t a drop candidate from his 92 in 13 games, so we’ll ignore him. In a crowded RB situation, we’ll assume that Howard and Sanders only take the production that other rushers had last year.

That leaves the big number as Jackson’s 74. Nelson Agholor is a prime candidate to drop from last season’s 97 targets, but he won’t drop by 74. Ertz is the most likely other player to take a hit. Let’s imagine, for the sake of this math, half of Jackson’s targets come at the expense of Ertz. That’d mean the tight end loses 37 targets and sees 129 passes his way. 

At Ertz’s catch percentage from 2018, he’d catch 96 of those 129 passes. His 10.0 yards per catch would turn into 960 yards. He’d also catch one or two fewer TDs. Again, like we pointed out in Kelce’s analysis, the regression years after superstar breakouts aren’t bad.  line of 96-960-7 wouldn’t be a brutal year for Ertz. It just might not be third-round worthy.

Of course, Jackson isn’t the same type of player as Ertz. Maybe his presence take less targets away from Ertz and we’re looking at closer to 100-1,000-8, a bit more productive than the possibility in the paragraph above. Still, that’s a decline, and in a non-PPR league, he starts to become less worth the early pick.

FANTASY SLEEPERS: 
8 QBs | 14 RBs | 11 WRs | 11 TEs | 6 D/STs | One from each team

George Kittle fantasy outlook

Kittle is the initial reason for doing this analysis in the first place. Every time I looked at his numbers from last year, they felt unrepeatable. I was hung up on his absurd yards-after-the-catch total of 870, best in the NFL. How could he possibly tally 63 percent of his 1,377 yards after the catch again? And is it easy to lead football in YAC two seasons in a row?

For that, a simple chart:

No league leader in YAC since 2010 has raised his total the following season. There are obvious correlations. Players who are good at making plays after their receptions aren’t suddenly going to become terrible at it. On some level, though, it all makes sense: It should be tough to replicate something historic. The only league leader who ever raised his YAC total since ESPN began tracking the stat was Wes Welker in the late-’00s, and there haven’t been too many players as good at what they do as Welker. 

Based on that, I’d suggest it’d be tough for Kittle to approach his yardage total that helped make him the second-best TE in fantasy last season. There’s two potential saving graces for the San Francisco tight end, though: touchdowns and Jimmy Garoppolo.

Somehow, despite catching 88 passes and consistently rumbling after the catch to nearly 1,400 yards, Kittle only scored five touchdowns. That’s the second-fewest of anyone in the top 15 of receptions last season (and the only lower was Saquon Barkley, which makes sense as a RB’s catches might more often come further from the end zone). 

The problem with relying on touchdowns to save Kittle’s probable yardage regression is that TDs are simply more fluky than yards. Someone who gets plenty of targets and makes plays after the catch, like Kittle, provides himself a decent week-to-week floor. There’s a lot less telling how the scores might break down, though. 

Kittle should also get Garoppolo for more than three games, too. Sure, Kittle had a collegiate connection with C.J. Beathard, but Garoppolo is a far superior passer. It's hard to say whether that means more pushing the ball down the field and less Kittle, but it's another change for 2019.

Kittle is the third of the top trio of tight ends off the board in most drafts. That makes his selection a pick in place of your second RB or WR, maybe, instead of your first. In that regard, his lower relative cost might make him seem like the preferred option. Just be aware that it’s unlikely he finds the same success after the catch this season.

SEASON PREVIEW PODCASTS:
Quarterback | Running back | Wide receiver | Tight end | D/ST

TE Draft Strategy

Even with the potential for regression from all three of the top tight ends, they’re still very appealing as draft commodities. In weeks you don’t play one of the other big three, you’ll have a huge advantage at that position in your matchup. That counts for something. There’s a reason, even as their production bounced up and down, that people were so intent on drafting Gonzalez, Gates, Graham and Gronkowski very high in drafts. (None of this trio’s last names start with ‘G’, so maybe that’s a problem.)

If you choose to pass on the top three tight ends (all of whom are going by the end of the third round of FantasyPros' composite ADP), you're looking at O.J. Howard in the fifth round or Evan Engram in the sixth. Waiting two or three rounds for one of them could provide relative value, and both those players might regress positively instead of negatively. 

We break down full draft strategy for tight end here, but in conclusion, none of these TEs faces potential regression so great to turn you away from taking them. They’re still the heavy favorites to be the top-three tight ends in fantasy for 2019. Just as with every player, though, there’s risk. In these cases, we just found risk associated with how historically good they all were last year. If there’s a type of risk to invest in, it’s probably that kind.

Billy Heyen