Fantasy Football Tight End Preparation for Week 9

Rob looks for tight end rankings sleepers for fantasy football Week 9 (2023). He identifies tight end breakouts and avoids, diving into advanced statistics.

Don’t look now, but the tight end position might actually have quite a few good options. That doesn’t necessarily mean we have any more studs, but there are a lot of good options. The second half of 2023 should give fantasy managers plenty of good choices to choose from. At the beginning of the season and in recent years, there are rarely 6-8 options fantasy managers can feel confident in, but we could have 10-12 for the rest of the season.

In fact, I’ll touch on my rest of the season rankings here now that we’re roughly halfway through the season and you might be surprised to know there are 12 solid tight end options right now. Once Justin Fields returns to action, assuming that happens, we might have 13 options, as well. It's important to remember when I say good, I mean good for tight ends, so it's still important to take that with a grain of salt. Still, there's reason to be optimistic about the strength of this position moving forward.

As of now, you should know the drill. We're going to touch on a few of the most important statistics for fantasy football scoring when it comes to tight ends. Then I'll be touching on a few new trends and how fantasy managers should be handling them moving forward.

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Weeks 1-8 Statistical Review

With receivers, we can often just look at raw target data and target share to get a pretty good idea of which players will be productive and which ones we should be chasing. With the tight end, that’s not quite as effective because with such small numbers, even just 1-2 extra or fewer targets can make a difference in target share numbers.

Instead, we want to focus on opportunity, which not only includes raw targets and target share but also snap share, the raw number of routes run, and route participation rate. Below is a table based on eight weeks of the NFL season. These statistics are based on the numbers and stats found at PFF, which is an incredible site filled with amazing data.

Does Justin Herbert Have a New Weapon?

With Mike Williams on IR and Joshua Palmer not at 100% because of a knee injury, Justin Herbert utilized a new target in Week 8. Donald Parham Jr. got a chance to start at tight with former starter, Gerald Everett ruled out due to injury.

Parham has been utilized heavily near the end zone this season. He's scored three touchdowns in the Chargers' first six games of the season (they already had their bye) and was able to find the end zone again against the Bears. Prior to their most recent game, Parham had just 15 targets, nine receptions, and 61 yards. However, three of those 15 targets ended up in the end zone.

Some of that may seem fluky, but Keenan Allen has never been an elite touchdown-scorer and with Williams on IR, the team has chosen to utilize Parham near the end zone. He's 6'8" and 237 pounds and gives Herbert a huge target. In Week 8, however, with Everett out of the lineup, Parham's role grew significantly.

Prior to Week 8, Parham had never played more than 55% of the snaps in any game this season and his route participation had only been over 40% once, which was all the way back in Week 1. In Week 8, he had a 62% snap share and a 59% route participation rate. That added opportunity allowed him to earn five targets. He caught four of them for 43 yards and another touchdown. He finished with 12.3 half-PPR points.

It's possible this performance will lead to Parham's role increasing. Everett hasn't been nearly as effective as he was the previous season and with the loss of Williams, the team may opt to use Parham more moving forward. That part is more difficult to predict, how he'll be used if Everett returns, but if Everett remains out, Parham could be an interesting streamer.

If Everett is ruled out again this week, fantasy managers looking to stream the position might be intrigued by his potential. If nothing else, he's a player to keep an eye on if this performance leads to a bigger role.

The Evolution of a Top-Five Tight End

Trey McBride was a deep sleeper this offseason due to his prospect profile and draft pedigree. The other appealing aspect of McBride's fantasy value was just how much the Arizona offense has utilized their tight ends in recent seasons. Through eight games of the 2023 season, that trend has continued.

In fact, Arizona is in the top three in the league in regard to their tight end target share, tied for second with Kansas City at 32%. McBride has also earned a target on 28% of his routes, which is second among all tight ends. Does it make sense to all of a sudden value McBride as a top-five option at the tight end position?

The top five bit might be a little rich, but he should absolutely be viewed as a top-10 option moving forward. Looking at the table above, you can see how McBride's role has expanded and evolved since the beginning of the year.

From Weeks 1-5, the team was still very committed to the previous starter, Zach Ertz, but in Weeks 6-7, we started to see a changing of the guard. We can reasonably assume that due to McBride's talent and Ertz's declining skillset, we would have eventually gotten to the result that we ended up with this past weekend, but with Ertz going on IR, the timeline got sped up. You'll hear no complaints from me.

Trey McBride received a whopping 46% of the Cardinals first-read targets in Week 8

That's the single-highest FR share by a TE in a game this season @FantasyPtsData

+ 88% route share (huge for TE)
+ ranks second (2.26) only to Travis Kelce (2.97) among TE in yards per route run

— Graham Barfield (@GrahamBarfield) October 31, 2023

When fantasy managers attempt to identify an elite tight end, there are a few boxes that they absolutely need to check. We need someone who is going to run a route on 80% or more of the team's dropbacks. Tight ends aren't often targeted as often as receivers and their average depth of target tends to be shorter, so we need volume.

To get volume, we need them to have increased opportunity. This is why route participation is so important. McBride blew past that 80% mark that we're looking for, finishing with an 88% route share last weekend.

The other thing that we're looking for is for them to be either the No. 1 or No. 2 target on their team's respective offense. George Kittle and Dallas Goedert are two of the most talented tight ends in the NFL, but their fantasy value varies greatly week-to-week because they're the third target option on their team.

While we might sometimes think a really good offense or quarterback can overcome them being the third wheel, fantasy managers starting Goedert or Kittle will attest to the fact that being third on the target hierarchy makes for an inconsistent option.

In Arizona, the Cardinals really only have Marquise Brown. After that it's third-round rookie, Michael Wilson or third-year receiver, Rondale Moore. Neither player has commanded targets at a high rate.

McBride has a clear pathway to being the team's No. 2 target on a weekly basis, especially considering how heavily the team has targeted this position. Due to this, McBride's ceiling is very high, but he checks one more important box - he's an elite athlete.

RAS scores of the best TEs of the past 20(ish) years…
Kelce - 9.27
Gonzalez - 8.12
Winslow - 9.81
Gronk - 9.31
Kittle - 9.52
Goedert - 9.48
Hock - 9.18
Andrews - 7.3
Graham - 9.62
Olsen - 9.47
Sharpe - 7.26
Davis - 9.94
Heap - 8
Barnidge - 9.28
Njoku - 9.44
Engram - 9.16

— Rob (@RobFFSlayer) February 27, 2023

Eifert - 9.36
Pitta - 8.93
Martelleus Bennett - 8.43
Hernandez - 8.15
Julius Thomas - 7.84
Ebron - 7.88
Schultz - 7.25
Ertz - 6.36
Henry - 6.3
Witten - 9.62
Daniels - 8.71
Gresham - 7.88
Clark - 9.86
Cooley - 8.75
Walker - 7.22
Average - 8.6
Lowest - 6.3
Highest - 9.94

— Rob (@RobFFSlayer) February 27, 2023

Looking at the above tweets, it's clear that being an elite athlete has a very strong correlation to being a good pass-catcher in the NFL and a strong fantasy asset. McBride registered a RAS above 8.00 with a forty-yard dash time under 4.55. Not only that, but he was insanely productive in college, finishing with 90 receptions and over 1,100 yards in his senior season. The reasons to be all-in are endless. Buy, buy, buy.

Quarterback Injury Fall-Out

We often talk about running backs being the most injured position and while that's absolutely true, the quarterback position has been roughed up quite a bit this year. In fact, heading into Week 9 fantasy managers are looking at 12 backup quarterbacks starting across the league.

Those injuries are drastically affecting their respective pass-catchers and tight ends are really impacted. That's because they often don't receive the same level of volume as receivers. Oftentimes, touchdowns are a big part of tight end scoring, but with backup quarterbacks, those scoring opportunities are much less.

Projected starting quarterbacks for Week 9 of the NFL season... 😬 pic.twitter.com/Yz4Tl0tIGc

— Mike Clay (@MikeClayNFL) October 30, 2023

Some of the tight ends who are most affected by these quarterback injuries are Hockenson, Kmet, McBride, Njoku, and Higbee. Meanwhile, Kyle Pitts might actually be getting an upgrade with the switch to their backup quarterback. This is something to consider when you're setting your lineups this upcoming weekend.

Week 9 Tight End Rankings

Rest of Season Tight End Rankings

More Fantasy Football Analysis