Tight end has become one of the more difficult variables to grapple with in fantasy football drafts. What was once the most consistently easy position to project and rank has devolved into a bit of a mess. Changes in offensive schemes and a recent infusion of talented, but injury prone tight ends has drastically increased the weekly ceiling at the tight end position while simultaneously making the position harder to project.

Outside of a healthy Rob Gronkowski (a risky proposition, as he has missed 32 of the last 74 regular and postseason games) there is no tight end that is going to provide you a consistent point advantage at the position week in and week out. Tight end scoring is very volatile as it relies heavily on touchdowns. Sure, Travis Kelce was valuable last year, but he had as many games where he scored less than six points as he had games where he scored double digits. The volatility is high, so while a tight end will almost certainly win you a week or several for you, a good tight end won’t be the thing that provides season long success or consistency in the playoffs.

Complicating the situation is the lack of supply at the position. While one average starting tight end doesn’t reliably provide you an advantage over another, there is an appreciable difference between a starting tight end and a replacement level one. So the disadvantage of not having a top tight end is very real. This has pushed some tight ends ADPs into the fifth round and above. Spending a high draft pick on a player whom you hope to merely keep you afloat at a position is a tough pill to swallow for many owners. So let’s look at some later round tight ends that may be able to save you from that unpleasant reality.

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Lower-Ranked Tight Ends Who Will Outperform Their ADP

Martellus Bennett – Green Bay Packers, current ADP of 85.2

Martellus Bennett isn’t being drafted too far away from being a mid-tier starting tight end, but he should still outperform his ADP. Bennett left a bad taste in people’s mouth last year after a lackluster performance filling in for an injured Rob Gronkowski. Bennett was playing hurt throughout that time though. Now in Green Bay, he is being drafted as TE9. He is Green Bay’s best middle of the field receiver and provides Rodgers with the type of target he has been missing.

Consensus projections provided by FantasyPros suggest he is going to get 665 receiving yards and six touchdowns. He may exceed 665 yards but that seems more or less accurate, but the consensus has significantly underestimated the number of touchdowns he will catch. Green Bay throws in the red zone and within the 10 yard line as much if not more than any team in the NFL. Bennett is the best red zone target on the team and he has shown that ability this preseason. He is a big upgrade in that regard from Green Bay’s tight end last year, Jared Cook, who was more effective when he had space to utilize his speed. Jordy Nelson has been effective in the red zone, but he lacks the size and jumping ability to dominate there the way Bennett does.

So, if Aaron Rodgers repeats 2016 and throws the ball 105 times in the red zone (33 more attempts than New England last year) and 47 times within the 10 yard line, a significant number is going to go to Bennett. Let’s be conservative though. Let’s say Nelson, Davante Adams, Randall Cobb, and Ty Montgomery receive the exact same percentage of targets within the 10 yard line as they had last year. That leaves 27% of the targets within the 10 yard line up for grabs. That’s 13 targets, which would have been second in the NFL last year amongst all players. If Bennett converts 70% of those for touchdowns (He converted 80% last year) he should be able to get nine touchdowns just on the goal line. Add some deeper touchdown passes and Bennett should easily get to 11 or 12. If you adjust Bennett’s projections by adding another five touchdowns, he looks much more like an elite TE option than a borderline starter.

 

Jack Doyle – Indianapolis Colts, current ADP of 127.6

I am certainly not the first person to mention Jack Doyle as a potential sleeper and that’s for a good reason. Doyle was the 13th-highest scoring tight end last year as the backup to Dwayne Allen in Indianapolis. He has already shown what he can do when he’s the starter in Indy. In the three games in which Dwayne Allen was hurt and missed the majority of the snaps, Jack Doyle averaged 9.6 points per game in standard scoring. That pace would have led the league over 16 games. With Allen having departed for New England, Doyle is now the clear starter. While you shouldn’t project Doyle to sustain those types of numbers over a larger sample size, even with a modest drop off in production Doyle should be putting up solid starting tight end numbers. A good return for someone who is currently the twelfth tight end taken off the board in the 11th round. He should provide similar production to Kyle Rudolph who is going four rounds earlier.

There is another reason to think that Doyle, and really whichever tight end is starting in Indianapolis, will succeed. Indianapolis has one of the shortest wide receiver corps in the entire NFL. At 6’6”, Jack Doyle is just about the only target with size that Andrew Luck has to look at. This has been the case for several seasons in Indianapolis. In years past, no tight end has been able to capitalize in on it because snaps and targets were spread around pretty evenly to multiple tight ends on the roster. With no one to compete with for snaps, Doyle has the chance to finally have the big Indianapolis tight end season that many have been predicting for years.

Of course, if Luck is out and Scott Tolzien is looking to take a significant amount of snaps this year, you probably shouldn’t value Doyle too highly. So keep an eye on the news wire, because if it turns out that Luck is healthy, Doyle is going to be a great investment.

 

Julius Thomas – Miami Dolphins, current ADP of 177.2

Julius Thomas rose out of complete obscurity in 2013 with the Denver Broncos. An athletic, receiving oriented tight end, Thomas spent three years in the upper echelon of the position along with Jimmy Graham and Rob Gronkowski. Things fell apart quickly for Thomas after he moved to Jacksonville two years ago. Injuries and questionable quarterback play eroded Thomas’ production to the degree that he is basically a last round flyer in many leagues.

Thomas has now moved to a conceivably better situation in Miami. The Dolphins are coached by Adam Gase, who was a part of the coaching staff in Denver during Thomas’ successful stint The Broncos. He will also have an upgrade at quarterback in Jay Cutler, who although maddening has been able to coax some excellent fantasy years out of Martellus Bennett.

All things considered, I have a lot less faith in Thomas than I do in Bennett or Doyle, but the name of the game is “Find a Top 10 Tight End”. It is a game of musical chairs, where whoever in your league is left without a top ten guy will be at a big disadvantage each week. Julius Thomas has more potential to join that group than many of the tight ends taken above him. Guys like Jason Witten, Coby Fleener, and Antonio Gates are being taken off the board before Thomas. While you can project their performance a bit more easily than Thomas, none of them are going to produce enough to have a spot on a competitive fantasy team’s lineup as anything more than a bye week fill-in. Julius Thomas gives you that chance.

 

Deep Sleepers

Jared Cook – Oakland Raiders, current ADP of 179.2

From a distance, Jared Cook seemed to have a disappointing season last year with Green Bay. After years of languishing in bad offenses Cook, a player with prototypical size and speed for the position, was pegged by many to be a sleeper last year. The thought was that Aaron Rodgers would be able to get more out of him than anyone had before. While Cook was important schematically for the Packers, it didn’t translate to fantasy points. Jared Cook finished as the 36th highest scoring tight end that year. Now he has moved to a team with a good, although not as good, quarterback where he will have to compete for targets with Clive Walford. When you dig into the numbers a little bit, that proposition starts to seem a bit better.

Injuries killed Cook last year. He was hurt throughout the preseason and didn’t get to work significantly with Aaron Rodgers until the season was well underway. Cook did not fully rejoin the offense until Week 11. But starting in Week 11 and including the playoffs, he averaged 7.1 points per week. That is better production on a per game basis than Eric Ebron who is going 50 spots earlier than Cook. After actually getting acclimated into the offense, Cook scored 35 points over the final three games, and he did this all while splitting snaps with Richard Rodgers.

Jared Cook now has had a full preseason to work with his offense and he has been getting rave reviews in camp. Even if Cook loses targets to Walford, he has enough big play potential to make up for it. You should expect Jared Cook to start off this season much faster than he started off the last one.

 

Charles Clay – Buffalo Bill, current ADP of 253

Before I get started on Charles Clay, I just want to make something clear. I am not suggesting that you should go ahead and draft Charles Clay. Clay is going undrafted in many leagues, and he should. But if you are in a deep league, and you are finding yourself with your back to the wall with no options at the position, give Charles Clay a look.

The logic behind Clay is pretty similar to that of Thomas. Clay was a successful and fantasy relevant tight end in Miami for several years. He left Miami to sign a big contract in Buffalo, where he soon faded into fantasy obscurity. Like Thomas, Clay has shown some talent and with a new regime in Buffalo, he might have the opportunity to turn things around. With the departure of Sammy Watkins, Clay has the potential to see even more targets.

Clay never showed the dominance that Thomas had shown in Denver. He was mostly viewed as a talented tight end that still needed to make the next step. That next step never really came. However, remember the musical chairs example. Clay is the type of guy whose potential future outcomes is wide enough that he could break into the top-10 tight end category. I would much rather have Clay than some of the rookies who are being drafted ahead of him. Rookies like Evan Engram and OJ Howard, who will have to compete for targets in crowded offenses. Rookie tight ends also have a track record of being underwhelming. Clay provides more concrete upside amongst that very late tight end group than other unproven options.

 

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