BALLER MOVE: Add in 12+ Team Leagues
ROSTERED IN: 29% of Leagues
ANALYSIS: If you decided to punt on the tight end position – which these days means not drafting either Mark Andrews or Travis Kelce– then you have no reason not to pick up Hayden Hurst from your league's waiver in a hurry. Hurst has produced like a TE1 so far this season with five games in the books and judging by his usage profile that shouldn't change any time soon.
Hurst has played 170 snaps through Week 5 for a good-not-great 63% rate. He's the only tight end inside the top 12 in total PPR points so far with such a low volume of play, though it's not that his numbers jump off the page as fluky outliers.
Hurts has scored two touchdowns in five games, and he's caught 71% of the targets he's received. That is definitely sustainable production. Hurst has gotten eight, seven, two, four, and ultimately seven targets in his games this season while casting five, five, one, three, and six respectively.
The evolution is notable over the past three weeks, with works bouncing back to his early season levels as he's gone for stat lines of 4/3/27/1 in Week 4 and 7/3/53/1 last Sunday, scoring back-to-back touchdowns for the first time this season.
Hurst is one of Joe Burrow's favorite targets as his three games with seven-plus looks prove, while the tight end has been a lock to hit at least 25 yards and three-plus receptions weekly.
Those are definitely not gaudy numbers (in fact, that'd amount to some measly 5.5 PPR points any given week...) but that's just Hurst's floor with a ceiling much higher than that.
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