BUYER BEWARE: 3 TEs Bound for TD Regression
The best feeling on game day during the fantasy football season is when one of your players scores a touchdown. At the end of the year, a few players asserted themselves as reliable options to score a touchdown when most needed. That being said, here are 3 of those tight ends from last year who will NOT score many touchdowns as they did last year.
Jimmy Graham (TE, Green Bay Packers)
Jimmy Graham led all tight ends with 10 touchdown receptions in 2017, and he looks like a pretty good option this year with Aaron Rodgers as his quarterback. That being said, the Packers’ offense has not produced a top 5 TE since Jermichael Finley in 2011.
While Graham is certainly more talented than the tight ends the Packers have had between 2011 and now, it can’t be ignored that Graham played in an offense last year designed for him to do well. With virtually no run game and limited legitimate red zone options in Seattle, Graham thrived as Russell Wilson’s top target inside the 20 yard line.
The Packers also lack a legitimate #1 RB option, but it’s hard to imagine that the combination of Aaron Jones, Jamaal Williams and Ty Montgomery would be worse than the Seahawks’ RBs last year. Davante Adams is also a talented WR who should challenge Graham for red zone targets. Graham should be one of the better starters at tight end this season, but don’t get carried away in believing Aaron Rodgers will have Jimmy Graham putting up numbers like he did in New Orleans.
Tyler Kroft (TE, Cincinnati Bengals)
Tyler Kroft had a career year in 2017 finishing as the 11th best TE in fantasy and scoring 7 touchdowns. His breakout came as a surprise, and put the Bengals in a tricky situation this offseason with the talented, but often injured, Tyler Eifert set to hit free agency.
The Bengals signing Eifert to a one year, $8.5 million deal clarifies what previously seemed to be a potential competition for the starting job. This is a “prove it” type deal where the Bengals are giving Eifert the opportunity to perform at a high level like he once did, and teams don’t sign players to these types of deals to sit the bench week 1. Therefore it should be expected that Eifert should be the TE1 for the Bengals rolling into the season, demoting Kroft to the bench role he occupied in previous seasons. Kroft served as a nice waiver wire pick up last season, but don’t expect him to produce enough to be fantasy relevant this year.
Cameron Brate (TE, Tampa Bay Buccaneers)
Two years in a row now Cameron Brate has been a top 10 tight end in fantasy football, but next year he should not repeat this fantasy success. This can be explained in large part due to the promise that O.J. Howard brings as a talented, pass-catching tight end.
This statement shouldn’t come as a surprise to many, but it definitely contradicts sentiment felt by the organization, considering that the Bucs just gave Brate a 6 year, $41 million contract. A contract of this size is definitely worthy for someone who has put up solid numbers for the past two years, but Brate’s numbers dropped off significantly in the second half of last year. In the first half of the season, Brate had at least double the catches, yards, and touchdowns (32, 414, 4) than he did in the second half of the season (16, 177, 2), a drop off that can be explained by the increased usage of Howard towards the end of the season.
Despite catching only a little more than half the receptions that Brate got, Howard managed to score the same amount of touchdowns that Brate did, indicating that the Bucs should look to get Howard the ball more this season. Although Brate and Howard should see a lot of time on the field together, Howard should be one considered the starting tight end of this offense for fantasy purposes.