2018 Fantasy Football – Tight End Sleepers
OJ Howard – Howard would be even higher f not for Jameis Winston’s well documented affinity for Cameron Brate. Howard possesses elite tight end upside but may never be able to realize his full potential with Cameron Brate on the team siphoning snaps from the talented tight end. Howard is a solid TE1 option however he possesses a TE2 floor which keeps him from being ranked even higher.
Hayden Hurst – Hayden Hurst seems destined to outplay his ECR of 25 and ADP of 18.6 this season as the current favorite to start at tight end for the Baltimore Ravens. It is likely that Joe Flacco plays most if not all of the year and his love affair with tight ends has been the bane of fantasy owners existence from times immemorial. Suffice it to say that Hurst, if he does indeed win the starting job, should see plenty of targets and should sneak his way to TE1 value overall when the season is all said and done.
Mike Gesicki – Gesicki seems primed for a big role in an offense desperate for playmakers and missing Jarvis Landry’s middle of the field dominance. While some of those targets will be soaked up by the ever brittle Danny Amendola expect the tight end position to play a bigger role this year with a healthy tight end and a talented and motivated Gesicki expected to snare a significant amount of targets, especially in the red zone. Gesicki will likely be a better standard option than ppr due to weekly inconsistency but he should finish among the leaders in the touchdown department for the tight end position.
2018 Fantasy Football – Tight Ends ADP Busts
George Kittle – This is hard to write because I actually really like Kittle this year and will probably have him on a few of my teams depending on how drafts shake out. Unfortunately he is currently ranked as a TE1 by most of my industry colleagues and while he is one of the top performers on a yards per route basis the fact is he cedes a lot of snaps to superior blocking tight end Garrett Celek. Hopefully this is a trend that changes this year but one has to believe that Celek will remain the superior blocker and that Kittle will not in fact be running routes every time he is on the field further limiting his upside. Kittle has TE1 upside this year but may be an ADP bust based on the information above.
Cameron Brate – Brate is more of an ECR bust this year with many ranking him as a top-15 option. While it is true what I said above about Winstons affinity for Brate there are more mouths to feed in the Bucs offense this year with an emerging Chris Godwin and rookie running back Ronald Jones. Add to that Brate losing snap share to Howard and his floor becomes more apparent for a player who should be second in snaps at the tight end position for a team that will go three wide more often than they go 12 personnel.
Jack Doyle – While the Colts are expected to frequently run two tight end sets we expect Eric Ebron and not Jack Doyle to pace the tight end room in targets, receptions and touchdowns by the end of the season. Doyle may open the season strong as Andrew Luck familiarizes himselfs with rookies Deon Cain, Nyheim Hines and Jordan Wilkins. Doyle is a solid bye week filler who could force his way into TE1 value in the event of an Ebron injury.
