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The Shuffle Up series moves forward. Today we will face the tight ends. This position was a fantasy wasteland for the first few weeks, but production picked up in Week 8 (ah, the Hallmark vacation) and things have since returned to normal.
Levels for the rest of the season: Q.B. | R.B. | W.R. | TEA
I would never want to eliminate the tight end position from fantasy leagues. It’s just another opportunity for us to hopefully make better decisions than our opponents.
Salaries are not scientific and are intended to illustrate where I see pockets of value. Everything up to this point has been an audition; I’m sorting and tiering them as if I were drafting from scratch right now. Remember the golden rule: no player gains or loses extra value because you choose to include them in the list.
The big bills
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$34 George Kittle
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$30 Travis Kelce
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$28
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$26Trey McBride
The 49ers are only in 28th place red zone percentage (Trip Scores), but Kittle is part of the answer there. he has seen 13 targets in the red zone and he has caught 12 of them.good for six touchdowns. And Kittle remains as dynamic a downfield threat as any tight end, recording a career-high eight receptions for 20 yards. He is very close to landing a spot in the Hall of Fame when he finally retires.
It’s a shame Bowers doesn’t have a positive quarterback to take him to the top of the position. He has accumulated the most YAC among tight ends, but his YPC is still an average of 10.2, a statement more about his supporting cast than about Bowers as a player. The Raiders just fired their play-caller, but with limited quarterback talent here, Bowers can’t fully spread his wings.
McBride is doing well with volume, but with just three touchdowns (and none this year) in 41 career games and 33 starts, we have to view him as a player with potential. Kyler Murray has not been consistent this year and the Cardinals are placed only 26th in approval rate above expectations.
Legit Building Blocks
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$23 Cade Otton
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$22 Evan Engram
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$22 David Njoku
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$21 Kyle Pitts
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$21 Tucker Kraft
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$16 Sam LaPorta
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$15 Mark Andrews
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$13Jake Ferguson
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$11 Dalton Kincaid
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$10 Taysom Hill
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$10 TJ Hockenson
The term “league winner” is probably overused in fantasy circles, but at least call Otton a league winner.tilter. He has been TE5, TE1 and TE2 the last three weeks, coinciding with injuries to Mike Evans and Chris Godwin. He has five targets inside the five-yard line, best among tight ends. He’s had 24.6% market share over the past two weeks, trailing only Travis Kelce (a whopping 29.4%) over that period. Baker Mayfield has had trouble finding secondary receivers he can trust, but Otton’s role isn’t going away.
Kraft will always have to fight for targets against a loaded Green Bay receiver room, but he’s doing two exciting things to keep his fantasy value afloat. First is the equity of the red zone, where Kraft already has nine targets, four receptions and four touchdowns (only Kittle has more). But the Packers also know how to engineer Kraft in space; He’s fourth in YPC on the poison, and his YAC per sack is the best among tight ends. Matt LaFleur knows how to put his players in position to excel.
Hill has absolutely no weekly floor, but he’s probably the best goal-line rusher in New Orleans and this is a team desperate for offensive help after Alvin Kamara. A healthy Hill is an interesting tight end any week.
Some plausible advantages
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$8 Dallas Goedert
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$8 hunter henry
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$8 Cole Kmet
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$7 Mike Gesicki
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$6 Zach Ertz
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$6 Pat Freiermuth
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$5 Jonnu Smith
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$5 Dalton Schultz
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$4 Isaiah probable
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$3. Tyler Conklin
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$3 Theo Johnson
Johnson has shown something as a rookie and is coming off his best yardage game of the year, but he also left some plays on the table. He has four falls this year, the maximum for his position.
Let’s say this for Conklin: the Jets have tried to get him involved. He has run 265 routes, the best at that position. But Conklin is neither a downfield player (just 9.2 YPC) nor a middle-of-the-road route runner (5.24 target depth average). He was always working with limited range, and now with Davante Adams in town, we can’t count on goal-line equity either.
He’s probably just a backup and hope player, someone who could attack if Andrews gets hurt but won’t have independent value without it. The acquisition of Diontae Johnson also further expands Baltimore’s target tree.
Bargain bin
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$2 Juwan Johnson
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$2 Ja’Tavion Sanders
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$1 Noah Fant
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$1 Colby Parkinson
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$1 will be sneaky
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$1 Chig Okonkwo
Data from TruMedia, Fantasy Points, and Pro Football Reference was used in this article.
