Let’s call out what everyone knows: weekly fantasy-relevant tight ends are hard to come by. Whatever fantasy football scoring system you play after the first five tight ends (except Taysom Hill in PPR, who falls to ninth), the first five stay the same. They may rotate position, but these five are not in a battle for supremacy. They will impact your fantasy football team.
The 2023 NFL tight end rookie class is hyped as “a tight end class that could become one of the best we’ve seen in a long time” by NFL Draft Analyst Lance Zierlein. Does this mean the tight-end pool has just gotten deeper?
Let’s check out a couple of rookies versus veteran tight-end battles and find out.
3 Tight End Battles That Will Impact Your Fantasy Football 2023 Season
Las Vegas Raiders Tight End Battle
The Las Vegas Raiders paid Darren Waller and then traded him for a third-round pick. The Raiders also signed O.J. Howard and cut him five months later. Their tight end room now consists of Austin Hooper, Michael Mayer, Jesper Horsted, Cole Fotheringham, and Jacob Hollister. The legitimate battle appears to be between Hooper and Mayer, but the four-year veteran Horsted could appear.
The Scheme
Last season, the Raiders ran 11 personnel on 62% of their offensive plays with a 49% success rate. They used the 12 personnel groupings on 18% of their offensive plays. The NFL average for 12 personnel last season was 18.6%.
The Players
Hooper
Hooper was drafted in the third round of the NFL 2016 Draft out of Stanford. He played four years in Atlanta before signing a four-year contract with the Cleveland Browns. The Browns released him after two years. Last year, he played on a one-year contract with the Tennessee Titans.
Last year, Hooper played in 17 games but only started two. He was second on the team in receptions (41), tied for third in receiving yards (444), and had two touchdowns. He accumulated these numbers while playing on 52.7% of the offensive snaps. Hooper also played with three different quarterbacks on a team that passed the ball on average 26.8 times a game, the third-fewest in the league.
Mayer
Embed from Getty ImagesThe Raiders took Mayer 35th overall in the 2023 NFL Draft. Per NFL’s Lance Zierlein, “Mayer will come into the league with the better blocking technique than most tight ends in this year’s draft.” In Mayer’s last season at Notre Dame, he had 67 receptions, 809 yards, and a career-high nine touchdowns.
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Per fantasy pros, Mayer is going 193 overall off fantasy boards, and the 22nd tight end taken. Hooper is not being drafted.
Buffalo Bills Tight End Battle
Let’s start with the obvious: Buffalo News Charting said the Bills used 12 personnel on only 4.1% of their offensive snaps last year. Quarterback Josh Allen had the third-fewest percentage of passes to the tight end at 13.6%. All of which makes the Bills selecting Dalton Kincaid at the end of the first round very interesting.
The battle in the tight end room is Kincaid versus Dawson Knox. The Bills extended Knox’s contract last year. He signed a four-year $52 million contract with $31.2 million guarantees.
Bills General Manager Brandon Beane had this to say post-draft, “When him [Mayer] and Dawson are in the game, you’re in ‘12’ but it’s quasi like ‘11’ anyway. He is not your standard ‘Y’ tight end. He’s going to be flexed out a lot, more than you would necessarily do with Dawson.”
That should tell fantasy football managers all they need to know. Kincaid is the pass-catching tight end, and Knox is a blocker and red-zone threat. Kincaid played in preseason Week 2 against the Pittsburgh Steelers. He was targeted four times (second most on the team) and had three receptions for 45 yards. The 45 yards were the second most on the team.
Knox’s red zone targets in the last three years were nine, 19, and nine, respectively. Last year, he had a 12.8% target share, and his nine red zone targets were the 19th most.
It is difficult to expect a team to go from 4.1% to even close to the league average of 18.6% in playing 12 personnel. But if the Bills count on playing Mayer wide and in the slot and calling it 11.5 personnel, I’m here for it.
Per fantasy pros, Kincaid is 108th overall and the 11th tight end off the fantasy football draft board. Knox is going 232 overall, and the 29th tight end off the board.
New England Patriots Tight End Battle
The tight-end battle in New England is a throwdown between Hunter Henry and Mike Gesicki. Last season’s numbers, I refused to acknowledge because Matt Patricia calling offensive plays was not an ideal situation. Now that Bill O’Brien is the offensive coordinator, the offense should run better.
Last year’s experiment per NFELO produced a 61 to 38 percent pass-to-run percentage. On first down, the offense ran 12 personnel 23% of the time. Sophomore quarterback Mac Jones regressed, attempting 460 passing completing 288 for a 65.4% completion rate. He averaged 6.8 yards per attempt.
Henry and Jonnu Smith were the tight ends last season. Smith was on the receiving end of 38 targets, while Henry had 59 targets and 41 receptions for 509 yards. Henry finished with two touchdowns. The tight ends combined for 18.72% of the targets.
The Patriots acquired Gesicki and tight end Anthony Firkser in free agency this year. They traded Smith to the Atlanta Falcons. From OTAs, it appears that it will be Henry and Gesicki in the starting rotation or, better yet, both on the field as the Patriots run 12 personnel at a higher percentage. Chris Mason @cmason@masslive.com said, “First things first: I think their go-to offense will be 12 personnel based on what we’ve seen early. Bill O’Brien’s track record and something Mac Jones said about Hunter Henry and Mike Gesicki after OTAs.”
The Players
The main question is how much O’Brien will use the 12 personnel this time around in New England. O’Brien was the offensive coordinator during the Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernández domination. I’m not saying that Hunter and Gesicki rival the talent, but that O’Brien is used to utilizing two tight ends in his offenses.
Last season, Gesicki’s talents did not match Mike McDaniels’ scheme. Gesicki’s 52 targets, 32 receptions, and 202 yards were his lowest total since his rookie year in 2018. In that season, he only played in 14 games. Last season, he played in 17 games.
His blocking inefficiency is why he is the better fantasy choice in this offense. Gesicki has a higher ceiling.
Henry is the consistent one. He has never had more than 652 receiving yards and 60 receptions in his six seasons. Conversely, he has never had less than 478 receiving yards and 41 receptions. There lies your ceiling and your floor. In comparison, Gesicki had two consecutive 700-plus yard seasons before going into McDaniels’ system.
We are almost there, folks. Talk to me on Twitter @gladysLtyler for your redraft questions, and read my start-sit column @GoingFor_2.
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