The tight end position has been seen as a wasteland in fantasy football for years. However thanks to improved metrics and the emergence of high-volume players like Travis Kelce and Sam LaPorta, more fantasy players are prioritizing the position than ever. Still, there are far too few elite ones to go around. So in today’s installment of “Understanding Analytics”, let’s examine three players who aren’t the usual suspects but can be producers for your teams.
Understanding Analytics: TE Metrics in Fantasy Football
Metric One: Target Share
What is it?
Target share is the percentage of times a team throws a tight end in the football. Only 10 tight ends cracked an 18 percent target share last season. Meanwhile, 40 receivers were over 18 percent. Tight end who cracks 17 percent is likely worth your attention in 2024. But with such a limited amount of tight ends to choose from, we need to lower our threshold. The new priority? A 15 percent target share and a tight end with minimal change within their passing offense.
Player to Target: Jake Ferguson, Dallas Cowboys
Fantasy Points Per Game, 2023: 10.4 (PPR TE10)
Target Share, 2023: 15.8
On the surface, Ferguson doesn’t seem worth our time. His target share isn’t even within the top 12 at the position. However, Dallas did almost nothing to upgrade its wide receivers’ corp in the offseason, and behind that fairly low target share is a tight end that eclipsed 100 targets last season.
Presumably, Dallas will throw the ball quite a bit this season. There is no question that CeeDee Lamb will be the top option. However, with teams usually only having two players that hit 100 targets, Ferguson is a strong bet to retain hit a 100-target floor and perhaps eclipse it with the Cowboys’ running game being a question mark heading into the season.
According to FantasyPoints, only six tight ends got over 100 targets last season. With Ferguson’s improved opportunity, he’s as safe a bet as any to hit that threshold and outperform his TE8 ADP at FantasyPros.
Metric Two: Yards Per Target
What is it?
Yards Per Target (YPT) tells us how many yards a player is gaining on average each time he is targeted. The goal is to find players who are highly efficient whenever the ball is in their hands.
Player to Target: Isaiah Likely, Baltimore Ravens
Fantasy Points Per Game, 2023: 5.9 (PPR TE29)
Yards Per Target, 2023: 10.54
The good news? Isaiah Likely is practically free in your fantasy drafts as the TE23. The bad news? He’s got a superstar in front of him in Baltimore in Mark Andrews. But at cost, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be taking a flyer on Likely as a boom-bust TE2 within your fantasy rosters.
Fantasy analyst Andrew Cooper has a theory he uses called Yin-Yang Tight End where you take one safe option and one high-risk, high-reward player at the position. The concept is simply about looking for upside at the back end of your roster as a position of scarcity. As Cooper said in his 2023 breakdown of the concept, you as a player need to be willing and able to drop the high-risk tight end at any time.
However, the fact remains that if Andrews gets hurt (and stats show that he’s been hurt for multiple games in a few seasons during his career) Likely is the one tight end in football that immediately has TE1 value.
That coupled with his high YPT makes him impossible to ignore as you’re filling out your rosters late in fantasy drafts. You should draft Likely with an eye on the waiver wire or if you’re playing it safe monitor his production as he sits on the waiver wire.
Metric Three: Route Percentage
What is it?
Route percentage is the number of times a tight end was used to run a route instead of staying in line to block. The logic is simple. The more a player is out on a route, the higher the likelihood that he will receive a target.
Player to Target: Cade Otton, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Fantasy Points Per Game, 2023: 6.9 (PPR TE24)
Route Percentage, 2023: 79.9%
Otton is another late-round tight end. However, the difference between him and Likely is that Otton is the unquestioned starter for his team. His usage over the past two years has been steady. He earned 65 targets in 2022 and 67 in 2023. However, his efficiency improved.
The path for Otton to move from a low-end TE2 to a high-end TE2 and outperform his TE20 ADP isn’t far-fetched. The difference between Otton and TE17 Logan Thomas was one fantasy point per game. Throughout 2024, Otton would simply have to catch one or two more touchdowns while passing the 50-catch threshold. With tight end being a touchdown-dependent position to begin with, any tight end who isn’t a top-two target earner in his offense needs touchdowns to return value anyway.
Otton has a shot to be the third target in his offense this season. If he continues to improve his efficiency (particularly yards per reception), he should be a safe bet to improve on last season’s finish.
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