Sleepers and Value Plays: Tight Ends

A sleeper tight end is a player taken as a backup who ends up worthy of being a starter or at least far outplays the draft slot where you selected him. Average Draft Positions (ADP) are taken from MyFantasyLeague.com using only recent drafts.

The Average Draft order shows a general picture of how your draft will unfold and where values/sleepers and bad values/busts likely exist. Any green highlight means the player is a good value that could be taken earlier. A red highlight signifies an overvalued player that is a bad value or just too high of a risk for that spot.

Average Draft order – Value plays

ADP	Tm	Tight End
1	KC	Travis Kelce	Year-end rank the last five years = 1, 1, 1, 2, 1. Mic drop…
2	LV	Darren Waller	No. 2 tight end the last two years.
3	SF	George Kittle	Top-3 when healthy. Still a difference-maker.
4	ATL	Kyle Pitts	Why not? After the Top-3, the fantasy value always plunges. Rookie tight ends are almost never fantasy relevant but Pitts isn’t really a tight end so much as just a weapon wherever he lines up. When’s the last time anyone was this excited about a new tight end?
5	BAL	Mark Andrews	Tailed off some from his 2019 season when he was No. 5. He’s less risk than the remaining tight ends but a very marginal difference-maker, if at all.
6	DET	T.J. Hockenson	Third-year for the former 1.08 pick in 2019. Was No. 5 last year and should be even better. New offense and quarterback complicates forecasting, but he has as much upside as any other tight end. Better yet – you can grab him in the fifth or sixth round.
7	PHI	Dallas Goedert	Zach Ertz did not leave the Eagles (at least yet), so that dings Goedert a bit, and injuries depressed his 2020 stats. He’s a safe pick to offer average tight end fantasy points and has a bit of upside.
8	WAS	Logan Thomas	After a position change, five years and four teams, Thomas had 72-670-6 with Washington after only 35 previous career catches. His 110 targets came from quarterbacks no longer on the roster and even Ryan Fitzpatrick can throw deep – unlike Alex Smith. He’ll regress. He’s already 30 years old.
9	DEN	Noah Fant	Good spot for Fant who turned in 62-673-3 in his second year. The former first-rounder from 2019 still has room to grow.
10	NE	Hunter Henry	Henry never was better than the No. 10 fantasy tight end, so this may be a little high. The Pats coughed up $37.5M for three years, so they intend on using the 26-year-old.
11	GB	Robert Tonyan Jr.	He may regress from his 11 touchdowns last year, but Aaron Rodgers is back and Tonyan is once again fantasy relevant.
12	NYG	Evan Engram	Engram hasn’t been better than the No. 13 tight end for the last three years. There is no reason to expect that to change.

Sleepers and overvalued players

ADP	Tm	Tight End
13	TB	Rob Gronkowski	He’s a decent backup. He mixes in several great games with a number of flops, so you need to be lucky when you cover a bye week.
14	LAR	Tyler Higbee	Take away the five games that ended 2019 and Higbee is “just another tight end.” The departure of Gerald Everett could open things up for Higbee, and those five big games he had were when Everett was out (and they faced the worst defenses vs. tight ends). He could improve but new quarterback in Matt Stafford and throw deep.
15	MIA	Mike Gesicki	Gesicki was already the No. 7 tight end last year. Fins did add more wideouts this year, but Gesicki caught 23 passes over this final four games with Tua Tagovailoa. He’s a very nice backup to be sure.
16	MIN	Irv Smith Jr.	Kyle Rudolph is gone and the 2.18 pick out of Alabama in 2019 gets a better chance to step up. There’s conflicting reports from the Vikings as to whether Smith gets more work or not, but this deep he makes a great backup with upside.
17	NO	Adam Trautman	He’s on some sleeper lists but only managed 15 catches as a rookie. The Saints choose between Jameis Winston throwing deep or Taysom Hill running the ball. Trautman isn’t likely to do more than cover a bye week and maybe not that well.
18	LAC	Jared Cook	He’s 34 and on his sixth NFL team. But he still managed 504 yards and seven touchdowns for the Saints last year. Now with the Chargers, he’s worth a roster spot as a fall back since the Bolts are installing a new offense – the one Cook just came from in New Orleans.
19	NE	Jonnu Smith	He’s been locked at 400 yards or so each year with the Titans and had a freakish eight scores last year after never producing more than three behind Delanie Walker. Moving to the Pats as their No. 2 tight end isn’t likely to produce fantasy-relevant stats.
20	PHI	Zach Ertz	Now 30 years old, Ertz broke down last year and falls behind Dallas Goedert on the depth chart. He’s only interesting if he is traded to a team that needs an aging tight end.

Best of the Rest

Cole Kmet (CHI) – The first tight end drafted in 2020 enters his second year – when most tight ends take a leap. Well worth a backup pick. He’s fast and a better receiver than a blocker.

Eric Ebron (PIT) – The 28-year-old was the No. 15 fantasy tight end in his first season in Pittsburgh last year. He merits being one of the earlier backups drafted.