The WESTern Perspective - Tight
Ends By Danny West
July 21, 2008 All too often amongst a vast sea of quarterbacks, running
backs, and wide receivers, tight ends are cast to the side. While fantasy
owners compete in a frantic race to land your Brady’s, Westbrook’s, Moss’,
and Peterson’s your Cooley’s and Lee’s suddenly take the role of
I’ve-drafted-all-my-important-players-I-may-as-well-take-a-tightend guys.
Yet, speaking strictly from the position of a guy who wants to win every
single week, this is completely illogical.
In most scoring systems a good week, a winning week, will leave you with at
least 100 points to boot so I ask why, when in most leagues you are starting
9 players, would you not want to draft a guy who consistently scores 10+
points before the ninth round? Perhaps it is because, like most things,
fantasy football, fantasy drafting, is taught to us thus we will spend the
duration of our fantasy careers mimicking this method which we have been
shown and conventional wisdom says that you do not draft a tight end early.
Yet I say break the cycle. Be your own man. The point of winning fantasy
games, for the most part, is nothing without bragging rights so why not
draft in a different fashion and show your friends, who will undoubtedly
scoff at you for taking a tight end in the fifth or sixth whose name isn’t
Gates or Winslow, that there is more than one way to do something.
Of course, with the tight end position being one of the most diverse in
football, picking and choosing who is going to be a
stand-out-pass-catching-touchdown-scoring stud is no easy task so here are a
few things to consider when preparing for your draft:
Of the ten best tight ends during the 2007 season only three of them played
for a team ranked a top ten offense (Witten, DAL, Winslow, CLE, and Clark,
IND) while two of them played for teams ranked in the ten worst offenses
(Gonzalez, KC and Davis, SF), which is to say that only 3 of your best tight
ends play for your best teams; look towards middle of the pack teams and the
teams that struggle on offense for your star tight end, you’ll have more
luck. To further solidify this fact, of the top 5 tight ends finding the
endzone the most (Clark with 11, Gates with 9, Cooley with 8, Miller with 7,
and Witten with 7) only two play for a top ten offense and of the top 5
receiving tight ends (Gonzalez with 99, Witten with 96, Winslow with 82,
Gates with 75, and Cooley with 66) again, only two play for a top ten
offense. And while a team’s offensive production may change from year to
year the stats do not lie and what those stats say is that 7 of the top
offenses in 2006 remained in the top ten in 2007 and 5 of the worst offenses
in 2006 remained that way in 2007 (yes, some times teams drastically
improve, ie. ’06 Browns vs. ’07 Browns, but for the most part, it would
seem, that teams aren’t altering that much).
Another interesting bit of information is that of the ten worst rushing
teams in 2007 only two of the top ten tight ends played for them (Gonzalez
with the Chiefs and Davis with the Niners) while 3 of the top ten tight ends
(Winslow with the Browns, Scheffler with the Broncos and Gates with the
Chargers) came from a top ten rushing team. Additionally, two of the highest
scoring tight ends play for a team who was ranked highly in rushing
statistics (Miller, PIT ranked 3rd in ’07 rushing statistics; Cooley, WAS
ranked 12th in ’07 rushing statistics). Surprisingly enough, an equal number
of top ten tight ends came from top ten pass offenses as did worst ten pass
offenses (Witten and Clark for the top and Gates and Davis for the bottom).
Therefore, following the aforementioned information, here are the guys you
need to be aware of going into your draft.
Heath Miller and Antonio Gates should be well known names and
high draft picks with good reasoning. Miller has put up impressive numbers
in the last three seasons with a total of 120 receptions, 1418 yards, and 18
touchdowns. Neither Big Ben, the Steelers nor Heath look to be slowing down,
definitely a solid pick. Antonio Gates is in a class by himself. With an
impressive showing year in and year out, Gates is all but guaranteed 75
receptions, 950 yards and 9 touchdowns. Gates will, unquestionably, be the
first tight end off the board.
Another player to keep a close eye on is the Giants’ Kevin Boss. Boss
came to life in the latter parts of the season bringing in 208 yards and 2
touchdowns when New York needed it the most. Boss was a vital part in the
Giant’s rode to the Superbowl and instrumental in fantasy football teams
that played him during the playoffs. Of course, Kevin’s value is largely
determined by what Jeremy Shockey is doing, however, one thing is
clear, you need a giant tight end on your fantasy roster.
Alge Crumpler, now with the Tennessee Titans, has been reliable his
entire career. Even last season, with a struggling Falcons offense, Crumpler
was able to amass 42 receptions and 5 touchdowns. And while most NFL fans
are lacking confidence in the Titans, I believe Crumpler will play a nice
part in Vince Young’s offense and will put up good fantasy numbers as a
result.
Visanthe Shiancoe has been a virtual unknown his entire career, both
with the Giants and with his current team, the Minnesota Vikings. And
despite a five year career in which Shiancoe has shown statistics that are
dwarfed by the yearly output of some of the league’s finest at this
position, it is a good bet that he will improve drastically this season as
the addition of Bernard Berrian will surely pull the defensive coverage far
away from a guy who has never posed a real offensive threat. Take Shiancoe
late in the draft because, just like you, the other owners in your league
have never heard of him.
Carolina Panthers’ tight end Jeff King improved drastically upon his
rookie stats of 1 reception for 1 yard (of course this catch did take place
in the endzone) last season when he hauled in 46 receptions for 406 yards.
Let’s not forget that this entire team declined last season after the loss
of Jake Delhomme, in fact the only player on the Panthers who looked decent
was star receiver Steve Smith. This season, however, Jeff King should be
amongst the best tight ends in the league as he sits on an offense that
looks to be back to form and has the potential to be very, very good.
There is no denying that the Oakland Raiders have made plenty of moves this
offseason, but will it be enough? While that question may remain
unanswerable for quite sometime, the question of who is Zach Miller
was boldly answered last season when the rookie hauled in 44 receptions
averaging over 10 yards. In his sophomore year Miller looks to make a
serious improvement as does the entirety of the Oakland offense and I would
look at this 6-5 22 year old early as he is certain to set up camp in the
endzone more often than not.
As always, your comments are greatly appreciated.
Look for the next addition of the WESTern Perspective in the very near
future.
Post Comments Here
- DIGG
this article! | |
