Tight End Draft Bargains - Fantasy Football ADP Arbitrage: Dalton Schultz, T.J. Hockenson, Mike Gesicki

If you missed it, we've already reviewed running back and wide receiver ADP comps to find better bargains in the middle rounds. Now, we move on to the non-glamour position of tight end, which is still crucial to any fantasy football squad.

While ADP is very informative and can help you be informed about where you should start worrying about potentially missing out on a player, it shouldn't affect your decisions massively. Take Josh Allen's 2021 season: 402.6 fantasy points to lead the whole NFL and the current holder of a 34 ADP that is seeing him drafted inside the first three rounds of drafts these days and as the clear-cut no. 1 QB. Does that mean you should absolutely trust Allen having another monster year that when all is said and done, gives you a good return on investment after paying a second-round pick for him? Nope! In fact, the most logical thing to happen is Allen regressing and finishing with more average-ish fantasy numbers in 2022.

In this four-entry series, I'll go through the four offensive positions of fantasy football, highlighting names that are going cheap in early drafts and evaluating how they are expected to produce similar numbers to other much more-hyped players.

Identifying Undervalued TEs for Fantasy Football

Even if I wanted to hand you some alternative names, I wouldn't have been able to. Such is the scarcity at the tight end position, where only three players (Travis Kelce, Mark Andrews, and Kyle Pitts) are being drafted inside the first two rounds and only four more between the 29th and the 65th pick (that's three full rounds, just in case). Such is life in this position.

Here is what I'm looking for when trying to identify comps for the top-three TEs at lower spots. If we build some sort of "combined profile" of them, we can land at something close to:

• At least 9.0 PPG per game
• Ideally 150+ PPR on the season
• At least 5.5 targets per game

Identifying TE Draft Bargains with RD4+ ADP

After applying those filters and thresholds to the projections data, this is what I was left with.

The chart above misses some players that didn't meet the FP threshold (such as T.J. Hockenson of the Detroit Lions) for one reason or another. Adding those wouldn't have changed the picture that much anyway, though.

There is an easy-to-spot breakdown among those included, though. There is Pitts as the odd underperformed/overvalued, the pair of George Kittle and Dalton Schultz as kinda-valuable players, is-he-done-is-he-not Zach Ertz on an island, and a couple of true bargains in Mike Gesicki and Noah Fant.

Let's explore those names in a bit more detail next to highlight the value of the lower-round TEs available for fantasy GMs to draft later than the top-of-the-order options.

George Kittle, San Francisco 49ers (ADP 37.5)

With all of the stuff going on around the Bay, there is a certain someone flying a little bit under the radar these days. Kittle-- teammate with the likes of Jimmy Garoppolo, Trey Lance, and Deebo Samuel--has of course experienced a quite relaxed summer with all of those other players involved in depth-chart battles, transfer rumors, and contract negotiations. Nothing that Kittle cares about.

The veteran tight end just entering his sixth year of NFL play even though it feels like he's been around since 1973. He'll be playing next season at age 29, so just imagine. Other than in his rookie year (only seven of 15 games "started") and an injury-cut-short 2020 campaign, the rest of Kittle's resume is sublime with three top-four finishes among tight ends.

His 2020 injury barely hurt his stock and that's why he got drafted with an overall ADP of 29.1 and TE3 last summer. He's now getting off draft boards with a TE5 ADP after Kelce, Andrews, Pitts, and Waller. The truth, though, is that PFF has him projected to 227 PPR points in 2022, which would make him the TE3 of the season and at least for now is making him one of the early-round steals of 12-team fantasy drafts. Take advantage while the bug lasts.

Dalton Schultz, Dallas Cowboys (ADP 42.4)

Schultz is currently sitting right in the middle of the ROI scale at a square 1.00: he's getting drafted as the TE6 while boasting a projecting of TE6 for next season (174.7 PPR points). That's not bad at all, mind you, as Schultz is looking like the next-best player at the position outside of the top-five and his projection clearly shows it.

The Cowboys' big boy is projected to that the most targets, receptions, yards, and touchdowns among all tight ends outside of that aforementioned top-tier of players at the position. Nothing to hate there, folks. The most encouraging thing about Schultz--and definitely something to grow your confidence in drafting him if you're still not fully convinced of his talents--is that he has yet to play his age-26 season but he's already bagged back-to-back top-12 TE campaigns in the past two years.

Schultz scored 146.5 PPR points in 2020 (9.2 FPPG) and was unstoppable last year, playing all 17 games and reaching a top-three finish to the tune of 208.8 PPR (12.3 FPPG) thanks to getting 104 (!) targets, 78 receptions, 808 yards, and scoring eight TDs over those 17 games (15 of them labeled "starts"). Even with some touchdown regression, you're looking at a top-six TE at the very least in Schultz.

T.J. Hockenson, Detroit Lions (ADP 52.6)

I love Hockenson and I don't hate QB Jared Goff as much as some people out there do on a daily basis. See, Hock had a rough time last season when he could only play 12 games over the year. Even on that short amount of playing time, though, he still finished as the TE15, producing nearly as much as a season-long starter in most reasonably sized fantasy leagues. And again, he missed five games entirely.

It's been two years in a row for Hock averaging 11+ FPPG (11.0 in 2020, 12.1 last year) so it's not that this type of performance has come out of the blue or can be deemed a fluke. The YPR has steadily gone down year to year (11.5 to 10.8 to 9.6) but the Catch% hasn't stopped going up and up (54.2% to 66.3% to 72.6%), so I'm very comfortable drafting this man.

The Lions are still trying to build their receiving corps, have a freshman as a legitimate part of it but injured/recovering/missing time, and Hockenson should still be their no. 1 option for the time being. I wouldn't advise over drafting him because of the potential health issues, but I wouldn't advise trusting PFF's projection for a TE15 finish (140.6 PPR) either as that's way below Hockenson's true talent level over a 17-game season.

Zach Ertz, Arizona Cardinals (ADP 70.1)

Why are people writing Zach Ertz off the fantasy books already? Jesus Christ, those quick triggers. Yes, Ertz had a horrid 2020 season. Also relevant: Ertz was playing for an Eagles franchise that didn't even know what they were doing as an organization, so it made sense for him to have a down year in which on top of everything he only logged 11 games played. I mean, give this vet a break, please.

Ertz has finished as a top-10 TE in six of the past seven seasons (all except that fluky 2020). He also was the TE22 as a rookie and already the TE13 in his sophomore season. That's almost a decade ago, yes, but the consistency Ertz has shown is sublime and just last year--splitting time between Philly and 'Zona--he came up with another impressive TE5 campaign in which he put up 180.7 PPR to the tune of a 112/74/763/5 receiving line.

Hate him all you want, but Ertz posted marks approaching his prior bests in terms of YPR (10.3), TD% (4.5), Catch% (66.1), and total yardage. If you're expecting the 2018 version of Ertz, well, let me tell you those were the great old times. But even a relatively average version of Ertz showing up next season (remember, also, that DeAndre Hopkins will miss the first six games of 2022) should be more than enough to give you top-12 TE production for nothing more than a sixth/seventh-round pick if not less.

Mike Gesicki, Miami Dolphins (ADP 112.9)

The Miami Dolphins' receiving corps is truly loaded. There is no denying that. Now, pause for a second and think about this: are there 13 tight ends better at playing football than Gesicki in the NFL? I am definitely not sure about that, but that's what's going on with Mike-G's ADP these days as he's the TE14 off draft boards. Hmmm...

I get the fact that opportunity is the be-all and end-all for fantasy football production, but even then I'm not entirely buying the projections by PFF having all of Cole Kmet, Pat Freiermuth, Robert Tonyan, and David Njoku ranked above Gesicki in total PPR over the full 2022 season.

If you look at it that way, then Gesicki is your TE17 in those projections while getting drafted as the TE14; in other words, a sunk cost. If you look at it from my perspective, you have a probable TE12 at the very least getting drafted past that point and thus an ROI King in the making. Gesicki's past three seasons in Miami, playing under mediocre-if-not-atrocious quarterbacks: TE12, TE7, and TE8. What's not to like?

Noah Fant, Seattle Seahawks (ADP 127.0)

Fant has gone from playing under QB Drew Lock in Denver... to doing so under QB Drew Lock in Seattle. Uh oh, you weren't expecting that, eh!? Well, poor Fant can't escape purgatory, it seems. Fant has been sublime throughout all of his career, though. It is what it is. You can't often draft a TE with a receiving baseline around 90/65/670/3 past the 10th round, but that's what is currently happening with Fant's ADP. Are we sure it should, though?

Seattle isn't worse at QB than Denver was for the past couple of years, honestly, and the Seahawks have a solid veteran backup to Drew Lock in Geno Smith, just in case the younger fella flops. The offense has two studs in DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett, yes, but Denver wasn't precisely barren of talent either (not to that extent, I know).

It's hard to trust Fant for another top-12 TE season, but there are much worse ROI players at the position getting drafted earlier than 120, and that, to my eyes, is making Fant a true bargain and under-the-radar sleeper right now with similar (albeit lesser, obviously) talents and underlying numbers as some of those posted by much more expensive options at the position.

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