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In the NFL and fantasy football, things can change as easily as the snap of a finger from campaign to campaign. One season, somebody breaks a record, and the next, they are fighting for targets and struggling to produce.
Based on game script, chemistry, and availability of weapons, targets can fluctuate for pass-catchers. In a position like TE, targets could be hard to come by at all depending on which team you are on. Naturally, some TEs could have breakout seasons too. Nevertheless, if your last name is not Kittle, Kelce, or Waller, you may have to work extra hard to snatch away targets from WRs.
Heading into 2021, there are quite a few TEs who should be due for a target regression. Let’s look at some candidates who are due for fewer targets come next season.
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2021 Fantasy Projections
Evan Engram, New York Giants
For all of the good Big Blue will show every weekend, sadly most of that will stay on the "real life" side of things and not in the fantasy realm. Don't get me wrong, the Giants have built a monster of an offense mostly with one addition via free agency (WR Kenny Golladay), another one via the draft (WR Kadarius Toney), and the third one via injury recovery (RB Saquon Barkley). The only position that has not seen heavy changes has been that of Evan Engram, as the Giants have brought only an already washed-up Kyle Rudolph to play the backup role to Engram's leading one.
The clear winner here is going to be QB Daniel Jones, who will basically have between none and zero excuses to put up a great year playing in New York. The clear loser, if you ask me, is going to be long-established TE Engram, who will see a drop in targets whether he likes it or not. If we base that prediction on years past usage rates, the truth is that we should be dubious that will be the case. But there are too many, too tasty additions that it makes it hard trusting Engram getting targeted the fourth-most times among TEs (109 targets) once more.
Not only should the stiffer competition eat from Engram's targets, but actually it is his production that should give pause to the NYG staff when it comes to scheming plays for the TE. Engram has been just bad in the NFL. Sorry, but that's it. He was promising early, sure, but he has 1) missed time (only played 16 games for the first time last year), 2) posted catch rates below 58% in three of his four pro seasons (57.8% in 2020), and 3) gone from six to three, then three again, and lastly one receiving touchdown in his career. Was I to bet, I'd say there is a very slim chance he breaks the 100-target mark, with higher odds of him getting back to the 75-to-80 clip.
Logan Thomas, Washington Football Team
Thomas's career in the NFL has been absolutely bonkers. The Cardinals drafted him as a QB back in 2014 and he went on to complete one pass out of nine attempts in his rookie year for Arizona. Nothing remarkable. What was remarkable was the fact that three years later he changed positions, became a tight end, signed with Buffalo, and spent there the 2017-18 pair of seasons... while doing a bunch of nothing. A 16-game spell in Detroit in 2019 was good in terms of games played, sure, but his 28 targets over the year were rather putrid and the main reason he only finished with 39.3 PPR points. Then, the explosion.
Washington was the luckiest (before the start of the season) and the happiest (after the end of the year) franchise when it came to signing a TE for the 2020 season. Why? Well, Thomas finished as the TE4 with a total of 176.6 FP on the year, virtually tied with Robert Tonyan for a top-three finish at the position. He averaged 11.0 FPPG in PPR leagues, logged 110 targets (compared to 54 in the three years before combined) while catching 65.5% of those passes, and racked up 670 yards and six scores in 16 games played. All of that for someone who was getting off draft boards as the TE30 (!!!) last summer--if drafted at all.
How sustainable are 110 targets from one season to the next one, you say? Well, only 31 players logged 100+ targets in back-to-back seasons since 2010, which means that happens to three players per season, and only to 20 if we raise the bar to 110+ targets in those two consecutive years. Slim to no chances at all, that's what I mean.
The Footies are also bringing firepower at the wideout position with the additions of Curtis Samuel (best pass catcher in terms of catch rate last season), Adam Humphries, and rookie Dyami Brown. Add a fantastic and still developing Terry McLaurin to that, and it's more than probable to see Logan Thomas falling below the 100-target mark next season. Also, Thomas saw his targets go sky high in two of the last three games of the season (17 and 12 in W15-16 respectively), which is clearly skewing his year-long counting numbers.
Eric Ebron, Pittsburgh Steelers
Ebron's situation contrasts a bit with those of both Evan Engram and Logan Thomas, who both should be facing stronger competition by the start of the 2021 season. Ebron will do so in that Pittsburgh has brought a much-needed running back to town in rookie Najee Harris, who profiles as a three-down/do-it-all player and should get a lot of opportunities even as a freshman. Other than that, though, no other impactful changes have taken place in Pitt--assuming you don't see rookie TE Pat Freiermuth as a real threat to Ebron's 2021 season.
Now, check this out. Ebron's gotten targeted more than 86 times in precisely two years: his absolute outlier of a 2018 campaign in which he scored 13 (!!!) touchdowns and put up 750 yards on 110 targets and 66 receptions, and last year when he got targeted 91 times while catching 56 passes for 558 yards and five scores. The numbers were not bad but they weren't mindblowing either. Oh, and QB Ben Roethlisberger, who is nearing the sweet 40-year-old mark, isn't getting any better.
PFF has Ebron projected to lose 11 targets compared to last year, which is nothing really huge and could amount to just a good game over the year. Keep in mind that there are 17 games in the schedule this season so it's not that he'll just lose you the league. But with the super-young and super-productive Diontae Johnson and Chase Claypool playing fantastic football last season in their second and first years as pros, odds are they keep growing in this offense and getting trusted heavily, more than Ebron will. Oh, and JuJu Smith-Schuster, like it or not, is back with the club. He got all of the short-depth targets with an aDOT of just 5.7 yards, making life harder for a tight end like Ebron, who also struggles mightily at getting YAC.
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