Bargain Shopping: Zach Miller

In standard leagues, I tend not to invest a ton at onesie positions like quarterback and tight end, spots where most leagues require you to start just one player. In the off-season — with very few exceptions — I only roster one player at each of these positions. The thinking there is I’d rather save a roster spot for a lottery ticket at running back or receiver than waste it on the 25th-ranked tight end, who may play two weeks for me all year.

During the year, though, that can be a different story.

A route you can take during the season — and this is one I use frequently at both quarterback and tight end — is to roster two or three average players and work the matchups (streaming within your own roster, of sorts).

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In most leagues, there are very few starting quarterbacks on the waiver wire during the year except for the bottom-of-the-barrel signal callers. That’s not the case at tight end, though. Outside of leagues with tight-end-premium scoring or huge rosters, tight end is a spot where you can often times find decent production on the waiver wire.

I believe Zach Miller is, at worst, one of those streamable tight ends who can be useful in the right matchups, but I think he also has a chance to be much more, possibly a top-12 option at the position in 2016, which makes him quite the bargain at his current average draft position (ADP).

Finishing Kick

Martellus Bennett had a drama-filled falling out with the Chicago Bears last year, and he didn’t play over the final three weeks.

Bennett’s absence opened the door for Miller to start down the stretch, and he took advantage of his opportunity. In the final three weeks, his only starts of the year, Miller put in work, catching 18-of-20 targets for 211 yards and one touchdown.

Over that stretch, Miller was the fifth-ranked tight end, averaging 15.03 points per game (in PPR leagues). Perhaps the most promising thing is how consistent he was as he ranked as TE2, TE2 and TE7, respectively, in each of those three weeks.

Obviously, it was only three games, an extremely small sample, but that efficiency wasn’t an outlier for Miller. It just highlighted what he had been doing all season. Miller saw limited chances when Bennett was in the mix, but over the course of the year, he hauled in 34-of-46 targets (73.9 percent) for 439 yards and five scores in 15 games.

If Miller was able to maintain his pace from the final three games over a full 16-game season, he’d rack up just over 240 points, which would have been good enough to be the TE2 last year. Admittedly, he’s unlikely to put up those kind of numbers, but his per-target efficiency should be enough to get you excited.

Cutty Buddy

Jay Cutler isn’t a model of consistency, but he has proven he’s a quarterback who likes to target his tight ends.

Here’s what Cutler’s tight ends have produced over the past three seasons:

Year	Player	Targets	Receptions	Yards	Touchdowns
2013	Bennett	94	65	759	5
2014	Bennett	128	90	916	6
2015	Bennett/Miller	126	87	878	8

Those numbers work out to a three-year average of 80.7 receptions for 851 yards and 6.3 scores for Chicago’s tight end spot. That average is roughly 201 points in PPR formats, which would’ve been good enough for TE6 in 2015.

Of course, it’s not a perfect comparison, because it was Bennett — not Miller — who accounted for a majority of those numbers in Chicago the past three years. There’s no guarantee Miller replaces Bennett and continues that sort of production.

With that said, Bennett is now playing for the New England Patriots, and Miller is the clear-cut top tight end in Chicago. His market value doesn’t reflect this. We’ve seen what Miller can do — albeit in a small sample — as Cutler’s starting tight end.

Thrift-Store Price

In our July startup mock drafts, Miller was the 21st tight end off the board (189th player overall). I do think tight end is a little deeper than it’s been in recent years, but TE21 is a little nuts.

Outside of Alshon Jeffery likely being a lock to see the most looks, things are pretty liquid right now in the Windy City. Kevin White figures to get his fair share of targets in his “rookie” season while the departure of supreme pass-game weapon Matt Forte should free up some underneath work.

At a minimum, Miller is probably a safe bet to see the third- or fourth-most targets on the Bears. We know Cutler likes to throw to tight ends, targeting them 116 times per season over the last three years. That’s enough for me, especially at this current price, to take a flier on Miller, who could provide very solid weekly production in 2016.

Summary

In short, we have a player in Miller who is pretty undervalued right now. He should be in line for solid volume with a quarterback who likes throwing to the tight end. That alone should be enough to make Miller fairly attractive, but as the cherry on top, he has already given us a glimpse into what he can do in this role, ripping off three solid weeks to end last season.

As a 32-year-old player who may not do a ton after 2016, the ideal situation may be pairing Miller with another cheap, younger option — say, Austin Seferian-Jenkins (TE15). That would allow you to stream the two and maybe hit on a tight end for the future in Seferian-Jenkins, who was the TE7 back in February.

However you want to go about it, Miller is a player who appears to be in line for a productive campaign, and he’s a steal at his current cost.

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