Streaming the Stream: A Dive into the Tight End Position
Understanding the data that backs up even generally-accepted assumptions helps us to find nuance in fantasy football. That way we can find creases and margins around more basic plays. In other words, we want more juice out of every lemon. Tight end does not seem to offer much mystery. So, I stole a good idea and applied it to the position to find some.
Jacob Rickrode catalogued every wide receiver who finished in the top 24 since 2000. He was able to simply and vividly express who was scoring – and continuing to score – valuable fantasy seasons year after year. So, what can we learn about tight ends if we apply a similar methodology? And what can’t we learn?
Ten Years of Top 12 Tight Ends
Using a PPR scoring system formulae (one point per reception, one point for ten yards receiving, and six points per touchdown) I ranked every player since 2007. This turned into a list of 78 different players with top 24 seasons. I then reduced it to every tight end that finished in the top 12 which brought it down to 44. This captures not just the best tight ends but valuable streamers.
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The green highlight indicates when a player finished in the top 12. Any other finish they had in the top 24 is highlighted in tan…orange…whatever the other color is. While there is turnover every year, players with top 12 have been relatively consistent.
- 44 players account for 528 top 12 finishes since 2007
- 26 players have finished in the top 12 more than once
- There were two “new” players in the top 12 in 2013 (Larry Donnell, Coby Fleener)
- There were three “new” players in the top 12 in 2013 (Gary Barnidge, Tyler Eifert, Richard Rodgers)
- There were two “new” players in the top 12 in 2016 (Cameron Brate and Dennis Pitta)
What’s “Startable” for a Tight End?
How important is it for a tight end to finish in the top 12? Wide receivers that finish in the top 24 are valuable because most leagues start at least two. In 12 team leagues, this means teams with more receivers in the top 24 have a weekly advantage over others. But that value hinges on the difference in production of “startable” players compared those outside the top 24. Is that true for tight ends?
Jason Witten is a good test case. He has not finished outside the top 12 in the last ten years.
He was valuable in 2015 and 2016 as he was “startable.” But he wasn’t providing huge week winning upside. For example, Witten only outscored Eric Ebron (TE14) and Dwayne Allen (TE23) seven weeks last season. For three of those weeks, neither Ebron nor Allen were on the field.
Tight end as a position is so anemic that upside is easier to find outside of “startable.” So the top 12 matter less than the top 24 wide receivers. They resemble quarterbacks in fantasy much more so then any other position.
Non-streamers
Let’s compare the points total for every top 24 finish since 2007.
Where do the point totals for the position become stream-worthy? Or better yet, where do they become difference-making?
Instead of thinking of tight ends as receivers instead think quarterbacks. We don’t want a player above the mean. We want a player whose weekly points make him a significant advantage.
Since 2007 there has never been a 200 point finish for a tight end below TE6. In fact, there has only been one sixth place finish that crossed this threshold; Tony Gonzalez in 2009. You can check the table above but I’ve edited it below to save you a scroll.
In any given season there are likely only five tight ends to be difference makers for a fantasy team. Here are the tight ends to finish in the top five.
The top 12 ranked tight ends are a lot more consistent then the top five. An average of two to four (40 to 80%) of players enter the top five every year who were not the year before. To put it another way, there are two players who were not in the top five last year who will be next year.
- 22 tight ends have finished in the top five since 2007
- Two players entered the top five for the first time in 2013 (Julius Thomas, Jordan Cameron)
- Two players entered the top five for the first time in 2014 (Martellus Bennett, Greg Olsen)
- Three players entered the top five for the first time in 2015 (Gary Barnidge, Jordan Reed, Delanie Walker)
- Two players entered the top five for the first time in 2016 (Travis Kelce, Kyle Rudolph)
Only three players are consistently in the top five when healthy (Jimmy Graham, Rob Gronkowski and Greg Olsen) since Jason Witten ended his run in 2013. Travis Kelce comes close with his 2015 eighth place finish. At this point, I have no problem including him in the same group.
The elite group of tight ends are a lot less consistent year over year as a group. That injury plays a part in this does not change that. No more so than it does with the fragility of the running back position.
The Age of Valuable
The only players still in the league to have two back-to-back top five finishes are Vernon Davis, Antonio Gates, Greg Olsen, Jason Witten, Jimmy Graham, Rob Gronkowski, and Delanie Walker. In this group, none of them has failed to score a third top five finish except for Walker – who only just finished his second. Only two failed to post a third right after the first two (Gronkowski and Davis.) Walker may have started his run later in his career but he looks primed to end up there again. However, he’s now been joined on the depth chart by Corey Davis and Eric Decker. So how old is too old for a top five tight end?
Top five tight ends are more likley to be between the ages of 25 and 32. Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez are the only tight ends to have scored a top five season under the age of 24. Only 8 (16%) of the total top five seasons since 2007 were scored by players 25 or younger. On the other end of the scale, only five (10%) of top five seasons have been over the age of 31.
Travis Kelce is 27 years old. He is also one month older than Kyle Rudolph and ten months older than Jordan Reed. All three enter 2017 at the same age. At 37, Antonio Gates is the only player on the list who is truly outside any age precedent. If he finished in the top five he would be the oldest man to do so since Gonzalez in 2011 at age 35. Witten would have to equal Gonzalez’s feat to make it back into the top five. Meanwhile, Vernon Davis and Delanie Walker (the same age) would be the first to finish in the top five at age 33.
A Downward Trend
Tight end seems like it’s trending down as a position. As a group, they reached a peak in scoring around 2012/2013. It has decreased ever since. Airyards.com has one of the best visualizations for this trend:
Last season seems to have been the latest causality. But while there are significant reasons to be concerned there is cause for optimism. If we zoom in we can see some interesting changes in tight end scoring. Let’s simplify the points table by highlighting the totals for each player in the top 12 since scoring reached its peak.
Last year stunk, and it wasn’t your imagination. Of course, we also lost some elite tight ends to injury. The health of elite tight ends like Graham and Gronkowski matter to the tight end position. But at the same time, there is no denying that 2016 was a down year. For example, if we shift the 2016 column to include a fictional Gronk, we still see the same slump.
The same is true if we imagine two more elite tight ends and push Kelce’s season down to TE4.
The good news is that by zooming in we can see that 2016 was unusual. If you ignore 2016 there is actually a general trend up in 2014 and 2015. Tight ends 2-9 all scored more points in 2015 than the two years before. Other ranks are either average or slightly better. The only rank that has dropped every year is TE1. But the totals for tight end’s 12-24 have also increased, even in 2016.
There is a steady rise across all four years at each rank from 13 to 24. While this is encouraging for streaming, it also made me curious about actual production.
Tight end production in yards and touchdowns was down through the top 12 in 2016 but moving up until 2015. A sluggish and persistent rise in production continued however through ranks 13 to 24. There is a lot more work to be done but, for now, I’m optimistic that 2017 will see a regression to a higher level of production, and fantasy points.
Draft Gronk and Graham
Much like running backs in 2015, a lot of people have begun to decrease the value of top-level tight ends after 2016. This opens up a window for those more aware of the nuance of the position to take advantage.
If you are unsure of what to make of Delanie Walker’s situation, you might be more comfortable asking whether he can be the first 33-year-old in the top five. If not, remember we can replace tight ends 6 -12 more easily.
Travis Kelce is on a hot streak to begin his career and his yearly finishes put him firmly at the highest tier of the position. While Kyle Rudolph hasn’t been as productive overall, he has been relevant, and for one year longer. Both are at the prime age for tight end production. Jordan Reed is as well, and he shares all the same upside, but also all the risk due to injury.
Unless you find stability unnerving at a position so fraught with fragility, Greg Olsen is good to go for 2017. Gates and Witten were in the top five for a lot longer, though they had faded out of the top five by age 32, (Olsen is 32 in 2017.) But if Delanie Walker can do it…
While I still have high hopes for a lot of “sleeper” tight ends this year, there isn’t much room at the top outside of injury. Tight end looks set for a regression upwards in 2017, but more than five 200 point seasons is probably too much to hope.
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UDFA's matter | British ex-pat | Writer of things
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