Dynasty Fantasy Football Rookie Update: Mike Gesicki, TE MIA

Editor’s Note: To help you dominate your rookie drafts, this series will feature a look at the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of over 40 dynasty rookie draft prospects and run all through the month of May and even into June. We’ll cover all the premier prospects but also give you critical information on some of the lesser known talents. All of these rookie updates will be loaded into our ever-evolving 2018 Rookie Draft Guide – the ultimate resource for dynasty enthusiasts all over the world.

Name: Mike Gesicki

Age: 22

Born: October 3, 1995

Position: Tight End

Pro Team: Miami Dolphins

College Team: Penn State

Draft Status: Round two, 42nd overall

Video Highlights

Combine Review

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• Height: 6’ 6”
• Weight: 247 lbs
• Hand Size: 10 ¼”
• 40 Time: 4.54
• Bench Press: 22
• Vertical Jump: 41 ½”
• Broad Jump: 129”
• Short Shuttle: 4.1
• Three Cone Drill: 6.76

Strengths

• Elite hands and ball skills
• Absolute monster up the seam and in the red zone
• Mismatches abound, as he is too fast for linebackers and too big for defensive backs
• Catch radius of a volleyball net
• Fairly polished route runner despite a limited route tree in college

Weaknesses

• Throwing banana peels on the field would be a better way to block defenders than letting Gesicki have a go at them
• Strides are so long, he could step over a Volkswagen Beetle
• Much slower changing direction on the field, in games, than his athletic measurables would suggest
• Often looks mechanical on film, like he is thinking instead of playing
• Could stand to be more physical

Opportunities

The Dolphins’ depth chart at tight end is a chasm more vast than Peyton Manning’s forehead. It reads like the made up names EA Sports uses for NCAA games. Gesicki should come in and start out of the gate, playing on the vast majority of passing downs. That should mean 70 or more targets this season, which when you consider Jarvis Landry’s departure leaves 160 up for grabs, isn’t an unreasonable expectation at all.

Threats

The biggest threat Gesicki will face is his inability to block. I haven’t spent a huge portion of my life studying tight ends, but of the players I’ve looked at over the years, I can’t think of one who was a worse blocker than the Penn State product. We often call pass-catching tight ends, “big slots,” and that label has never been more appropriate than right here. There is virtually no chance he stays in to block more than a few times a game, which means he won’t be on the field as much as you’d hope. That could cap his upside early in his career.

Because Gesicki is a bit mechanical in and out of breaks due to his lanky frame, insanely long strides, and possibly a Coby Fleener-esque lack of feel for the game (I am speculating a bit there), I have concerns about his ability to work over the middle and on short patterns that require footwork and precision. If that proves to be a hindrance, it could relegate the rookie to seam and red-zone work, which would limit his target upside significantly.

The other threats come from the Dolphins’ wide receiver corps. Danny Amendola will soak up a ton of those missing Landry targets. That he plays in the middle of the field and as a safety valve, a role for which pass-catching tight ends are often relied on, means those specific targets will impact the rookie tight end. If we finally see the DeVante Parker breakout some have expected for years, that may be a bit of an issue as well.

Short-term Expectations

I mentioned above that Gesicki has 70-target upside this season. If Parker flops again, or Amendola gets hurt again, both of which seem somewhat likely, that target ceiling would push a bit higher. Only last year, Evan Engram saw 115 passes as a rookie once the Giants’ got bit by the injury bug, so a precedent has been set for just such a rookie breakout. The problem with this scenario is Engram is a much more well-rounded pass catcher. So even if the Dolphins’ other options struggle or get dinged up, I can’t see Gesicki pushing close to Engram’s level of usage.

A realistic expectation should be around 70 looks for 40-45 catches, ~500 yards, and a handful of scores. That would be pretty phenomenal for a rookie tight end and would put him on track to be a mid-TE1 in dynasty rankings a year from now.

Long-term Expectations

Despite my mostly positive profile on Gesicki thus far, my long-term outlook isn’t all unicorns and rainbows. I’m concerned about his ability to be a versatile, all-around threat, even independent of his lack of blocking prowess. When I watch him play, I don’t see a high-volume tight end anywhere on film. I see a big-play seam stretcher with touchdown upside, but not someone who will catch even 60 passes in a season any time soon. That puts his ceiling somewhere in the low-TE1 range, which isn’t bad by any means, but I suspect it is far lower than many (most?) others would have him pegged.

None of that is to say he can’t gain a better feel for the game, stop relying so much on his athleticism, and sharpen up his skills between the hash marks, but as of right now, he is far from a finished product.

NFL Player Comparison

Gesicki reminds me of Jared Cook in that he has these insane measurables, but when I watch him try to apply them on the field, he doesn’t look a player with an insane burst, agility, and SPARQ score. Hopefully, unlike Cook, the kid finds a way to put it all together and capitalize on the prodigious upside his Combine and college numbers would suggest he has. Until such a time, I’m pegging him somewhere in the Cook/Fleener mold and praying for more.

Rookie Draft Advice

His current ADP places him as a mid-second rounder, which feels like a value. The short answer is I’d take Gesicki over Nyheim Hines, Dante Pettis, and Michael Gallup, who are all going right around him.

Here is the longer answer: The dynasty community as a whole has a tendency to overdraft tight ends. Considering how awful most are as rookies, there is no real reason to invest a first round pick in a player you won’t be able to use for 12 months or more. Even if the player doesn’t lose value from year one to year two, you lost a season of production, and, perhaps more importantly, a chance for the player’s value to ascend.

Looking back to last year, the back half of most first rounds included Engram, O.J. Howard, and David Njoku. Using ADP from May 2017 to May 2018, we see Engram transcended, but Njoku gained only a small amount, and Howard lost a bunch. The other players taken in that same area include Kareem Hunt, Alvin Kamara, JuJu Smith-Shuster, John Ross, and D’Onta Foreman. Of that group, Foreman gained a bit and Ross tanked, but the others have all exploded.

This may seem like an unfair example because of how much Hunt, Kamara, and JuJu exceeded even the wildest expectations, but there is an important lesson to be learned: Opportunity comes much easier and more frequently to wide receivers and especially (100 times over) running backs. Tight ends, even when they see huge usage, rarely push even 100 targets. Their opportunity for impact is so much lower, which is even more true for rookies.

As all this pertains to Gesicki specifically, we have a bit of a different situation than what I presented above. His opportunity is so clear, and his cost so reasonable compared to many other years, your best bet is to snag him now and watch him appreciate. It’s the perfect storm and has created a much better value proposition than any aforementioned rookie tight end represented last year. Even if you aren’t a Gesicki fan, he is probably the best, safest way to profit on a second round pick in this year’s draft.

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