There’s nothing wrong with a tight end that plays 80% of his team’s offensive snaps. In fact, the more snaps the better. The more opportunities for a player to get on the field, the more opportunities he has to gain fantasy points, right?
Not exactly. Not all snaps are created equal. While it’s great that a tight end can routinely see the field, is it worth it if he’s spending 70% of his time blocking?
By analyzing how often tight ends are slated to stay inline and block versus when they’re allowed to go out on pass patterns, we can discern which tight ends we’d like to prioritize when building our rankings within tiers.
Tight ends that routinely go out to run routes should be one of our main targets when looking at the position. The more time they spend running routes, the less time they spend staying in line for blocking. Quite simply, that means more target volume and more fantasy points.
Let’s take a look at last year’s tight ends and analyze both ends of the spectrum in terms of blocking and find out just how frequently they were split out wide into the slot for an easier path to fantasy volume.
Which Tight Ends Rarely Block?
Last year there were 40 tight ends that ran at least 200-plus routes. By dividing the number of routes run versus total snaps played, we can find their route run percentage and essentially how much or how little they blocked last season.
Vance McDonald carries the torch for highest percentage of routes run last year. Mostly remembered for his iconic stiff arm on Monday Night Football last year, McDonald was the primary route runner among the Steelers’ main tight ends, running a route on 70.6% of his offensive snaps. Teammate Jesse James (48.8%) was right around league average (48.2%). If you miss the top tier of tight ends in fantasy this year, McDonald isn’t a poor fallback option in the eighth round.
Next on the list was the Packers’ Jimmy Graham at 69.1%. No surprise, Graham’s first year in Green Bay was spent like much of the rest of his career — out running routes instead of blocking. Coming off a 10-touchdown campaign in 2017 with Seattle, Graham’s 2018 fantasy performance was a considerable disappointment with him averaging just 8.2 fantasy points per game. Look for a bounce-back year in 2019 under new OC Matt LaFleur.
Cameron Brate (68.8%) and Ricky Seals-Jones (68.3%) also finished highly on this list, but I wanted to zero-in on two NFC East tight ends, Evan Engram (66.3%) and Jordan Reed (66.0%). Engram entered the NFL with known blocking issues, and instead of the Giants trying to force a square peg into a round hole, the coaching staff deserves kudos for putting Engram in the best chance to succeed — out running routes. They had Engram running even more routes last year than they did in 2017 as a rookie (60.2%). Reed, when healthy, went toe-to-toe with Rob Gronkowski as the most fantasy-efficient tight end just a few years ago. Unlike Gronkowski who was an All-Pro blocker, Washington elected to utilize Reed out in space as a chain-moving tight end that could bully his way for additional yardage. Reed is still working through last year’s toe injury that he suffered in Week 14 last year, causing him to miss minicamp. At this stage of his career, you need to have a backup plan if electing to add Reed to your fantasy portfolio.
At the other end of the spectrum, I thought it’d be worth noting which tight ends blocked the most in 2018. The most fantasy-relevant blockers were Dallas Goedert (39.9% route run rate) and Jack Doyle (46.5%). Goedert should be in line for an even bigger role in Philadelphia’s offense in his second season. Only the Texans ran more 12-personnel (two-TE sets) than the Eagles last year. Doyle’s blocking strength allowed Eric Ebron to operate out in space en route to a successful fantasy season. Doyle is still working his way through rehab and currently up to running routes at full speed. He should be ready for training camp and with how successful the Colts were with their Doyle/Ebron pairing, don’t be surprised if Ebron out shadows Doyle once again with Doyle mostly staying inline to block.
Which Tight Ends Operate Heavily out of the Slot?
Another valuable way for tight ends to accrue fantasy points is to operate out of the slot. The free release against smaller defensive backs gives them a big advantage off the line. These routes run are particularly effective in short-yardage situations and in the red zone where tight ends can utilize their size to box out smaller defenders.
Jimmy Graham led last year’s group of tight ends with highest percentage of his routes coming from the slot. Not only did he rarely block last season, Graham ran 63.8% of his routes coming from the slot. He had 50 total targets there, sporting a modest 14.3% target share on his snaps when lining up in the slot.
Travis Kelce, Eric Ebron, and Zach Ertz were all neck-and-neck for highest percentage of targets when lined up in the slot. Kelce (25.9%), Ebron (25.8%), and Ertz (25.7%), all crested the 25% mark with each of them having their own success in doing so. Kelce led the trio — and the entire subset for that matter — in the most receiving yards accrued from the slot. Out of Kelce’s 1,467 receiving yards on the year, 755 of them came from the slot (51.5%). Ebron led all tight ends in touchdowns coming from the slot position scoring seven of his 14 when split out from the formation. Ertz led all tight ends in total targets when running a route from the slot, accruing 77 of his 168 total targets (45.8%) while operating out of the slot.
Greg Olsen (59.6%), Ian Thomas (58.6%), Mark Andrews (56.2%), and O.J. Howard (55.2%) are all noteworthy tight ends that saw a decent percentage of their routes come from the slot.
A few names worth noting that did not run many routes from the slot were George Kittle, David Njoku, and Vance McDonald. All three ran less than 35% of their routes from the slot last year. Considering how highly O.J. Howard ran out of the slot (55.2%), it’ll be interesting to see if Todd Monken has Njoku operating in a similar capacity in 2019. He’s a candidate to be a riser in this category for the 2019 season. Kittle plays on a team that had heavy slot usage between Dante Pettis (39.8%) and Trent Taylor (71.8%). It’s unlikely he sees a sizable shift towards more slot usage next season. McDonald falls in that same category with the Steelers wanting to increase JuJu Smith-Schuster’s role in the slot next year (21.9%).
