Your Safest Bet Remains a 1st Round TE

[wickerkat1212]

Why do we keep disrespecting Cole Kmet? The last 3 years he has been averaging about 60-600 and 4.....

As a Bears fan I guess because of his inconsistent play, and the inconsistent play of Fields. He was TE7 in my leagues this year (1 PPPR). TE12 last year. TE21 the year before. On the rise, yeah?

[Jigga94]

Why do we keep disrespecting Cole Kmet? The last 3 years he has been averaging about 60-600 and 4.....

He's not a 1st rounder so he's not "safe"

Kidding of course, TE8 in PPR the last 2 years. I think he's a low end TE1. He's ranked as such most places as well. I think he's good, but not great. I want the great TE, unless Kmet is still cheap to acquire, which I doubt.

In 2023, he averaged 10.7 ppg (8th). 7 other TE were <2 ppg lower than Kmet this year.
In 2022, he averaged 8.7 ppg (14th). 9 other TE were within 2 ppg. TE23 had 6.9 ppg.

The value just isn't there with these fringe TE1 if you can just go grab any other TE that scores similarly

[Pac_Eddy]

Why do we keep disrespecting Cole Kmet? The last 3 years he has been averaging about 60-600 and 4.....

Like a LOT of TEs, it's the inconsistency. He'll have a nice game, then follow it with a zero, a couple games under five points, you've had him on your bench for a couple weeks now, then he has a nice game on your bench. Repeat. At the end of the year he's TE8 but almost all of his points were scored when you didn't start him.

[Jigga94]

Why do we keep disrespecting Cole Kmet? The last 3 years he has been averaging about 60-600 and 4.....

Like a LOT of TEs, it's the inconsistency. He'll have a nice game, then follow it with a zero, a couple games under five points, you've had him on your bench for a couple weeks now, then he has a nice game on your bench. Repeat. At the end of the year he's TE8 but almost all of his points were scored when you didn't start him.

The Gabe Davis of TE

[killer_of_giants]

i've read (diagonally for the last few pages) the thread.
the main issue i have, based on what i want from a TE, is that "top 12" means bleep-all, when TE8 and TE24 are within a couple of points per game. this has probably been said already.

since i can't be arsed to do a proper statistical model, i've just gone through the TE standings (ppr, ppg) for the past 10 years, and isolated those TEs that scored at least 33% more than the TE12. the number is arbitrary, but it works empirically and it's a reasonable value, because i say so. the TEs that didn't make the cut could have been basically "easily replaced" (at least for that season) by random bums who cost a fraction of your dallas goedert.
TE12 has scored around 10 points per game in that span (i didn't expect to be that close to 10 for all those season).

these are the results (year; player, draft round):

2023

kelce 3rd
hock 1st
laporta 2nd
engram 1st
andrews 5th


2022

kelce 3rd
kittle 5th
hock 1st
andrews 3rd



2021

andrews 3rd
kelce 3rd
gronk 2nd
kittle 5th

2020

kelce 3rd
waller 6th
kittle 5th



2019

kelce 3rd
kittle 5th
hooper 3rd
ertz 2nd
waller 6th
andrews 3rd



2018

kelce 3rd
ertz 2nd
kittle 5th
ebron 1st



2017

gronk 2nd
kelce 3rd
ertz 2nd


2016

---
(top 12 all between 11.1 and 14.1 ppg)



2015

reed 3rd
gronk 2nd
walker 6th
barnidge 5th
eifert 1st



2014

gronk 2nd
graham 3rd
gates UDFA
bennett 2nd
olsen 1st


2013

graham 3rd
gronk 2nd
thomas 4th



this conclusively shows that early 2nd round (with gronk, ertz, bennett and laporta) are the prospects you should absolutely trade up to draft in the top half of the first round.

[Pac_Eddy]

i've read (diagonally for the last few pages) the thread.
the main issue i have, based on what i want from a TE, is that "top 12" means bleep, when TE8 and TE24 are within a couple of points per game. this has probably been said already.

since i can't be arsed to do a proper statistical model, i've just gone through the TE standings (ppr, ppg) for the past 10 years, and isolated those TEs that scored at least 33% more than the TE12. the number is arbitrary, but it works empirically and it's a reasonable value, because i say so. the TEs that didn't make the cut could have been basically "easily replaced" (at least for that season) by random bums who cost a fraction of your dallas goedert.

I think you're getting pretty close to the heart of the issue. A "hit" at TE has to have meaning, and being a top 12 TE in one season is a very low bar. So 33% better than the TE12 is as good a measure as I've seen.

Is there a way to put a value on consistent scoring? Some way to separate a guy who blows up one week then has four terrible weeks, versus the guy who has four out of five startable weeks?

[Jigga94]

I also like the 33% over TE12 mark. I was going to draw an arbitrary line of 150 or 175 PPR points and go through TE hit rates and sort by draft capital. What KoG did is probably going to yield the same results

[Bronco Billy]

Does Waller qualify? He was drafted as s WR and then moved to TE a bit later.

[Jigga94]

Does Waller qualify? He was drafted as s WR and then moved to TE a bit later.

Either way, he has to be the outliers of all outliers

6th round WR. Converted to TE in 2nd season. Then missed yr 3/4 to substance abuse. Year 5 and 6 he blows up, but then falls off with injuries.

There was another name or 2 that converted to TE after being drafted but can't recall who atm. Jordan Matthews, but he was never really relevant after his 1st few years at WR

[Mike11]

Bowers will be the TE __ overall as a rookie and I would only rather have the following TE’s over him in dynasty. Fill in the blanks.

Everyone's favorite crowdsource rankings have TE as

Laporta
McBride/Kincaid/Hock/Andrews
Pitts
Njoku/Kelce/Kittle/Engram/etc

Personally, I'd put him with Pitts to start, but we know he's going to be ranked somewhere between Laporta and Andrews/Hock

This. It's going to come down to situation. We all see what ATL did to Pitts (and Bijan).

When it’s all said and done I bet people who don’t have one of Laporta, McBride, Kincaid, Hock will start thinking about it.

[Bronco Billy]

Does Waller qualify? He was drafted as s WR and then moved to TE a bit later.

Either way, he has to be the outliers of all outliers

6th round WR. Converted to TE in 2nd season. Then missed yr 3/4 to substance abuse. Year 5 and 6 he blows up, but then falls off with injuries.

There was another name or 2 that converted to TE after being drafted but can't recall who atm. Jordan Matthews, but he was never really relevant after his 1st few years at WR

Shannon Sharpe and Robert Tonyan. Logan Thomas went from QB to TE.

[killer_of_giants]

Is there a way to put a value on consistent scoring? Some way to separate a guy who blows up one week then has four terrible weeks, versus the guy who has four out of five startable weeks?

with the amount of effort i intend to put in this "research", i doubt it!

but i think it's both tricky, and probably not too useful.
tricky because first of all you have to define "consistency", then you might want to look at weekly scores variance, but it's probably higher for the studs because of the boom games. then you have to consider other factors like game flow and conditions which may give any TE a goose egg from time to time, so even a count of games below a certain threshold is iffy, and not too predictive anyway.
the only thing i *think* could give some indications is some form of avg points minus some function of variance being above a certain threshold. but that is likely to only return you the studs, and we already know who they are, which leads to the "not too useful" comment i was touching earlier: do you really care all that much if a TE in the TE7-TE24 is more steady or boom or bust week to week? i guess it depends on the league.
let's imagine you have two TEs that average 9 ppg and assume the extreme case where one always scores 9 points and the other only 4 or 14. would that change a lot on your evaluation, considering that:
- this is an extreme case and even the steady 'arry will have some bad games
- you have to consider this point differential against the position, so either your opponent has a stud and already has an edge (so the boom or bust TE might be a better option) or is in pretty much the same situation as you.

so for me it's either pay big for a stud or go cheap for a TE2 you think has some upside. the back-end TE1s (like kmet) cost more than what they score and rarely are a good investment, boom or bust or not.