Best Ball Breakdown: Tight End Handcuffs

We’re exactly one month away from the NFL season kicking off! Best Ball Mania is starting to fill rapidly, approaching the 60% mark. In the final weeks of the contest, my goal is to find leverage against the field and get unique with my drafts. One of my favorite ways to get different is by selecting players who aren’t usually paired together. 

In the FTN Best Ball Guide, we covered the strategy behind handcuffing your own running back and how multiple players in a backfield can provide usable weeks on your roster. The same approach can also be implemented at other positions, specifically at tight end, but it is far less utilized by drafters. Unlike running backs, backup tight ends are less reliant on injuries, with some teams opting to use 12-personnel as their base formation. 

Because there are only a few tight ends who can truly separate, grabbing two from the same team creates a safe floor without necessarily capping your ceiling. There’s downside to stacking onesie positions, though. It forces you to draft at least three players or accept a zero during their bye week. Personally, I’m fine doing both and prefer to let the draft come to me. 

In this article, I’m going to highlight some of my favorite tight-end teammates who possess a combination of standalone value and contingent upside. Ideally, I prefer to draft these players with their quarterback, maximizing correlation, but I wouldn’t set a hard rule against it.   

Baltimore Ravens   

Mark Andrews  
ADP: 29.4  
Position Rank: TE2  

Isaiah Likely  
ADP: 204.7  
Position Rank: TE28 

<img src="https://d2y4ihze0bzr5g.cloudfront.net/source/2020/Mark_Andrews_%285%29.jpg" alt="After a career year in 2021 dethroning Travis Kelce as the TE1 overall, Mark Andrews took a step back last season and finished outside the top three in points per game (10.3 half-PPR points in Weeks 1-17) at the position. He missed two games due to injury and exited in the middle of the first quarter in Week 8 but averaged the second-most targets (7.71) and receiving yards (58.14) at the position in 15 games. He was even better before Lamar Jackson went down and caught 5.2 passes on 7.9 targets for 60.1 receiving yards and half a touchdown in Weeks 1-11. 

Extrapolated over a 17-game season, Andrews was on pace for 134 targets, 1,022 receiving yards and nine touchdowns with Jackson, second at the position in each category behind only Kelce. Despite Andrews’ utter dominance over all other Ravens pass-catchers, fifth-round rookie Isaiah Likely carved out a significant role in his first season and finished second on the team in targets (60) and receiving touchdowns (3). In the three games Andrews missed or left early, Likely became the go-to option in Baltimore and averaged 8.33 targets for five receptions and 68 receiving yards. 

He found the end zone in two out of three games during that stretch and posted 13.3 half-PPR points per game, second-most among all tight ends in 2022. Since Jackson became the full-time starter, Baltimore has ranked bottom-three in 11-personnel, or three-wide sets, and that’s unlikely to change with Rashod Bateman already starting camp on the PUP list. In his last season at Georgia, new offensive coordinator, Todd Monken relied heavily on two-tight end sets. In 2022, Brock Bowers led the team in receiving across the board (63-942-7), while Darnell Washington finished fourth on the team in receptions (28), fifth in receiving yards (452) and third in receiving touchdowns (3). 

Buffalo Bills 

Dalton Kincaid  
ADP: 125.5  
Position Rank: TE11  

Dawson Knox  
ADP: 177.7  
Position Rank: TE21 

<img src="https://d2y4ihze0bzr5g.cloudfront.net/source/2020/Dawson_Knox.jpg" alt="Amid a run on wide receivers, with four off the board in a row, the Bills traded up in the first round of the 2023 draft to select a pass-catcher of their own, Utah tight end Dalton Kincaid, with the 25th overall pick. Kincaid wasn’t much of a blocker in college and profiled more as a big-bodied slot wide receiver. He was a focal point of the Utes aerial attack last season and carved out a 21.7% target share with a team lead in targets (96), receptions (70), receiving yards (890) and receiving touchdowns (8). Kincaid should help Josh Allen in the intermediate area of the field, where he struggled to a 68.5% completion rate on passes in between the hashes in 2022. 

Although Buffalo didn’t use two tight ends often in 2022 (three wide receivers sets 73% of the time), it’s unlikely they won’t feature their first-round rookie and Dawson Knox together. Buffalo extended Knox through 2026 last offseason and made him the fifth highest-paid player at the position upon signing. When asked about how the two will mesh together, head coach Sean McDermott stated, “We think he’ll pair well with Dawson and give us another target in the middle of the field. So, yeah, when him and Dawson are in the game, you’re in ’12’ [personnel], but it’s quasi like ’11’ anyway.”  

Although Kincaid has been the one making highlight plays in training camp, Bills’ beat reporter Joe Buscaglia from The Athletic, stated:

“Knox is still a big part of their offensive plan in 2023, and having the two on the field together could be one their most heavily used personnel packages in 2023.”  

Knox has scored 15 receiving touchdowns over the last two seasons and trails only Travis Kelce and George Kittle for the second-most at the position in that span.  

New Orleans Saints 

Taysom Hill 
ADP: 160.6  
Position Rank: TE19  

Juwan Johnson  
ADP: 184.9  
Position Rank: TE22 

The Saints extended Juwaan Johnson this offseason after a career year in 2022. The former undrafted free agent broke out in his third season and caught 42-of-65 passes for 508 receiving yards and a team-high seven receiving touchdowns, tied for the third-most at the position. Officially making the swap to tight end last season, Taysom Hill also contributed as a receiver and caught nine passes on 13 targets for 77 yards and two touchdowns. Most of his damage was done on the ground where he totaled a career-high 96 carries for 575 yards and six rushing touchdowns. 

Although Hill was sparingly used in the passing game, reports suggest he will be more involved in that department in 2023. He should still see plenty of opportunities as a rusher, especially in the first three weeks while Alvin Kamara serves his expansion. Even with Derek Carr joining the team, Hill will still likely presume his role as the Wildcat quarterback on a handful of plays to catch the defense off-guard. He attempted just shy of 20 passes last season and completed 13-of-19 attempts for 240 yards and two touchdowns. It’s also worth noting that the Saints added former Raiders tight end Foster Moreau in free agency. 

Moreau spent the last four seasons with Carr and had his best season as a professional in 2022 with 33 receptions on 54 targets for 420 receiving yards and two touchdowns. He may carve out a role later in the season but isn’t expected to be active early on after recently being diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. To make things even murkier, Jimmy Graham also joined the team on a one-year deal, returning home to NOLA. For now, only Johnson and Hill are worth drafting barring any news.   

New England Patriots 

Mike Gesicki  
ADP: 193.7  
Position Rank: TE24  

Hunter Henry  
ADP: 211.8   
Position Rank: TE31

<img src="https://d2y4ihze0bzr5g.cloudfront.net/source/2020/Hunter_Henry_Mike_Gesicki_%281%29.jpg" alt="In his first season with the Patriots, Hunter Henry was a late-round gem and finished as TE9 overall. In 2021, Henry finished second on the team in targets (76) with 50 receptions for 603 receiving yards and a career-high nine receiving touchdowns. He took a significant step back last season and found the end zone just twice but still finished top-three on the team in targets (59), receptions (41) and receiving yards (509). This offseason, New England let Jakobi Meyers walk, who finished as the team leader in targets and receptions in each of the last three seasons. 

With virtually no pass-catching weapons, the Patriots added depth in free agency and signed former Dolphins tight end Mike Gesicki to a one-year contract and reunited him with new offensive coordinator Bill O’Brien. Brien recruited Gesicki at Penn State where he spent four seasons from 2014-19. Although Gesicki was quiet in 2022, he’ll face much less target completion with his new team no longer having to share the field with Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle. Before Miami traded for Hill last offseason, Gesicki posted back-to-back seasons with 700-plus receiving yards. He is one of only three players on the Patriots’ current roster to clear that mark, joining DeVante Parker and JuJu Smith-Schuster. Per Patriots beat reporter of The Athletic, Chad Graff:  

 “Outside of Jones’ performance, perhaps the biggest early takeaway regarding the Patriots’ new offense was the reveal of what seems to be their preferred formation: one running back, two tight ends and two wide receivers.”