Week 11 NFL Moneyline Underdogs
Mike Randle
In fantasy football, when you draft running backs and wide receivers, you draft a bunch. A couple of guys to start, guys who can flex, backups, handcuffs. But at tight end, you rarely draft more than one and almost never more than two. And that means drafting the wrong tight end can kill you.
You have to avoid the busts at tight end. So who are those guys?
Today, we’re offering up some candidates to be those busts at the tight end position for 2024. Remember, a “bust” doesn’t necessarily mean a guy will be irrelevant. If you draft someone first at the position and he finishes as a mid-range starter, well, that’s kind of bust-y, because you could have used that early pick on someone better and drafted the same TE production five rounds later. This is all about those guys who will come up short of expectations.
Check out our whole sleepers/busts series here: QB sleepers | QB busts | RB sleepers | RB busts | WR sleepers | WR busts | TE sleepers
2024 Fantasy Football Busts: Tight End
Travis Kelce, Kansas City Chiefs
Even as he played most of the 2023 season at age 34, Travis Kelce was perfectly efficient. He was No. 4 among qualified tight ends in yards per route run (1.99), per FTN’s advanced receiving stats, and his PFF receiving grade of 83.6 was second only to George Kittle. The problem absolutely was not quality. It was quantity. Kelce had 121 targets in 2023, fourth among tight ends but also his fewest since 2016. That meant he came up short of 1,000 yards for the first time since 2015, and it held him to 5 touchdowns, tied for his lowest since 2016. The Chiefs — especially in what is looking like a moribund AFC West — don’t feel the need to press Kelce to carry the team anymore and appear to prefer to keep him healthy for the playoffs. And now, with Rashee Rice, Marquise Brown, Noah Gray and Irv Smith available, there is likely to be even less pressure for Kelce. I expect 2024 to feature his fewest targets at least since his 87 in 2014, and that’s not worth a top-two pick at the tight end position.
Brock Bowers, rookie
We’ve had an explosion in rookie tight end production in recent years. The Nos. 1 (Sam LaPorta, 2023), 5 (Kyle Pitts, 2021) and 6 (Evan Engram, 2017) PPR seasons by a rookie tight end in NFL history all came in the last seven years, and Pat Freiermuth‘s 2021 and Dalton Kincaid‘s 2023 are also in the top 12. But while you can track the correlation between top-drafted running backs and top-producing rookies, there isn’t nearly as much of a connection at tight end – of the five names above, only Pitts and Kincaid were the first tight ends taken in their drafts. Landing spot matters in a big way. For example, the Chargers are currently No. 1 in betting odds to land Brock Bowers in this year’s draft. But the Chargers are also popularly expected to lean on the run in 2024. The Jets are third in odds, and how would Bowers fare as maybe the No. 4 weapon after Breece Hall, Garrett Wilson and Mike Williams? If he lands in Denver (sixth in odds), who is throwing him the ball? Landing spot matters so much at tight end, that there’s a very real chance Bowers’ stock for 2024 is never higher than it is right now, before we actually know where he’ll be playing.
Cole Kmet, Chicago Bears
Cole Kmet was second on the Bears in targets in 2023, with 90. He led the team in targets in 2022 with 69. Second in 2021, 93. He’s scored 13 touchdowns the last two years combined, but ask yourself: Is there any chance he’s second on the team in targets in 2024? DJ Moore is still around, and Keenan Allen is there now. The Bears are strongly linked to taking another receiver in the draft, maybe as early as ninth overall. D’Andre Swift is the new running back, and he’s a pass-catcher. Gerald Everett is the best No. 2 tight end the Bears have had. Sure, Caleb Williams at quarterback should help the offense overall, but how is Kmet going to get the targets he’ll need to be productive?
Dalton Schultz, Houston Texans
Nico Collins missed two games last year. Tank Dell missed six. Noah Brown missed seven. Dalton Schultz missed two. The Texans had plenty of pass-catchers, but the Texans only had all four of those guys on the field three times last year, and one of those was Week 1, the first game of C.J. Stroud’s career. If we assume they’re healthy heading into 2024, and we’re adding Stefon Diggs (last missed a game to injury Week 9 of 2018). There just aren’t going to be enough target for all of these guys to be big-time performers in 2024, and while Brown might be the obvious choice to lose production first, Schultz is definitely second. I’d be hesitant about taking any Texans weapon at cost in 2024.
Darren Waller, New York Giants
We are now four years removed from Darren Waller’s 2019-2020 explosion, when he finished as the TE3 and TE2 in back-to-back seasons with over 1,100 yards each year. Since then, he hasn’t reached 700 yards or 4 touchdowns in a season. Yes, some of that is injury related — he’s played 32 of a possible 51 games over the three years — but the efficiency has dipped as well. He topped 2.00 yards per route run in his big seasons, but he fell under 1.80 in 2021 and under 1.60 each of the last two years. His PFF grade was in the 80s when he was good, in the 70 range since. He turns 32 in September, and while he hasn’t had the target total you’d expect from a 32-year-old tight end, the reasons for his lighter workload early in his career probably didn’t lend themselves to his body being in pristine condition. So an older, increasingly brittle tight end, who has been disappointing for longer than he was ever good? I’m steering all the way clear. (And this all assumes he even plays in 2024, which apparently is not a guarantee.)
Zach Ertz, Washington Commanders
Zach Ertz has had an excellent career. Over 1,100 years one season, over 800 in five straight. Three Pro Bowls. Six top-10 PPR seasonal finishes, including five in a row. It’s just that those days are extremely clearly over now. He’s now on a four-year run with a cumulative 1.17 yards per route run. He was 44th of 46 qualified tight ends in TE receiving grade in 2023. He’s 33. His biggest virtue is being the clear No. 1 tight end on a Commanders offense that only has two relevant wide receivers, and rookie quarterbacks liking having a tight end option. But on a skill level, it’s hard to imagine trusting Ertz to be much of anything in fantasy in 2024. (To be fair, Ertz is nearly free in early drafts, so calling him a “bust” might be harsh.)
