Fantasy Football Stat of the Day: The tackle-breaking tight ends

(Leading up to the 2021 NFL season, FTN’s Tyler Loechner will dive into the fantasy football numbers to bring you his Fantasy Stat of the Day, five days a week.)

In this week’s Stat of the Day pieces, we’ve looked at the RBs and WRs that are able to elude the most tackles per touch. Some big names topped those charts, including Nick Chubb, Laviskha Shenault and A.J. Brown.

Today, we will look at the TEs who were able to force the most missed tackles per touch in the league last season. Some TEs with legitimate breakout potential rise to the surface.

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Breakout candidates Dallas Goedert, Noah Fant among TE leaders in forced missed tackles per touch

The chart below shows last season’s TE leaders sorted by forced missed tackles per touch (minimum 30 total touches).

Player	Touches	Forced Missed Tackles	Forced Missed Tackles Per Touch
Dallas Goedert	46	10	0.22
Gerald Everett	42	9	0.21
Dalton Schultz	63	13	0.21
Noah Fant	62	10	0.16
Anthony Firkser	39	6	0.15
Drew Sample	40	6	0.15
Jared Cook	37	5	0.14
Tyler Higbee	45	6	0.13
Travis Kelce	105	14	0.13
Hunter Henry	60	8	0.13
Jordan Akins	38	4	0.11
Irv Smith	30	3	0.10
Darren Waller	107	10	0.09
T.J. Hockenson	68	6	0.09
Evan Engram	69	6	0.09
Logan Thomas	75	6	0.08
Jimmy Graham	50	4	0.08
Jonnu Smith	43	3	0.07
Mark Andrews	58	4	0.07
George Kittle	50	3	0.06

The top of this list is littered with names that have breakout potential for 2021 — starting with a big name at the top in Dallas Goedert. Goedert is currently the No. 7 TE coming off boards in Underdog (via our Underdog ADP tool), and those that are banking on him to produce solid fantasy TE1 numbers can rest a little easier knowing he tops the chart in this advanced metric.

Gerald Everett has always been a solid athlete at the TE position. The 44th overall pick in 2017, Everett ran a 4.62 40-yard dash — not blazing, but still the 13th-fastest out of 48 TEs drafted in the top 100 since 2010. He’s in a potentially sneaky-good spot in Seattle, where the targets behind DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett are ripe for the taking.

Near the top of the list we also see Noah Fant, a top-10 TE off draft boards this season, and Anthony Firkser, a deep sleeper who has a chance to emerge in Tennessee with Jonnu Smith out of the way. The fantasy community is all-in on Fant as a breakout (he ran a 4.50 40-yard dash, second-fastest out of the 48 TEs since 2010 previously mentioned).