Pope’s Pick 6: Tight Ends to Target in Fantasy in 2022

Welcome to Pope’s Pick 6. Twice a week I’ll be bringing you a quick look at my fantasy football thoughts in quick-hit form. Today: Tight ends to target in fantasy in 2022.

With the rise of tight end premium leagues, this position has become even more important to us fantasy managers, especially with the lack of fantasy viable players within the position. However, hitting on this position gives you a huge weekly advantage as a majority of your league will be struggling to find a weekly starter. Over the years we have seen many championship rosters with players like Travis Kelce, Darren Waller, George Kittle or Mark Andrews, on them. So let’s take a look at a few players you should avoid, to help you make that championship week.

Cole Kmet, Chicago Bears 

In his second year in the NFL in 2021, Kmet took a huge step forward as a receiver, though it didn’t result in many fantasy points. Even in a poor passing attack, he improved on his rookie year in every receiving category — aside from touchdowns. He saw 93 targets — 61 of which were first-read targets, per the FTN Fantasy advanced receiving stats. This helped Kmet to produce 612 receiving yards, second on the team to breakout Darnell Mooney’s 1,055 yards. Kmet’s 270 yards after the catch was third on the team, behind only Mooney (400) and David Montgomery (290). All of this only led to a TE20 season, and it was only that low due to the fact that he never found the end zone all season.

The lack of touchdowns was frustrating, but the opportunity was there — Kmet led the Bears in red-zone targets with 14 and tied for second in end-zone targets with 6. Positionmate Jimmy Graham was a thorn in Kmet’s side — while he only had 23 targets on the season, 8 came in the red zone and 6 in the end zone, horning in on opportunities that otherwise might have gone Kmet’s way. Graham is gone now, so we should expect an increase in touchdown production for Kmet in 2022, especially if the new coaching staff and a year of development for Justin Fields help improve the overall offense. Last year, Kmet put up 60 receptions on 93 targets for 612 yards; Noah Fant put up 68 on 90 for 670, but he was the TE12 thanks to his 4 touchdowns. Give Kmet some scoring luck and he has a clear path to a top-12 finish.

Pat Freiermuth, Pittsburgh Steelers 

The 2021 rookie season started slow for Pat Freiermuth. Through five weeks, he had only produced 11 receptions (on 13 targets) for 100 yards and a score and was TE28 in PPR. His work started to increase from there, but things really started to come around for Freiermuth after the Steelers’ Week 7 bye, when starter Eric Ebron went down to injury. Over the two weeks Ebron missed, Freiermuth caught 9 of 13 targets for 87 yards and 3 touchdowns, comfortably the TE1 over those two weeks. The rest of the way, Freiermuth was more involved in the offense, with 33 receptions on 46 targets for 252 yards and 3 scores in Weeks 10-18, the TE11 in that time.

Heading into 2022, the Steelers offense — whether they roll with free agent Mitch Trubisky or rookie first-rounder Kenny Pickett — should be able to stretch the field more than it was able to under the last year of Ben Roethlisberger, which should help boost Freirmuth’s aDOT, whose 5.29-yard aDOT in 2021 was fourth lowest among 25 tight ends who saw at least 50 targets. On top of that, Freiermuth is one of the team’s top scoring weapons, finishing second on the team in red-zone targets last year with 20. There’s a path for Freiermuth to surpass 90 targets in 2022, and pairing that with improved offensive efficiency means he could crack the top 10 at the position. 

Irv Smith, Minnesota Vikings 

Irv Smith played his first two years as the No. 2 TE behind Kyle Rudolph, but he was still able to parlay that role into 66 receptions on 90 targets for 676 yards and 7 touchdowns. That led to plenty of optimism for his 2021 with Rudolph gone — per the FTN Fantasy splits tool, Rudolph averaged more targets, receptions, yards and touchdowns per game in the 5 games Rudolph missed, nearly doubling his PPR point-per-game output.

Unfortunately, that hype for 2021 never had a chance to materialize, as Smith tore his meniscus in the preseason and never saw the field. In his absence, the less-athletic Tyler Conklin posted a TE16 season for the Vikings, averaging 8.1 PPR points per game and seeing 87 targets (including 16 in the red zone and 8 in the end zone, both second on the team behind Justin Jefferson). Now, Conklin is on the Jets, Smith is healthy, and the Vikings have a new head coach in Kevin O’Connell, who helped lead the Rams’ offense to back-to-back seasons with 4,000 passing yards. In other words, we can expect a pass-heavier Vikings offense this year, and the No. 1 TE Smith should see plenty of opportunities as a result. If he can put up numbers like what he managed when Rudolph was out, Smith will find himself will within the top-12, possibly even the top-five. 

Evan Engram, Jacksonville Jaguars 

As a rookie in 2017, Evan Engram finished as fantasy’s TE5 with 173.6 PPR points, averaging 11.6 per game. He followed that up competently, averaging 11.5 and 13.7 PPG the next two years, but struggled to stay healthy, missing 13 of 32 games in 2018 and 2019. He bounced back the last two years from a health perspective, playing 30 of 33 games, but the production wasn’t there, averaging 8.8 and 6.8 PPR PPG. He averaged only 3.5 receptions for 34.3 yards the last two years, a far cry from his rookie peak. 

This year, Engram gets a chance of scenery by heading to Jacksonville, a team that struggled mightily on offense in 2021. The team attempted to solve that this offseason by signing Engram, Christian Kirk and Zay Jones and getting Travis Etienne on the field after a lost rookie season to injury. Engram is the clear top tight end in an offense that should be on the come-up in 2022, and he has as his head coach Doug Pederson, who helped produce four straight TE6 seasons for Zach Ertz in Philadelphia. If Engram can stay as healthy as he was the last two years and see a solid target share, there’s a path for him to sneak back into the TE1 ranks. 

Logan Thomas, Washington Commanders 

After bouncing around the league for a bit, playing for three teams in four years and switching from quarterback to tight end, Logan Thomas landed in Washington in 2020 and stuck, producing 670 yards and 6 touchdowns on 72 receptions (110 targets). That made for a TE3 finish in PPR, tied with Robert Tonyan at 176.6 points. That was impressive for a converted tight end, especially on an offense that struggled to put up points overall (Washington was 25^th in scoring in 2020). Last year started well for Thomas once again, as he averaged 10.7 PPR points per game (10^th among tight ends), but injuries held him to only five games. In those five games, he put up 18 receptions on 26 targets for 196 yards and 3 touchdowns, with 18 of his 26 targets coming on first read (and 5 in the red zone, 4 in the end zone). 

Assuming he’s healthy for the start of 2022 (that is admittedly not a guarantee), Thomas is likely to be the second or third option in this passing game after Terry McLaurin and maybe rookie Jahan Dotson. That’s great news for Thomas, as the Commanders added Carson Wentz this offseason, and for all of the criticism Wentz has gotten, he’s still the best quarterback the team has had in quite a while, and he’s shown a liking for his tight ends in the past. A healthy Thomas with Wentz throwing him the ball could lead to a repeat of 2020.

Austin Hooper, Tennessee Titans 

Austin Hooper was fantasy’s TE6 in 2019, parlayed the big season into a contract with the Browns, and promptly struggled to recreate that performance. In two years in Cleveland, he failed to top 70 targets or 435 yards, in part because the Browns had a three-headed committee at tight end of Hooper, David Njoku and Harrison Bryant. Hooper was the top red zone weapon of the three, though, leading the Browns in red-zone targets in 2021 and coming in second in 2020. 

Now, Hooper heads south to Tennessee, where we should see his role increase fairly significantly — with the Titans, he’s the clear top tight end, and arguably the top weapon in the passing game overall, given Robert Woods’ recovery from an ACL tear and the conditioning issues rookie Treylon Burks has had in offseason workouts. Because of that, there’s a route for Hooper to top 100 targets for the first time in his career.