Prime-Time Props — Thursday Night Football, Week 1
Prop God
It’s downer time around FTN Fantasy right now. Because the exciting part of fantasy football is dreaming of the upside. Maybe you have the hot rookie who can be Puka Nacua. Maybe you can spot the late-career breakout a la Raheem Mostert. That’s what we dream of. It’s one of the keys to the game.
But the other key to the game is avoiding the pitfalls. Drafting Austin Ekeler in 2023 or JuJu Smith-Schuster in 2019 might not have doomed your season, but it certainly made it way harder. You have to find the upside, but you also have to steer clear of the disasters.
So that’s what we’re going to look at. How could each of the top-drafted players at each position fail in 2024? What would it look like? And how likely is it?
(Unless there is a very specific reason not to do so, we’re ignoring injury risk here. It’s football. Everyone is a big injury risk. If your top pick gets hurt, well, that happens, good luck to you.)
Today: Tight Ends
Check out other parts of the series: QB | RB | WR
2024 Fantasy Pessimist: Tight End
Travis Kelce, Kansas City Chiefs
The answer here is twofold, but if you dig to the base of each of them, it’s actually one reason, and it’s obvious: Age. Kelce turns 35 in October. Only 22 tight ends in NFL history have reached even 100 PPR points in their age-34 season or later, with only six reaching 200 points (and three of those were Tony Gonzalez), Kelce in 2023 included. So if Kelce continues to be a top-tier tight end, he’ll be nearly alone in NFL history. And the second part of the same reason — even if he is as good as ever on an efficiency standpoint, we saw just last year that the Chiefs — at -230 to win the AFC West on DraftKings Sportsbook, comfortably the biggest division favorite in football — want to keep Kelce fresh for their all-but-inevitable playoff run. He only had 121 targets in 2023, his fewest since 2016, and there’s not a lot of reason to expect that to jump back up to previous levels in 2024.
Risk Level — High
Kelce is a surefire Hall of Famer, but the Chiefs are eying that three-peat, so even if he shows he’s healthy and his old self, the Chiefs have no real incentive to push him. He’s a huge risk at the top of the TE heap in 2024.
Sam LaPorta, Detroit Lions
The list of tight ends who have scored more PPR points as a rookie than Sam LaPorta did last year is even shorter than the list of tight ends 34 or older with 200 points. Because it’s zero. LaPorta broke Mike Ditka’s 62-year-old record for rookie TE fantasy scoring last year by putting up 239.3 PPR points. Among qualified tight ends, he was first in touchdowns, fifth in targets, fifth in yards, fifth in PFF grade, sixth in yards per route run. So what could happen? Well, touchdowns. A tight end has only had double-digit touchdowns in a season 49 times in NFL history. Only Julius Thomas, Rob Gronkowski, Jimmy Graham and Antonio Gates have ever done it in consecutive seasons. Not Travis Kelce, not Tony Gonzalez, not Dallas Clark. Give LaPorta 6 touchdowns instead of 10 (Maybe David Montgomery runs more in? Maybe Jameson Williams breaks out? Maybe any number of things), and he’s the TE4 last year instead of the TE1.
Risk Level — Low
It’s not low risk that LaPorta could score less in 2024, the odds are actually highly in favor of that. But the chances LaPorta scores less often while also not improving his yardage output feels less likely. He only topped 100 yards once last year, only topped 65 three times. After seeing what he could do, you’d have to expect the Lions would give LaPorta more. He has an extremely high floor.
Trey McBride, Arizona Cardinals
I bet if you polled a hundred football fans and fantasy players, Family Feud-style, to ask how many touchdowns Trey McBride scored last year, the actual answer (3) would either garner the big red X in the answers or be one the lowly little answers that Steve Harvey reveals at the end of the round and the crowd reads off mournfully. Because he was exciting down the stretch, man, but that excitement was borne almost entirely of his workload. From Week 8 to the end of the season, McBride averaged 8.5 targets and 6.6 receptions per game, including two games with 10 receptions each. But then, Zach Ertz was hurt (and then released), Marquise Brown was hurt, Rondale Moore was fairly ineffective, even James Conner missed a chunk of that time. McBride was the only game in town, and it was reflected in his usage. Now, he is very decidedly not that, not with Marvin Harrison Jr. going to the Cardinals with the fourth overall pick. Can a tight end who thrived on heavy usage and only had 11 red-zone targets be a top-tier tight end? Sure, but his path there is much narrower than it was.
Risk Level — Moderate
Harrison is (or should be, at least) a big-time stud. But it’s not like the Cardinals suddenly have a Bears-level group of receivers. Behind Harrison, it’s Michael Wilson, Greg Dortch, Zay Jones … hardly a murderer’s row. Maybe the targets Harrison steals will be enough to knock McBride down a peg or two, but he’s still going to be heavily involved.
Mark Andrews, Baltimore Ravens
Similar to McBride above, Andrews’ success over his career has had a lot to do with the Ravens’ lack of big-time receiving options. The best receiver fantasy season in Baltimore since Andrews’ 2018 rookie season was Marquise Brown’s 226.3 points in 2021, and that wouldn’t have been a top-20 total last year. Only Brown (twice) and Zay Flowers last year have even topped 150. So while Andrews has been excellent, a big part of the reason for his 513 targets the last five years (second among tight ends only to Travis Kelce’s 688) is … well, who else was Lamar Jackson going to throw to? Now, with Flowers developing into what should be a No. 1 receiver and Isaiah Likely showing he can be a perfectly serviceable running mate, Andrews’ upside at age 29 might be capped more than it has been. On top of that, Andrews suffered a pretty dramatic ankle injury last year, and while he did return for the AFC Championship Game, that’s always something to monitor.
Risk Level — Low
“Zay Flowers and Isaiah Likely” are decidedly not “Marvin Harrison Jr.” when it comes to who might steal targets from a star tight end. Derrick Henry’s presence in the backfield might turn some of Andrews’ short passes into runs, but then how often was Lamar Jackson dumping it off to begin with? Assuming Andrews is healthy, he still carries a very high ceiling.
Dalton Kincaid, Buffalo Bills
Tight ends who scored more PPR points than Dalton Kincaid last year? 10. Tight ends who scored more than Kincaid in Weeks 7-12? Two. What’s significant about that time period? Well, Dawson Knox injured his wrist in Week 7, and while he played through it, he was diminished, and he went on IR after that game and didn’t return until after the Bills’ Week 13 bye. You can see, per the FTN Fantasy splits tool, how different Kincaid looked when Knox played vs. when he didn’t:
It’s not that Knox was doing all the receiving work we want Kincaid to do — he topped out at 36 yards in a game last year and only scored twice — but Kincaid, at least as a rookie, was an actively bad blocker (45th of 46 qualified tight ends in PFF blocking grade), while Knox was ninth, and given the step back the Bills had to take on the offensive line this offseason (we have them 25th in our offensive line rankings), they’ll likely need someone who can block.
Risk Level — Moderate
A tight end who looked as good as Kincaid did as a receiver as a rookie isn’t going to be sidelined, and a tight end who did as little as Knox did as a receiver last year isn’t going to be featured. But unless and until we see some evidence that Kincaid has taken some strides as a blocker, Knox is going to see the field a frustrating amount for fantasy managers who want Kincaid to contend for the top of the heap at the tight end position.
