2021 NFL Draft Guide Player Profiles: Evan Engram
Published: Jul 08, 2021
At a position as fickle as tight end, volume is everything and then some. New York tight end Evan Engram has certainly enjoyed plenty of volume, albeit with minimal production outside of his impressive rookie season. For the second time in his young career, Engram saw over 100 targets. Last year he caught 63 passes on 109 targets for 654 yards and one touchdown. After injuries limited him in 2018 and especially 2019, Engram appeared in all 16 games for the Giants in 2020, but was far from efficient, coming in as the TE15 in PPR formats. He’s relied on volume to this point in his career, but will he be able to become more efficient? That’s the big question for the tight end, especially since volume might be tougher to come by in 2021.
Engram’s 2020 season can best be described as wildly inefficient. He caught just 57.8 percent of his targets, and Daniel Jones’ numbers when throwing to Engram were horrible. How horrible? Well, a 1:6 TD/INT ratio and a 59.0 passer rating. Yikes. Engram didn’t exactly help that, as he tied for the position lead in drops and had the fourth-highest drop rate, per Pro Football Focus (PFF). Of tight ends with at least 40 targets last year, take a look at Engram’s ranks:
- Fifth-lowest reception percentage
- Tied for most drops
- Fourth-worst drop rate
- Lowest contested catch rate
Engram only found the end zone once last year, but it wasn’t for a lack of trying. He had the second-most red zone targets on the Giants, but barely caught over 50 percent of them. What’s even more frustrating for those who drafted Engram last year is the fact that since just six fantasy points separated TE8 and TE15, one or two more critical end zone catches would have had a rather drastic change on the outlook of the 2020 season. However, at this point, we can’t play the ‘what if’ game with Engram. We now have multiple seasons of inefficient play from him. The one year he was efficient with his targets, he was limited due to injury.
Since the start of 2018, Engram has the seventh-most targets amongst tight ends and is one of just five tight ends to have at least a 20 percent target share, per RotoViz. However, due to his inefficiency, he’s underperformed his expected fantasy output by about 15 points, per RotoViz. Perhaps what is more worrisome is that despite all of the volume, half of his games have resulted in ten or fewer fantasy points.
| Games (out of 35) | % of Games | |
| 0-10 Fantasy Points | 17 | 48.6% |
| 11-20 Fantasy Points | 15 | 42.9% |
| 21+ Fantasy Points | 3 | 8.5% |
Courtesy of RotoViz
Here are two fun facts on Engram’s outlook for the 2021 season:
- Engram averages about three more fantasy points per game (PPR) when Saquon Barkley is on the field
- In terms of adjusted yards per attempt, his mark with Daniel Jones (5.09) is far lower than his mark with Eli Manning (7.42)
The Giants’ receiving core has always endured some unfortunate injuries, and the war of attrition has opened the door to added volume for Engram. Now, as we’ve mentioned multiple times through this piece, volume has never been the issue for Engram. It’s been the production that hasn’t followed suit. He needs to be better at catching the football, and this is the most loaded arsenal the Giants and Engram have had. He’s competing with Kenny Golladay, Barkley, Darius Slayton, Sterling Shepard, and Kadarius Toney for targets.
With all that in mind, he’s priced lower compared to recent seasons, and is currently the 15th tight end off the board, per NFFC data. I love the price. In PPR formats, he’s never finished worse than the TE18, and when you look at the guys around them, not many of them can boast the amount of targets Engram has had in recent years. He may not get to 100 targets in 2021 like he did last year, but he should see no fewer than 80 targets this year. In the TE2 range, despite his efficiency issues, you’re going to be hard-pressed to find someone with a more reliable workload.
I can’t trust him as my TE1, due to concerns with efficiency, drops, and added competition for targets, but he’s one of my preferred backup tight end targets this season. You don’t have to draft him as a TE1 in 2021, but if he can add some efficiency to his volume, he can finish in that range this year. Remember, as bad as his marks were from last year, he was just three catches for 35 yards away from a TE1 campaign.
Statistical Credits:
profootballfocus.com
rotoviz.com
nfc.shgn.com/adp/football
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