2023 Fantasy Football Draft Guide: Yin-Yang Tight Ends Strategy

A couple of decades ago you probably woke up the day of your fantasy football draft, stumbled into some filthy gas station, and bought yourself a fantasy magazine with Priest Holmes on the cover. And, in that magazine, some shlub wrote something like, “You should never draft two tight ends in your fantasy football league”. And, ever since then, this myth has permeated the fantasy airwaves, poisoning the minds and rankings of sweet, innocent fantasy gamers across the globe. Well, it’s time to break the shackles of lazy propaganda and become the most powerful fantasy sports trophy winning entity the world has ever seen! It’s time to embrace your inner Yin & Yang Tight End

Wait - What In The Heck Is Yin & Yang Tight End?

I’m glad you asked, my darling little fantasy football cherubs. Yin & Yang Tight End is a late round tight end pairing system. And this is actually the fourth article in a series culminating in this very moment. If you haven’t read the first articles, here is how the series works.

• We did all the heavy lifting in the first article, figuring out exactly What Makes An Elite Tight End.
• If you are going to spend up in your fantasy draft, you’ll want to make sure it’s a player that actually has difference making upside so you draft a guy we’ve deemed one of our 2023 Elite Tight Ends 
• If you don’t go with a high end option, make sure you completely avoid our Tight Ends to Fade in 2023.
• And, if you’ve made it this far without drafting a tight end, then congratulations - you get to play the Yin & Yang Tight End game with us.

As I've already suggested, you wait on the position and draft two guys. A Yin. And a Yang. You can draft them in any order you want. Just make sure you have these two player types covered.

YIN - This is a “safe” option that you can trust to start early in the season. They have a reasonable floor but there is something preventing them from truly having difference making upside (for instance, maybe they are low on the target pecking order on their own team or maybe they simply aren’t super talented). 

YANG - This is the highest risk, highest reward player possible. The problem? Well, due to the risk associated with them, it’s hard to trust them Week One. In hindsight, we like to think we’d have the stones to draft guys like Mark Andrews, Darren Waller, Dalton Schultz etc. in their breakout years and just start them Week One but no one was really doing that. A lot of these guys don’t even break out right away anyway. But we know they are out there because, for six straight years now, a tight end has come from outside the top 17 in ADP to finish top five.

Why Is It Called Yin & Yang Tight End

Honestly, it’s because it’s exhausting to type “safe tight end with decent floor but capped ceiling” and “highest risk, highest reward late round option” like 20 times in an article. So I picked Yin and Yang. That’s it. That’s the name. But, if you look at the definition of Yin & Yang with regards to opposite forces creating balance, it kind of works.

2022 Season - The Perfect Example

The number one question I get is this - why not just draft the upside guys? And my answer? You can if you want. But it’s risky. Even if you draft two, it's still risky. I do it sometimes even though I know better. And most of the other folks that have joined the #YangYangGang at some point have felt the pain of high risk, high risk as well. Last year, in one league, I drafted two guys off the Yang list - Cole Kmet and Evan Engram. These are the results I got over the first few weeks in that league.

• Week One: Started Cole Kmet - 0 points
• Week Two: Started Cole Kmet - 0 points
• Week Three: Started Evan Engram - 3.9 points
• Week Four: Started Evan Engram - 2.6 points

So that was pretty dope. From Week 4 on, Evan Engram was actually TE4 and Cole Kmet was TE5 in PPR. But they were not to be trusted early. In many of my other leagues, I actually followed the Yin & Yang strategy like I was supposed to. So I was drafting a Yin we were recommending, like Zach Ertz, to start for me early while DeAndre Hopkins was suspended for six weeks (and through those six weeks Zach Ertz was the TE3). Then, down the stretch, we pivoted to Evan Engram as planned and we were able to piece together pretty solid production. It wasn’t pretty at times but not too shabby for drafting the TE8 and the TE22 off the board.

The BIGGEST Mistake

One last point before we get started - the BIGGEST mistake is thinking that this is a draft strategy. Well, it kind of is. But it’s not JUST a draft strategy. If you aren’t going to be active on the waiver wire, then this strategy likely won’t work. Because it’s not easy to hit the breakout right from the rip. And no one was drafting Dalton Schultz as TE35. We take our best shot late in the draft but that bench spot we use for the Yang TE? We have to be ready to swap that player out for the new hotness at any moment. And I'll be with you every step of the way, posting my recommended adds. Like in 2020 when Logan Thomas was the TE38 in ADP and going undrafted. Right after Week One, based on his usage, we were adding him. He finished as TE3. 

YIN Tight Ends (Medium Floor, Medium Ceiling)

That Logan Thomas season I just mentioned in 2020 when he finished TE3? Well, the underlying usage was there early but the production was not. Through five weeks he was actually the TE26. Then when everything came together he took off like a rocket ship. I'm not a rocket scientist like Matt Patricia, but the way they seem to work is you have boosters that help get you off the ground early before the shuttle takes you to the moon. Your Yin tight ends are basically those boosters. Last year Yin tight ends like Zach Ertz helped us while our Yang, like Evan Engram, got off the ground. Let's take a look at the Yin's for this year first.

Evan Engram

The Good

Those of you who have been following me on Twitter or reading this series for years now might be SHOCKED by this. Evan Engram has ROUTINELY been in the Yang section of this article. In fact, we wrote an entire article last year on how Evan Engram had elite upside. And he was TE20 in ADP that finished as TE5 so that article is gold plated now.

The reasons that we like Evan Engram in a vacuum have not changed at all. He’s a physical specimen and he has the fastest forty time of any tight end in the league. Kyle Pitts with a 4.49 is 98th percentile for the position per Player Profiler - Evan Engram ran a 4.42.

His best comparable player on there is Gerald Everett but that’s really only because the player pool for that is limited to tight ends. His true best comparable players physically are guys like Andre Johnson, Chase Claypool, and the late Demaryius Thomas. 

Evan Engram started his career finishing as a top five tight end with Eli Manning as a rookie. Then there were four seasons with a different quarterback that no one remembers or cares about. And then last year he was a top five tight end with Trevor Lawrence. The Jaguars franchise tagged him this offseason but were able to work out a long-term deal at three years, $41.25 million. Doug Pederson, who orchestrated a lot of great tight end seasons for guys like Zach Ertz and Dallas Goedert with the Eagles, is back once again. So what could possibly be the problem here? 

The Bad

Conditions have changed. Last year we looked at a new coach and a quarterback we liked with a bunch of new weapons, which creates a lot of uncertainty. Christian Kirk, Zay Jones, and Evan Engram were all new to the team. Why not grab the guy with tight end eligibility if we don’t know how the targets will be distributed? And that works.

The way the offense was set up last year was this. Zay Jones was a full time wide receiver on the outside. For three WR sets, Marvin Jones was opposite him and Christian Kirk was in the slot. When they went to two WR sets, Marvin Jones would come out and Kirk would move outside. Evan Engram meanwhile was out there for the vast majority of the snaps and most of the pass plays - he ran 523 routes which was third among all tight ends and also played 343 slot snaps which led all tight ends. Times were good.

But the reality is that he technically wasn’t a top two target on the team - even then. Christian Kirk and Zay Jones were. What often happened is Zay Jones got taken away by good corners in a lot of games because he’s not that good. Stephon Gilmore, Sauce Gardner, and Jeff Okudah just erased him. And Engram did well in those games. But this year Zay Jones won’t be in the Zay Jones role - he’ll be in the Marvin Jones role. And Calvin Ridley will be in the Zay Jones role. And Calvin Ridley is better than Zay Jones. It would be less confusing if less guys were named Jones but let's just say that this change is going to present some target volume issues for Engram

The Advice

You might be asking yourself “well, you had Pat Freiermuth in The Fades article for something very similar - why is Evan Engram a Yin then?” And the answer is pretty simple. I trust Trevor Lawrence to support multiple pass catchers more than I trust Kenny Pickett. So, if Engram is going at TE8 and Freiermuth at TE9 based on our composite ADP, we want Engram with his skillset, his playcaller, and his quarterback more than Muth with his. And you only want to take one of them in drafts so Muth is out.

That said, as we laid out in this article, if you look at the top 50 tight end seasons of all time, all of the players were top two targets on their team. Even if you narrow it down to the last 30 years, there was ONE exception - 2014 Martellus Bennett who registered as #47 on the list. So, if the guy isn’t a top two target on his team, his ceiling is capped. Engram technically wasn’t even top two with Christian Kirk, Zay Jones, and Marvin Jones so it will be even harder with Christian Kirk, Calvin Ridley, and Zay Jones. We’re willing to draft Engram at the right price knowing he’s fairly “safe”, but we’re taking a stab on another option too, trying to catch lightning in a bottle. 

Greg Dulcich

The Good

You know what we like? Converted wide receivers that we can start at tight end. He was a stud wide receiver in high school who happened to have the size to convert to tight end without losing much of that explosiveness. That's pretty much what Darren Waller and Juwan Johnson did after being drafted as well.

The issue with these “tweener” type guys who aren’t quite tight ends or wide receivers is that they can sometimes end up playing a limited snap share as they don’t quite have a position. That was the fate of guys like Cameron Brate, Anthony Firkser, and Trey Burton.  But Dulcich, even as a rookie, proved that he can play a full role as he played 71% of the snaps in his first appearance and played as much as 89% of the snaps in Week 10 (a game where he saw 71 snaps and ran 40 routes). Dulcich plays over 50% of his snaps at wide receiver and he only pass blocked on 3.5% of his snaps so his alignment/deployment is good. In fact, Sean Payton has already used the word “joker” when talking about Dulcich. Many misconstrued that to mean the backfield role that Alvin Kamara plays but it really just means any player that can create matchup issues playing “out of position”. At one point Jimmy Graham was the “joker” for Payton as a tight end that played a lot of wide receiver. Was Jimmy Graham good when he played for Sean Payton?

There are two other areas where Dulcich really excels. And they are important.. If you take every tight end that got even 10 targets last year, Dulcich’s aDot of 12.7 yards was third best behind only Darren Waller and Kyle Pitts. He runs real, high aDot routes which can translate to big chunk plays. The other area of excellence? He has a glorious hair/mustache combo. I mean, he looks like James Franco playing Weird Al Yankovich in a biopic. I told you this stuff was important. 

The Bad

Unless the Broncos make some sort of major trades or cuts, they are not only setting themselves up for a major target crunch but snaps in general might be thin. You can only have 11 guys on the field at a time. The five linemen and the quarterback don’t come out. So that leaves five spots. The last time that Sean Payton had fullback Michael Burton on the roster, he played 20-30% of the snaps a game. He also brought in blocking tight ends Adam Trautman and Chris Manhertz. Those guys are going to soak up snaps. So you’re going to have Michael Burton, Adam Trautman, and Chris Manhertz rotating with Courtland Sutton, Jerry Jeudy, Marvin Mims, Greg Dulcich, Albert Okweugbunam, Javonte Williams, and Samaje Perine. They’ve got a bit of a clown car set up over there.

Even if he gets the snaps, the target crunch is the next hurdle. Dulcich is competing with Jerry Jeudy, Courtland Sutton, and second round pick Marvin Mims. All from a quarterback who might have only been good because of the system in place in Seattle. We can’t really ignore the fact that Geno Smith stepped right into that offense and became a top ten fantasy quarterback while Russell Wilson also fell directly on his face. Things are a lot scarier than they seem. 

The Advice

This group of pass catchers has been quite the hot topic for the Fantasy Alarm #FAmily. Howard Bender loves Courtland Sutton at ADP. Jon Impemba swears by Jerry Jeudy. And Britt Flinn thinks that Greg Dulcich will be a top two target on the team - if it were up to her, she’d probably have him in the Yang section based on the article she wrote on him. Lot of disagreement in this house right now.

As for me? I’m somewhere in the middle on it all. Which is really the most conservative way to look at it given how thinly the snaps/targets could end up being spread. I think Dulcich is probably the third target on the team after Jeudy and Sutton. But I also think he should get some looks every single week so he’s a guy you can throw in their Week One and not have to worry about a goose egg. He’s going off the board at TE14 based on our composite ADP so you can actually take a stab on someone super risky from the Yang section FIRST if you want and then circle back to grab Dulcich as the safety valve. We like that.

Tyler Higbee

The Good

Anyone that follows me on Twitter or has read this series in the past is probably pretty confused right now. Not only is Evan Engram in the Yin section but we are actually recommending to maybe draft Tyler Higbee. If anyone remembers his sections of the 2020 or 2021 Tight Ends to Fade articles, they were flat out mean. And they were also right.

But here’s the thing - we can’t have take lock. We need to reassess the landscape each and every year. The Rams are looking a LOT different than years passed. It’s basically Cooper Kupp as the top wide receiver and then a bunch of meh. Van Jefferson is probably Higbee’s biggest target competition and he’s just been “okay”. Ben Skowronek, Tutu Atwell, and Demarcus Robinson are not threats. And rookie Puka Nacua is a Day Three pick. That’s what happens when you mortgage the whole future to win the Super Bowl.

These “ghost ship” offenses are honestly a pretty decent place to find targets. And Tyler Higbee quietly already had the fourth most targets of any tight end last year with 108. In fact, since Cooper Kupp went down, he was one of only four tight ends to lead his team in targets (the other three were Travis Kelce, Mark Andrews, and Cole Kmet). So he’s sitting in a pretty advantageous spot. 

The Bad

I almost feel bad because we’ve done this multiple times already but Tyler Higbee the player has virtually none of the qualities we look for in an elite tight end. If you didn’t read our tight end bible, we’ll go through them quick with Higbee. 

• Be a top 2 target on his team
  • This is the one he might have going for him
• Block on less than 15% of pass snaps (ideally, around 7% or less)
  • Higbee blocked on 17.3% of his passes last year and his career average is 21.1%. In one season he actually blocked on 37.2% of his pass plays which is horrific. 
• Line up at wide receiver often
  • He only ran 13.6% of his snaps out of the slot. Gross.
• Create for himself vs. man to man
  • How do you get 108 targets and only have nine receptions vs man to man?
• Have a knack for scoring
  • Literally everyone was hurt and he scored three touchdowns
• Run real, high aDot routes
  • 3.2 yards. Three. Point. Two. That’s not even in the top 100 players for tight end.
• Run real fast
  • His best comparable player on Player Profiler is Brent Celek
• Be part of a high volume offense
  • This at one point was true but with the Matthew Stafford health issues I have no idea what we’ll get here.

The Advice

I honestly may have just convinced myself to just never draft Tyler Higbee. I mean, technically he was TE6 in fantasy last year which is insane because he was virtually unstartable. He scored his three touchdowns in Weeks 15 and 16 but in the weeks before that he had zero, 14, and 11 yards so who in their right mind was starting him?

All that being said, targets are king in fantasy football. And this dude does technically have a pretty clear shot to being a top two target on his team and there really isn’t much of a challenge for top three. Now, I can’t promise he won’t give you a zero in any given week because he did that twice last year in games where he played 59% and 79% of the snaps. But he also had games of 10, 11, 11, and 14 targets so chances are pretty decent in most weeks that he gets some looks. And there is a shot of upside there. So I can’t believe I’m saying this, but at TE15, Higbee should be pretty safe to hold down the fort while you search for the tight end that is actually going to win you the league. You gotta do what you gotta do sometimes.

Other Yin Options

Dallas Goedert - We talked about him in The Fades article. Goedert is basically a “handcuff plus” that has standalone value but really only has difference making upside if someone gets hurt. He’s a little too expensive for the strategy really but, if you draft Goedert, you might as well use a bench spot looking for real upside while you pray for an injury to A.J. Brown or DeVonta Smith. 

Pat Freiermuth - If Evan Engram goes off the board early, Muth is actually a pretty good candidate for this strategy. We just like Engram better at their ADP. We did a full write up of the pros and cons of Muth over in The Fades article as well.

Juwan Johnson - We expect Chris Olave and Michael Thomas to be the top two targets over there but everyone and their uncle keeps telling me they know for sure that Michael Thomas will get hurt. Juwan is a converted WR who plays a lot of slot and has some red zone prowess - plus Derek Carr really liked Darren Waller - so Juwan isn’t a bad choice for this strategy.

Tyler Conklin - We expect the top targets to be Garrett Wilson and Allen Lazard but Aaron Rodgers can find anyone for a touchdown. Conklin isn’t super athletic but he offers some semblance of a target floor and, if Robert Tonyan can score 11 TDs with Rogers, Conklin can snag a couple. 

Logan Thomas - There have been some rumors that Cole Turner could challenge for the starting job so look out there. But, either way, they are facing a lot of weapons in Terry McLaurin, Jahan Dotson, and Curtis Samuel. With what is likely a bad QB. But Ron Rivera and Eric Bienemy have some tight end tricks up their sleeves so who knows.

Yang Tight Ends (Low Floor, High Ceiling)

Man, I’m so tempted to go Yang/Yang again. I know I just explained earlier in this very article why it’s a bad idea with a real life example of how I personally got burned by it last year. But I mean, just think of the upside??

We probably should pair a safe option from the first section with one of these guys. But I’m sure in at least one league we’ll just get wild. Yang Yang, baby!

Dalton Kincaid

The Good

Let’s really take a second to consider the narrative here. The Buffalo Bills are in a “win now” window with their primary offensive weapon, Stefon Diggs, turning 30 during this season. Gabe Davis and Dawson Knox did not quite rise to the occasion last year and no one emerged as a threat out of the slot. So what do the Bills do? They add virtually no one in free agency. Instead they trade up in the first round to draft the best pass catcher available to them. If you’re a Bills fan and Dalton Kincaid doesn’t make an impact this year, you should have the pitchforks out. 

As for the player himself? Well, there is a reason that he was the first “tight end” off the board and the only one drafted in the first round. I put “tight end” in quotes because he’s more of a big slot wide receiver. If you group all the wide receivers and tight ends together, Dalton Kincaid had the third highest receiving grade in all of college football last year, per PFF. He ran 64.6% of his routes from a WR spot and led all tight ends in receptions and yards from the slot.  He only blocked on 4% of his pass plays, he had nine contested catches, he had the third most broken tackles of any tight end, he runs high aDot routes, and his 2.41 yards per route run is elite. Does that sound like a player we might be interested in?

As for how the Bills plan to use him? Picture the Eagles circa 2018 where Dallas Goedert (Dawson Knox) was the inline tight end and Zach Ertz (Dalton Kincaid) primarily played the slot. Cole Beasley, even at ages 30, 31, and 32, had back to back to back 100+ target seasons playing the slot with Josh Allen in this offense. But don’t just take my word for it. You can literally listen to Bills GM Brandon Beane on the Pat McCaffee show saying that Dalton Kincaid and Dawson Knox will be on the field at the same time and Kincaid is best when used out of the receiver role. Here is the clip.

The Bad

Let’s talk about the one big elephant in the room here. Historically the hit rate for rookie tight ends is abysmal. Since I’ve been playing the game, there’s essentially been three that were truly fantasy relevant: Kyle Pitts in 2021, Evan Engram in 2017 (when Odell Beckham blew out his knee Week 4), and Jeremy Shockey in 2002. Others have flashed at times but those are the three guys who actually put together 700+ yards over the course of a season. The next best I guess would be Seahawks rookie John Carlson in 2008.

Rookies are always a mystery box to some degree but Kincaid is kind of a double mystery box because he was getting over a back injury during the pre-draft process when we get all the fancy workout metrics. He not only missed the combine but also his Pro Day. So we have no speed score, burst score, RAS score - none of that. We have to go off college stats, tape, and the opinion of the Buffalo Bills scouting department.

The target competition also isn’t a walk in the park here. Because Stefon Diggs is such a monster target hog, there might not even BE enough targets for the second target on this team to be fantasy relevant. And, though Gabe Davis disappointed at ADP last year, he’s still no slouch. He missed two games and garnered 93 targets anyway. If Kincaid ends up a part time player out of the slot like Cameron Brate or Anthony Firkser, his floor could literally be “unstartable” for fantasy football. And, with Josh Allen’s mobility, Damien Harris as the hammer, and trusty Dawson Knox, we really can’t bank on touchdowns either.  

The Advice

The whole idea that rookie tight ends can’t break out or that they “have to wait until year three” is a myth and, quite frankly, it’s lazy. You shouldn’t fade Dalton Kincaid because Eric Ebron was a first round pick and didn’t do well - Eric Ebron has nothing to do with Dalton Kincaid. Luckily for you, I already did a full study/write up of where and when rookie tight ends can break out. And Dalton Kincaid checks virtually every single box. So shut up with that rookie talk.

Of course he’s risky but that’s the entire name of the game here. We literally do not care about floor one bit - mediocre tight ends are lying all over the ground like kiddie pools in a Jimmy Buffett show parking lot. All we care about is that tantalizing upside. So I’m willing to wait on tight ends do something on draft day like take Evan Engram at TE8 and Kincaid at TE12 based on our composite ADP or even take Kincaid as my first tight end then circle back for a little safety with someone else off the Yin list. Just start the other guy while our rookie stud gets ramped up - it's the same way we treat rookie wide receivers so why not tight ends?

David Njoku

The Good

Typically in this section we would post workout metrics but instead I’m just going to post this.

As for production, if we take every tight end that got at least 25 targets last year, David Njoku had the 6th highest receiving grade on PFF behind Travis Kelce, Chigoziem Okonkwo, George Kittle, Dallas Goedert, and Mark Andrews. He was the second highest graded tight end out of the slot last year behind only Travis Kelce. He caught all 10 his screen passes which was the seventh most of any tight end. He tied George Kittle for the fourth most red zone targets and he tied Evan Engram and Darren Waller for the seventh most end zone targets. And this was mostly playing with Jacoby Brissett AND while Njoku missed three games.

The bet here is pretty simple honestly. Outside of the couple games Deshaun Watson played last year shaking the rust off, he’s been a top five quarterback in this league whenever he has played, regardless of how good his team is. We expect Amari Cooper to lead this team in targets - after that it’s wide open. Donovan Peoples-Jones hasn’t really popped in three years. Elijah Moore is a cast off from the Jets. And Cedric Tillman is a rookie. I like his odds.

The Bad

Up till this point in his career, David Njoku has been a perennial disappointment. Even this past year, with all those nice stats we laid out, he finished as TE11. He’s been in the league for six years now and his best finishes were TE9 in 2018 (with 143.9 PPR points on 56 catches for 639 yards and four touchdowns) and last year’s TE11 (142 PPR points on an eerily similar stat line). That’s smack dab in the middle of the tight ends that we absolutely could not care less about.

And that’s what makes Njoku so risky. This isn’t a situation where we are betting on Mark Andrews to just be Mark Andrews again. We are betting on things to change. We are betting on Deshaun Watson to be good. We are betting on Kevin Stefanski to not run the damn ball so much. We are betting on guys like Elijah Moore, DPJ, Cedric Tillman to not step up. We are betting on Davis Njoku to actually be good. There’s a lot that needs to go right here for Njoku to have high end upside.  

The Advice

The fact that it is even possible at all for him to be a top two target for a Deshaun Watson led offense is reason enough for us to consider him. And, compared to a rookie like Dalton Kincaid or some other Yins, he honestly has a safer floor than a lot of the other Yangs. At least we know he’s capable of being a backend TE1 - he was last year with the backup QB despite missing three games. 

That versatility at his TE10 ADP really gives you two ways to play it with your late round tight end strategy. If you want to go the conservative route, you can wait then double tap fairly safe Yin & Yang options with Evan Engram/David Njoku and just play matchups. Or, if you are feeling froggy, you can go #YangYangGang and take Njoku as your “safe” option with a second even higher risk, higher reward option like one of the rookies. Just know that the Browns have the earliest bye in Week Five so you’ll need to get that sorted fairly quickly. 

Dalton Schultz

The Good

Unlike David Njoku, Dalton Schultz has already actually delivered. In 2020, when Blake Jarwin got hurt, he quietly finished as a TE1. The return of Jarwin saw Schultz going off the board as TE33 in 2021 and he promptly finished as TE3. Even last year while missing a couple games he was still a backend TE1. Those who snagged old Schultzy off the wire in their dynasty leagues have certainly gotten their money’s worth.

And this offseason the Houston Texans felt Schultz was worth some money when they inked him to a one year $6.25 million dollar deal with virtually all of it guaranteed. We were a little worried about landing spot but this honestly might be the best one - with the competition being injury prone guys like Nico Collins and Robert Woods or complete wild cards who haven’t played in the NFL like John Metchie or Tank Dell, he could LEAD that team in targets. New coaches DeMeco Ryans and Bobby Slowik are also bringing over the 49ers offense which is great for the tight end. A big reason why is the fullback usage - and, if you're confused, I’ll explain why that makes sense momentarily. First, here were last year's snap leaders at fullback.

You see Kyle Juszczyk there from the 49ers? Kyle Shanahan has this guy playing almost half the game. And when he comes in, they don’t take out George Kittle, Deebo Samuel, Brandon Aiyuk, or Christian McCaffrey. They take out the WR3. That highly consolidates the targets among the top dogs - including the tight end. Mike McDaniel is a disciple of Kyle Shanahan and he deploys Alec Ingold the same way - that’s how Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle thrive. One of the very first things this new Texans front office did was go out and give Andrew Beck a contract virtually identical to the one Alec Ingold got (info below from Spotrac.com). 

Sorry there are so many boring tables in this section.

The Bad

In 2019 Austin Hooper burst onto the fantasy scene finishing as TE6 overall in fantasy football, despite missing a couple games. In that season, the Atlanta Falcons threw FIFTY more passes than the next highest team. In free agency, he signed with the Cleveland Browns, who were not as pass happy of a team. And he was virtually irrelevant for fantasy. If this narrative scares you then you have to at least be a bit worried about Dalton Schultz going from a perennial top five passing offense to the Houston Texans. Oh yeah and Dalton Schultz’s best comparable player athletically on Player Profiler? Austin Hooper.

Yikes. Schultz on his own really isn’t that impressive of a player. He’s not particularly fast. He doesn’t really create for himself (over 100 targets between the regular season and playoffs and only 13 receptions vs. man to man). His best skill on the Cowboys was letting defenses forget about him while he sneaks out to the flats. He’s a solid two way tight end but not the first name we think of when it comes to explosive pass catchers. Just like with Tyler Higbee, I continually challenge readers and listeners to send me the highlight of the “cool play” that Dalton Schultz or Tyler Higbee have made. Tag me on Twitter @CoopAFiasco. No one has ever sent me a highlight.

The Advice

The floor is obviously horrifying - that’s why he’s in the Yang section. A tight end that is super target dependent joining a brand new coaching staff with a rookie QB in what is likely a run heavy offense that isn’t supposed to be super productive? What could possibly go wrong?

That said, we don’t care about the floor. Not one bit. Especially since the entire point of the Yin & Yang strategy is to have another player we can start that has that floor. There are VERY few tight ends that even have the chance to be a top two target on the team, let alone LEAD their team in targets. Dalton Schultz has that chance. This guy has surprised us multiple times now so maybe he can do it once again. And, at TE11 in the 11th round of our fantasy drafts, it really doesn’t matter if we don’t hit here. A lot of players in that range are going to suck. And we’re going to drop them to waivers for the next new hotness. 

Other Yang Options

Mike Gesicki - There are so many good narratives on Mike Gesicki

• Who is the Pats second target after Juju?
• Last time Bill O’Brien called plays in 2011 the Pats had TE1 and TE3 in fantasy - all while Wes Welker got over 170 targets
• Bill Belichick has called him “more of a big WR” on multiple occasions. Think the same Goedert/Ertz dynamic we talked about with Knox/Kincaid
• He was openly frustrated with usage in MIA. He could have signed anywhere as a free agent - chose New England.
• Athletic SPECIMEN

Hunter Henry - If the path is there for Gesicki then it's technically there for Henry too, though we expect him to play more of an in-line role. In that 2011 season we mentioned above though, Rob Gronkowski was is the inline role and he was the TE1 (though he was also Gronk). Henry is great vs. man to man which translates to red zone success so he's maybe more of a standard or best ball option. 

Sam LaPorta - Sam LaPorta probably deserves a bigger write up but we are looking at like 7,000 words on late round tight ends here which is insanity. I can’t believe you are reading all this you sicko. The short and sweet is that virtually everything we like about Dalton Kincaid, we like about this guy. He broke so many tackles (23) his senior year at the Iowa Tight End Factory that I’ve been calling him Sam TeLaPorta. He’s a great “scratch ticket” because Jameson Williams is suspended for six weeks. If LaPorta hits right away, great keep him. If he doesn’t, drop him for the next play because it’s not going to get any better when Jamo gets back.

Chigoziem Okonkwo - We love Chig. I even wrote an entire article on why I love Chig. Go get him in dynasty. But the worst possible thing happened for upside - they signed DeAndre Hopkins. Chig has the talent profile but, even if the targets are highly consolidated among Treylon Burks, DeAndre Hopkins, and Chig, the volume likely won’t be there. He’s more of a “watch list” guy that you grab IMMEDIATELY if one of the WRs goes down. 

Hayden Hurst - The Panthers brought in an entire brand new offense in terms of weapons. Bryce Young, Adam Thielen, DJ Chark, Jonathan Mingo, Miles Sanders, Hayden Hurst are all brand new to this team. We have no idea how that target pecking order shakes out - maybe Bryce Young as a smaller rookie quarterback loves checking down to his tight end?

Luke Musgrave - Same story as a lot of these guys. New QB in Jordan Love. Uncertain target pecking order. Clear pass catching tight end. In the early rounds we want certainty. In the later rounds, uncertainty is your friend.

Cole Kmet - He technically led the team in targets last year but that was mostly due to the Darnell Mooney injury. The bet here is two-fold. One side is that he can be a top two target competing with DJ Moore, Darnell Mooney, and Chase Claypool. The other is that this team actually throws the football - last year they attempted the fewest passes per game of any team in two decades.

Jelani Woods - Whether it’s Gardner Minshew or Anthony Richardson, a new QB will be taking over. We expect Michael Pittman to be the top target. After that it’s a battle between guys like Alec Pierce, Josh Downs, and Jelani Woods. Why not Jelani?

Zach Ertz/Trey McBride - Ertz might miss the start of the season leaving the door open for Trey McBride. Last year when DeAndre Hopkins and Ertz were banged up he stepped up valiantly and even had a game with double digit targets. Hopkins is gone now - we expect Marquise Brown to be the top dog but Rondale Moore isn’t locked in as a target monster just yet. 

Isaiah Likely - There is ONE handcuff tight end that I would start IMMEDIATELY if the starter goes down and that is Isaiah Likely. 

Taysom Hill - Just kidding, don’t draft Taysom Hill you psycho

Are There Rankings Available?

Due to the nonlinear nature of this strategy, it’s difficult for some to conceptualize the way to go about drafting. Well, the good news for those folks is, we’ve found a way to perfectly visualize the strategy in our Dynamic Tier Rankings! And, the even better news, is that those rankings are available and routinely updated in our 2023 Fantasy Football Draft Guide! They are even in the easily printable Cheat Sheet. You're welcome.