After big performances by a number of tight ends in Week 1, is the position deeper than we thought or is this a one-week surprise?
- !
- Michael Fabiano NFL Media Senior Fantasy Analyst
Slow your roll
I don't want to jump the gun after just one week, but it was nice to see some of the younger tight ends produce in the stat sheets. Tyler Eifert, whom I loved heading into the 2015 season, exceeded even my expectations in a win over the Raiders. Other youngsters like Austin Seferian-Jenkins, Ladarius Green, Jordan Reed and Eric Ebron were also solid contributors for those smart enough to start them. Fantasy football values can change on a week-to-week basis, however, so a subpar performance from any of the aforementioned tight ends in Week 2 will cool their value a bit. We're looking for consistency after all, and one huge week is not enough to crown a player "elite." I will say this though, Week 1 did breed a whole lot of optimism at what was thought to be a very thin position entering the new campaign.
I feel like the position is as deep as we thought, but we just got a lot of our favorite breakout candidates to, well, break out in the same week. I feel like Travis Kelce and Tyler Eifert are here to stay as elite tight ends, but can we rely on Austin Seferian-Jenkins' production week-to-week? And while Greg Olsen had a down week and Julius Thomas is still out, I'm just not ready to trust "depth" at this position yet considering several members of the old guard (Jason Witten, Martellus Bennett) did most of their damage in the waning moments of their games or garbage time. We also didn't see big games out of deeper sleepers like Josh Hill, Richard Rodgers and Crockett Gillmore. I'm not reading too much into this Week 1 tight end explosion, but I am glad I have Eifert and Kelce on a number of teams. Those who aren't so lucky should continue to invest in players off of the waiver wire if they don't have a reliable option just yet.
- !
- Marcas Grant NFL Media Fantasy Editor
Can I get an encore?
There were plenty of reasons to be optimistic about the state of the fantasy tight end position after the first Sunday of the new season -- unless you started Greg Olsen. But seriously, guys like Tyler Eifert and Austin Seferian-Jenkins exceeded even the most optimistic expectations. But Eifert won't get to play the Raiders every week and while ASJ could find his team trailing frequently, it's hard to anticipate garbage time touchdowns. Being the fantasy skeptic that I am, I would like to see some of these guys do it again before I crown them as bona fide fantasy studs. By the end of the season, I have a feeling that things will shake out sort of how we expected them to.
Oh, I'm sorry. I wouldn't know much about this because I managed to start Josh Hill in a handful of traditional fantasy leagues (in place of Julius Thomas) and in every single one of my daily fantasy leagues. Every. Single. One. So that was awesome.
