Fantasy TE rankings: Why the elites are important in 2024 | Fantasy Football Happy Hour | NFL on NBC

all right before we get into rankings tiers or any of that Matthew just what is your overall approach to drafting tight end this year I for it's finally changed a little bit soel I mean my my my my strategy about tight end this year number one is I think you should have one I feel like you I think you should not ignore the position that's strategy number one no honestly like I think when you what phenomenal work thank you very much God bless producer Stephen do me a favor just clip that off and send that to the Smithsonian and the Emmy Award committee if you will thank you very much got it all right thank you um all right so uh my strategy for approaching I think you want an elite tight end this year I my strategy used to be used to be kind of uh Hey I want to be one of the first guyss in my league one of my last but honestly as you look at it there there's not nearly as many sleepers a tight in this year there is a clear tier and and unlike last year or previous years where it was like Kelsey and then there's a little tier and then there was like and there was some more sleepers here it's more concentrated like I I ideally you really want a top five tight end this year and if not a top five you definitely want like a top eight and if not a top eight definitely Le at least a top 10 like I want a tight end one this year there's a couple of sleepers that we'll talk about here but I feel less I feel much less certain about them breaking out are them having consistent week- to week fantasy value there are five tight ends that I feel really really good about and then after the five there's a couple more that I think you can get away with that are you know that are above average but honestly this year I think it's really important to have an elite tight end yeah I do think the one aspect though is that the fact that you can get guys like Jake Ferguson is the ninth tight end off the board David and joku at 10 I feel like that is perhaps stronger than I think last year we were talking about guys like Co KET and that type of range um so I do think there is a little bit of depth but certainly the separation between your Le Porter and your mcbrides and then going further down to you know a tight end 11 you Dallas got it is fairly significant but but what my my argument and I agree with you like I I'm a big Jake Ferguson guy we'll talk about him in a second but at once you get past the top five you can start you know nitpicking a lot of these guys and and so again like that's what I'm saying is it's like you just start getting into those like kind of talk yourself into it again I'm I'm a jake Ferguson believer this year but like there's if you want to take the negative side of him or some of those guys in the 6 through 10 you certainly can and so I guess in terms of because because there's really nice depth at wide receiver there's nice depth at quarterback there's also nice uh you know at running back there's some cheap volume in the mid rounds and you know there's always guys that come in the league that will be a fill and running back for three four weeks we talked about the Jordan Masons of the world that they get some run my point is is like again it's not just about what you do with this position but it's about what you do with this position in terms of how you o construct your overall roster uh for the entire season and my point is is that on a weekly basis you don't want a hole at tight end when you're going head-to-head with somebody you don't want a hole at tight end like I feel like it is easier to match up like okay you've got a better quarterback than me but I think I can I can I I I can battle that better I can battle your wide receiver I can battle your running back depth it's easier to battle that uh every other position than it is tight end where it's just like if you have an elite tight end and I don't that's just then I'm just praying for a touchdown y you know and that's just that's just such high variance yep no I think that makes sense and there were God like if you go in with uh Brock Bowers is your tight end one there are probably going to be weeks where he just does not much because of how weird that Raiders offense is and F he's already dealing with injuries whereas if you go in with uh leap Porter Kelsey McBride Andrews one of those four you can have extreme confidence that they are going to get peppered with targets so let's look at the tier drop offs that we're talking about based on rankings right we'll show rankings 1 through 10 and kind of dive into the top two tiers from here as tier one it's not a lot of surprise Sam lorta Travis Kelce Trey McBride who you really like a lot Matthew a ride or die finalist Mark Andrews and then Dalton K Kade that is tier one where it cuts off to tier two and starts is with George KD Evan Ingram Jake Ferguson who you have ahead of Kyle pit that goes against consensus and then Kyle Pitts David and joou does not start uh till tier three so we'll get into 11 through 20 in a second but I want to start with Mark Andrews Matthew because we don't talk a lot about him on the show compared to other guys maybe it's cuz he's when he plays he's just consistently good I mean 14.6 points per game last year the question always with him seems to be Health in the situation for sure for sure still an elite tight end friend of the podcast Mark Andrew you mentioned that the 14. six fantasy points per game that was his a nine full games but on a full season that have been tight end three second year in um the Todd monin offense we obviously all like Lamar he's there are not many tight ends that you can say this about but like Mark Andrews very legitimate could lead his team in targets receiving yards and uh and touchdowns right and so there aren't a lot of tight ends like Kelsey was that guy for a while although I think Rashid rice is going to challenge him this year for that McBride him and Harrison are going to go back and forth lorta him and Aman rth St Brown like uh you know those are the guys there but like legitimately Mark Andrews could be the leading pass catcher on the Ravens in all the categories we care about and so um health is always a concern but the nice thing about Mark Andrews here especially when it comes to health and I know this is going to sound weird but like we just talk about this again with usually with running backs but this is the one case where there's actually an insurance tight end like if you invest a high draft in Mark Andrews if you grab Isaiah likely in the last round of your draft right he's not going drafted that much you know towards the end then you're sort of you've locked up a tight end position for every week of the Season except for one and you're going to get Elite top five fantasy tight end production there 36% of his team's Red Zone targets last year that led all tight ends for Mark Andrew that's the most important thing too it's not just how involved is in the passing offense overall but just how important he is to that offense when they get in close Lamar always looks for him as well five straight Seasons finishing as a top five fantasy tight end on a points per game basis so the consistency is there about Mark Andrews I just feel like people are excited about the emergence of Lea people are worried about the drop off with Kelce Trey MC brighten is another emerging person another emerging player everyone's excited about the potential of concade in year 2 no one's talking about Mark Andrews and yet he's just sort of there and he's going to be a top four fantasy tight end again and so I just I think that I I want one of in an Ideal World I want one of those five tight ends leaport Kelsey McBride Andrews conc and that's the order I have them in yep so two things on Andrews one we spoking about this previously but I think an underrated storyline of the offseason is that Ravens added nothing at receiver they're two and their number two and number three wide receivers are still Rashad baitman and Nelson aalor and the number one is z flowers who's not like 2021 Cooper cup gobbling up Target so Andrew should still be the guy and the second thing with the Ravens I think this ties into why Lamar is being perhaps a little bit underrated too as well as a flowers last year they were just leading in every single game like I think I'm not sure what the exact stat is but it's like 99.5% of the season they were within at least the score of their opponent like they were just constantly in these game scripts where they could run the ball they were never ever in catchup mode where they just have to sit back and Lamar would just have to air it out in third and fourth quarters and so just by the fact that they're probably not going to be in that situation this year where they're just leading every single game they're going to have to be second halves where they're throwing more and Andrews and flowers and Lamar should all benefit statistically now Matthew everything you said about Andrews can that also apply to Dalton concade where he could lead his team in targets and and receiving touchdowns as well 241 targets are no longer on the team with Stefon Diggs and Gabe Davis now on different teams and yet they we expect an expanded role for khier Shakir they they drafted Keon Coleman Curtis Samuel is now a Buffalo Bill so there's there's obviously help coming for the bills but you think about just the connection especially over the second half of the year that Josh Allen and Dalton concade had five games without Dawson Knox last year a 21% Target share and now Dawson Knox is going to be back and they're gonna but and they want to go more run heavy this year under Joe Brady fulltime but Knox is more of The Blocking tight end the important thing thing is is that I think when Knox went down Josh Allen and they were trying to figure that offense out sort of was like oh I can trust Dalton conc I throw him the ball he's going to come down with it concade has great hands we talked about this a lot when he was drafted and so uh cancade who had the third most slot targets at the tight end position last year like I think he's going to be potentially the focal point of the Buffalo Bills passing offense and so anytime you can get a guy I think K Kate's going to have a monster year so just um uh being in you know given how they want to run that offense given his talent given the fact that it's Josh Allen just how good the bills offense is can Kate is somebody then again I at tight end five uh I get my only the only question mark on him is just you know is the touchdowns will the touchdowns come because you do have Dawson Knox who's a nice Red Zone threat and they do have Josh is always a threat to keep it himself and they've got James Cook and you know yep what is encouraging me to me there though is that in the Red Zone last year Stefon Diggs and G Davis combined for 27 targets between them and they're both gone those are vacated Delton conc did not score a single touchdown off of a red zone Target last season like that just has to regress as the number one tight end okay you have a chance to win $1 million in the NBC sweep Stakes on Yahoo fantasy just download the redesigned Yahoo fantasy app or go to nbcsports.com fantasy million for additional details what are you waiting for hey it's Matthew Barry from nbcsports.com and rotor world and I want to thank you so much for watching whatever it is you just watched or if nothing else being too lazy to click out of the autoplay after this video started after whatever it is you actually wanted to watch finished but now that you're here I'd like to take a moment here to ask you respectfully respectfully now okay I'm asking you respectfully to subscribe to the NFL on NBC YouTube channel you'll get the latest Rota World fantasy news headlines all sorts of great shows including my own fantasy football happy hour so so go subscribe now again I'm asking respectfully