As we continue to lay the foundation for the fantasy football landscape for 2023 we are following up our look at league and team performance in the red zone last season, and spilling that over into individual player analysis.
In that top-down team post, we covered that the crux of touchdowns scored in the NFL come from inside of the red zone and that not all red zone touches are created equal.
NFL Red Zone Stats vs Expectation: Quarterbacks
NFL Red Zone Stats vs Expectation: Running Backs
NFL Red Zone Stats vs Expectation: Wide Receivers
The only position remaining on the table to break down is the tight ends.
A few top-down notes for the tight end position in the red zone…
- Since 2010, 79.2% of all tight end touchdown receptions have come from inside of the red zone.
- 68.5% of all of those red zone touchdowns have come from inside of the 10-yard line.
- 59.7% of those touchdowns have come from inside of the five-yard line.
Inside the red zone, all targets are not created equally. It is no secret that the closer you are to the end zone, the more fantasy weight a target has.
A target from the one-yard line is worth 1.8 times more than a target from the 10-yard line and 2.2 times more than a target from the 19-yard line.
2022 TE Red Zone Fantasy Points Vs. Expectation:
| wdt_ID | Tight End | RZ FF Pts | EXPECTED PTS | DIFFERENCE |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cole Kmet | 50.0 | 23.0 | 27.0 |
| 2 | Taysom Hill | 51.5 | 31.1 | 20.4 |
| 3 | Dawson Knox | 42.2 | 22.8 | 19.4 |
| 4 | Juwan Johnson | 44.3 | 25.4 | 18.9 |
| 5 | Mike Gesicki | 44.3 | 30.0 | 14.3 |
| 6 | Noah Fant | 32.5 | 20.8 | 11.7 |
| 7 | Tyler Conklin | 23.1 | 12.0 | 11.1 |
| 8 | Jelani Woods | 24.9 | 15.3 | 9.6 |
| 9 | Jake Ferguson | 16.5 | 8.2 | 8.3 |
| 10 | Travis Kelce | 89.7 | 82.7 | 7.0 |
| 11 | Dalton Schultz | 43.9 | 37.4 | 6.5 |
| 12 | Mark Andrews | 46.2 | 39.8 | 6.4 |
| 13 | Noah Gray | 17.9 | 12.5 | 5.4 |
| 14 | George Kittle | 43.3 | 38.6 | 4.7 |
| 15 | Trey McBride | 7.4 | 3.0 | 4.4 |
| 16 | Chigoziem Okonkwo | 17.8 | 13.6 | 4.2 |
| 17 | Durham Smythe | 15.0 | 11.1 | 3.9 |
| 18 | Dallas Goedert | 21.4 | 17.7 | 3.7 |
| 19 | Greg Dulcich | 8.1 | 4.5 | 3.6 |
| 20 | T.J. Hockenson | 46.1 | 43.4 | 2.7 |
| 21 | Gerald Everett | 39.0 | 36.7 | 2.3 |
| 22 | Irv Smith Jr. | 18.2 | 16.1 | 2.1 |
| 23 | Kyle Pitts | 15.9 | 14.6 | 1.3 |
| 24 | David Njoku | 44.7 | 44.3 | 0.4 |
| 25 | Hayden Hurst | 22.2 | 22.3 | -0.1 |
| 26 | Evan Engram | 17.3 | 19.5 | -2.2 |
| 27 | Zach Ertz | 36.2 | 39.2 | -3.0 |
| 28 | Isaiah Likely | 21.6 | 25.6 | -4.0 |
| 29 | Pat Freiermuth | 18.6 | 22.8 | -4.2 |
| 30 | Tyler Higbee | 32.1 | 38.4 | -6.3 |
| 31 | Logan Thomas | 5.5 | 18.1 | -12.6 |
| 32 | Hunter Henry | 2.3 | 16.7 | -14.4 |
| 33 | Darren Waller | 12.8 | 27.9 | -15.1 |
| 34 | Cade Otton | 19.9 | 37.2 | -17.3 |
| Tight End |
Earlier this summer we highlighted that Travis Kelce had all-time positional leverage in 2022 at the position for fantasy.
If you sort the table above by the first two columns, you can see why.
Kelce scored +38.2 more red zone points than the next closest player and had +38.4 more expected points in that area of the field over the next closest tight end.
Kelce led all NFL players with 12 targets inside of the five-yard line, double the amount of the next closest player regardless of position. Kelce had five touchdowns inside of the five while no other tight end in the league even had more than four targets inside of the five-yard line.
It was the second-highest amount of targets any player has received inside of the five in the 2000s, trailing Jimmy Graham’s 14 targets in 2017.
Cole Kmet was the tight end that outproduced his actual opportunity in the red zone by the largest amount in 2022.
Kmet had 10 red zone targets, converting six of them for touchdowns. The league rate was 24.5% and the base rate for tight ends was 29.6%. Over his first two seasons in the NFL, Kmet had 2-of-18 red zone targets resulting in touchdowns, so he was due for some regression in that department.
But Kmet also had just four total targets inside of the 10-yard line and one inside of the five-yard line.
With the addition of D.J. Moore and expecting Chase Claypool to play a larger role in 2023, Kmet is still going to have to max out efficiency on an offense that is still expected to have a limited amount of top-down passing volume near the end zone.
Taysom Hill is just in a world of his own. He really is not even a tight end, but that is where he lives on almost every fantasy football site, so we have to handle him as such in our game.
Only Kelce scored more fantasy points in the red zone than Hill did in 2023 among tight ends despite Hill checking in at 11th at the position in expected points scored.
Hill did not even do his damage fully at the goal line last season. He had just three rushing attempts inside of the five-yard line (two were scores), but he added four rushing touchdowns from eight-plus yards in the red zone.
The Saints added the best goal-line back last season in Jamaal Williams, which compromises Hill’s usage near the end zone and anyone chasing down the hot runout that Hill had over expectations a year ago.
The Saints did have a real tight end also show up here, however.
Juwan Johnson was the TE8 in red zone points scored despite being the TE15 in expected points scored. He was even behind players such as Isaiah Likely and Mike Gesicki in expected points scored near the end zone.
Johnson turned 5-of-11 red zone targets into touchdowns, but he had just four targets on the season inside of the 10-yard line and just one inside of the five-yard line. Johnson was tied for 10th among all tight ends in end zone targets (six).
Compared to the other positions we covered, there were not a high number of tight ends that stood massively out as far as underachievers go, but there are a few to go over.
Cade Otton had the largest misfortune near the end zone last season. Otton was the TE9 in expected points in the red zone but was the TE21 in points scored.
Just two of Otton’s 15 red zone targets went for touchdowns. Only five tight ends had more targets inside of the 10 than Otton (seven), but he was only able to reach the end zone twice on those opportunities.
With the expected recoil that the Tampa Bay passing game is expected to have without Tom Brady, it is hard to pursue the overall target volume that Otton had near the end zone last season, but we should expect him to be better on the opportunities he has in 2023.
Darren Waller is more intriguing, and the only player worse than him in expected output last season near the end zone was Otton.
Waller had just one red zone touchdown on 11 targets and has been a staple of underperforming in the red zone. For his career now, Waller has 14 touchdowns on 65 red zone targets with no season above the base rate for the tight end position.
We highlighted how consistently bad Derek Carr has been in the red zone for his career in the quarterback post.
You could look at this and say that perhaps Waller himself is part of the root of those issues for Carr, but with Davante Adams also having his worst season in the red zone since the early stages of his career, I am cautious about placing a ton of blame on Waller versus what appears to be a common denominator at quarterback.
Waller’s actual conversion of targets in the end zone with the Raiders is mind-numbing.
| Year | EZ TGT | EZ TD | EZ TDR |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 6 | 1 | 16.67% |
| 2020 | 11 | 7 | 63.64% |
| 2021 | 8 | 1 | 12.50% |
| 2022 | 7 | 1 | 14.29% |
Keep in mind that the base rate for converted end zone targets for tight ends over this span is 41.8%. Outside of 2020, this is a complete factory of sadness.
There is a fragility that Waller himself is part of the problem, but I will continue to take swings at any player drawing a high number of actual end-zone targets.
If you are holding your nose in the air because Waller is now playing with Daniel Jones, keep in mind that Jones did have two of the highest pass catchers above red zone expectations last season in Richie James (+19.6 points) and Isaiah Hodgins (+18.2).
He is not listed above because he is not being drafted for fantasy, but Daniel Bellinger was also at +13.2 red zone points over expectations in 2022.
Some other housekeeping notes here:
David Njoku was second among all tight ends in expected points scored inside of the red zone.
With Deshaun Watson on the field, Njoku led the Browns with 10 red zone targets (the next closest player had six), but just two of those were touchdowns.
George Kittle has cashed in on his inevitable career reversion towards the mean over the past two seasons.
Kittle led all tight ends with 11 end zone targets, catching six of them for touchdowns.
After converting just 3-of-22 end zone targets over the 2017-2020 seasons, Kittle has secured 10-of-17 end zone targets over the past two years. That is the best example of just continuing to bet on opportunities and the base rate of conversion if you are making that bet on what we highlighted with Waller above.
Only Kelce had more targets inside of the 10-yard line (18) than Tyler Higbee (10). The Rams have added very little this offseason and we are holding out hope that Matthew Stafford is due for regression near the end zone himself.
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