As we are pushing into July and further downhill towards the 2023 fantasy season, we are going to extend our top-down approach that has already examined leaguewide production at each position group and team output.
The goal is that when it is time for your drafts, we have covered all corners of the fantasy earth from a team, player, position, and game theory stance to accurately calibrate our draft strategy.
This week, we are going to dive into the stats that matter the most for weekly fantasy output and which of those stats have the largest rollover year over year.
Highlights:
- Because tight ends earn snaps run blocking, pass protecting, and running actual pass routes, routes run is more relevant than actual snaps played for the position.
- From a top-down perspective, the tight end position is the most stable position in terms of yearly production being a signal for the following year.
- Yards per team pass attempt is the stickiness rate stat for tight ends.
Stats that Matter:
Tight End Fantasy Related Articles:
Highest Correlation to Weekly Fantasy Points Scored For Tight Ends:
| Category | PPR | Half-PPR |
|---|---|---|
| Receiving Yards | 0.8228 | 0.7884 |
| Receptions | 0.8002 | 0.7221 |
| Targets | 0.6893 | 0.6218 |
| Receiving TDs | 0.5267 | 0.5942 |
| Routes | 0.3967 | 0.4015 |
| Snaps | 0.3635 | 0.2769 |
The tight end position repeats what we saw from the wide receivers at the top with receiving yards having the largest correlation to points scored in a given game in each format.
While yardage gained is still at the top with a strong correlation, it is a tick lower here for tight ends than those wideouts, elevating the impact of targets, receptions, and receiving touchdowns as being more vital for tight ends.
It also makes sense that yardage gained skews to the wideouts more than the tight ends because their depth of target is the largest of all positions.
If you have not been keeping count throughout this series, we have now covered the primary skill positions and wide receivers are the position that is the least dependent on touchdown production.
Tight ends are tightly packed with wideouts, but that is another reason why gamers have shifted more toward wideouts earlier in drafts. They are more predictable without needing touchdown variance.
The one area that drops here is that snaps played matter significantly less here for tight ends than wideouts.
That inherently makes sense since the position is filled with players working double duty in the passing and rushing game as blockers.
Tight ends earn snaps as run blockers, pass protectors, and running actual pass routes.
We only get fantasy points for the successful end of one of those outcomes, which is why we see routes run be more relevant than actual snaps played for the position.
Year-Over-Year Correlation Categories for Tight Ends:
| Category | Year-over-year R2 |
|---|---|
| ReYd/Game | 0.6089 |
| Rec/Game | 0.5995 |
| Tgt/Game | 0.5967 |
| Yards/Team Att | 0.5625 |
| PPR Pts/Game | 0.5582 |
| ReYd/Season | 0.5581 |
| 0.5 Pts/Game | 0.5448 |
| Team Tgt % | 0.5404 |
| Rec/Season | 0.5346 |
| Targets/Season | 0.5319 |
| PPR Pts/Season | 0.4949 |
| Routes Run | 0.4879 |
| 0.5 Pts/Season | 0.4659 |
| ReTD/Game | 0.2445 |
| ReTD/Season | 0.2165 |
| Yards/Route | 0.1891 |
| Target/Route % | 0.1648 |
| Catch % | 0.0978 |
| Air Yards/Target | 0.0787 |
| Games Played | 0.0711 |
| Route/Snap% | 0.0529 |
| Yards/Catch | 0.0525 |
| Yards/Tgt | 0.0465 |
| TD% | 0.0002 |
Moving towards looking at the yearly rollover for which statistics are the most stable for tight ends, we actually run into a ton of stats here per season that stay relatively stable compared to the running back and wide receiver positions.
In our running back post, we had just five statistics (out of 30) that had a yearly correlation of over 50% and yesterday with the wideouts, we had just five (out of 24).
Of the 24 metrics above, 10 of them are above that 50% arbitrary threshold for tight ends in yearly stability. Two other stats just missed that mark while a third was over 45%.
From a top-down perspective, the tight end position is the most stable position in terms of yearly production being a signal for the following year.
Par for the course of this series, you can see right away that per-game statistics lead the way in stability year-over-year.
Per-game metrics occupy the top three spots in yearly correlation and five of the opening seven spots.
The position was once again beaten up in 2022, with George Kittle, Mark Andrews, Dallas Goedert, Darren Waller, Kyle Pitts, Dalton Schultz, and David Njoku all missing multiple games due to injury.
Games played still have a very low correlation year-over-year even for tight ends, so always keep per-game output at the front of your mind when looking at output at the position.
The primary counting stats for fantasy football (targets, and therefore catches and yards that come from those targets) are all at the top of the pile here as being the most stable statistics.
And once again you see that touchdown output (whether per-game or per-season) and touchdown rate lag far behind the fold.
In fact, comparing all of those areas to wide receivers from yesterday, touchdowns through the air for tight ends are far less stable.
Also following suit with what we have been hammering home throughout the series, counting stats carry more stability than rate stats.
Metrics such as target rate per route, catch rate, yards per route run, yards per reception, yards per target, and touchdown rate all are at the bottom of the pile here with almost no correlation to the season prior through a top-down lens.
The per-route metrics (yards and targets) here for tight ends have a significant drop-off, especially targets earned per route, which is nearly cut in half here compared to the stability it has for wide receivers.
One rate stat that does matter, however, is yards per team pass attempt, one of our favorites from yesterday. It is the first non-per-game metric in terms of yearly rollover.
Yards per team attempt carries even more stickiness for tight ends.
Cole Kmet (1.44 yards) has new target competition, but he was fourth among all tight ends in yards per team pass attempt in 2022 behind Travis Kelce (2.06), Mark Andrews (1.74), and George Kittle (1.49).
A few other standouts that are not overly expensive for fantasy this offseason are Evan Engram (1.29), Pat Freiermuth (1.28), Tyler Higbee (1.17), and Juwan Johnson and Chigoziem Okonkwo (0.99 each) all inside of the top-12 at the position a year ago.
Our top full-season statistic for remaining static is receiving yards but catches and targets are higher here for stickiness than they were for the wide receivers.
Team target share also carries more weight here for tight ends than it does for the other positions.
Takeaways:
- Receiving yardage is the highest correlated statistic for individual game performance regardless of format.
- Tight ends are more reliant than wide receivers for touchdowns for weekly production.
- Focus on routes run over snaps played for tight ends.
- Tight end statistics are more stable year-over-year than the other positions.
- Team usage stats such as team target share and yards per team pass attempt carries a lot of rollover as stable metrics for tight ends. Yards per team pass attempt is the stickiness rate stat for tight ends.
- Continue to emphasize per-game production over season-long production.
- Same as the other positions, do not focus too much on rate stats and prior season efficiency or inefficiency.
[/wlm_private]