Tight end is arguably the most top-heavy position in football. As a result, it requires precious draft capital to land one of the top tight ends in the league. Travis Kelce certainly qualifies as one of the elite at the position.
Two of our writers, Zak Hanshew and Jon Munshaw, face off in a debate over the outlook for Kelce in 2018.
Kelce is the TE2 in PPR leagues according to our consensus ADP.
Of the 91 experts that have submitted PPR rankings, 75 have Kelce as their TE2 or better, while the rest disagree with his current PPR ADP.
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JON: Let me start with this: I don’t have a problem with Travis Kelce. I think he has the potential to be a top-three tight end this season. But, I wouldn’t take him at his current ADP – No. 28 overall in standard leagues. My main concerns aren’t with Kelce, it’s with his situation. We have never seen Kelce play without Alex Smith as his quarterback, and while the hype has been building for Patrick Mahomes, we really don’t know what we are going to get with the Chiefs offense this season. Kelce has been targeted 103 or more times over the past three seasons and surpassed 1,000 yards in the past two. Those are great numbers. But how can we bet that he’s going to get those same looks this season, or the same production? It’s no secret that Smith loved throwing shorter passes and that Kelce was often a safety valve for him.
Mahomes prefers throwing deep, and I could see Tyreek Hill and Sammy Watkins being featured far more heavily in the offense considering Hill was a one-man show in the receiving corps last year for the Chiefs. Hill was targeted 105 times last season in 15 games, and the wide receiver with the most targets after that was Albert Wilson, who had 62. Watkins is certainly going to see more than that. At his current ADP, I would rather take someone like Hill, who is being drafted one spot behind Kelce at the moment.
ZAK: I can’t believe you’d take Tyreek Hill over Travis Kelce. Kelce is way more safe than Hill. Hill is coming off of a hyper-efficient season, and he won’t replicate that production again. The addition of Sammy Watkins adds a reliable target on the opposite side of the field to compliment Hill, and both receivers will open up a lot of room for Kelce to operate in the middle of the field where he excels. In fact, Kelce has finished with 1,629 combined yards after the catch (YAC) over the last three seasons, finishing in the top 10 in the league in that category in two of those seasons. He has been a top-two TE in Standard and PPR scoring leagues the last two seasons, and a top-10 TE in both formats for each of the last three seasons.
To put into perspective how productive Kelce has been, last year’s 150.5 Standard points and 233.5 PPR points would have been good for a WR11 finish in Standard leagues and WR10 in PPR leagues. That’s serious production from a position that usually doesn’t offer it. He’s being taken in the second round right before guys with question-marks like T.Y. Hilton, Derrick Henry, and both of the Minnesota receivers – rightly so. Kelce is a safe play with an extremely high floor, especially in PPR leagues.
JON: You’ll get no arguments from me that Kelce is a safe pick. I just think he is going too high for where his actual value is. There are already reports coming out of camp that Tyreek Hill is seeing more targets than Watkins and figures to be a big part of the offense. Kelce has a career catch rate of 71.8 percent, about the same as Hill’s 72.4 percent.
But, this isn’t a strictly Kelce-versus-Hill debate. I think this is more about the state of tight ends overall. If you can’t get one of the top three guys (Gronkowski, Kelce or Ertz) I would personally recommend for owners to wait until the end of the draft and just take high-upside guys, because you’re likely going to be streaming tight ends for the majority of the year if you don’t end up with one of the top three. I’ve heard other writers make the argument that they’d rather take one of the big three early and not have to worry about the headache, but I’m not sure I’m sold on taking Kelce in the second or third rounds. He averaged 10 fantasy points per game in standard leagues last season, which was the second most among all TEs, while Zach Ertz finished third with 9.2 points per game. To me, I’d rather take a guy like Hill or Stefon Diggs (who have top 10 fantasy receiver upside) and then wait a round and take Ertz.
ZAK: No, this definitely isn’t a Kelce-Hill debate to me either. I think it’s worth mentioning the two of them because they have been the most targeted Chiefs over the last two seasons. You made the point before that Kelce has done well in an Alex Smith-led offense, and Patrick Mahomes could be a downgrade because of his big arm. I don’t think that’s necessarily true. Mahomes has a rocket arm, but he is still, in essence, a rookie at QB. His inexperience could cause him to lean on the big-bodied Zeus in the short-to-intermediate game while he develops and finds his way.
As for the state of the tight end position, I’m a proponent of taking a stud early. The disparity is enormous, as evidenced by the 2017 top-12. Kelce’s point differential between he and the TE12 was 68.6 in Standard and 100.8 in PPR. That’s a lot of points on a weekly basis, especially considering that most fantasy leagues only roster one starting TE. The WR and RB positions are deep, and points can be made up in later rounds. The TE position, however, has a dearth of talent after the first two or three guys off the board, making Kelce that much more valuable.
JON: I agree with you that there’s definitely a disparity at the tight end position, but I still would rather have Ertz over Kelce. Over the course of their careers, Ertz has only had one fewer touchdown than Kelce. I am also concerned about Kelce regressing in the touchdown department. He had eight TDs last year after averaging 4.6 per year in the three previous seasons. Even if Kelce is being targeted deep down the field with Mahomes’ big arm, I could see Watkins being used more in the red zone than any receivers were for the Chiefs last year. After all, he did have eight touchdowns on 70 targets last season with the Rams, which is a pretty remarkable touchdown rate. He can bump around with cornerbacks inside the 20 far more than Tyreek Hill can.
The biggest knock I usually see on Ertz is that he’s never surpassed 1,000 receiving yards in a year, but he was on pace to hit 1,014 yards last season if he hadn’t missed two games (and left a third one early). Same thing for 2016, when he only started 12 games. Had he played in all 16, he was on pace for 1,088 yards. If Ertz and Kelce both play the same number of games, I don’t see there being that much of a difference between the two.
ZAK: Ertz has been a productive fantasy TE, but he can’t stay healthy. He missed a total of five games over the last three seasons, while Kelce has missed only one. While Ertz has been on pace for 1,000 yards in a season, Kelce has actually done it, averaging 1,012 receiving yards per season over the last three years, racking up 114 targets per season in that time – the most on his team. The addition of Watkins doesn’t hurt Kelce’s production, as it opens up the field, as I touched on earlier. If we’re simply debating value for Kelce as it relates to the other TEs and skill players taken in the same range, I don’t understand the idea that he is a bad investment. Rob Gronkowski is clearly the most talented TE in the game, but he has played in 37 games in the last three years, compared to 47 for Kelce. Ertz has been hobbled at camp and may not have Carson Wentz for some games. The Eagles also invested in talented TE Dallas Goedert in this year’s draft.
Kelce presents the safest floor with a high ceiling among TEs and other players taken in Rounds 2-3 in this year’s fantasy drafts, and he can easily put up top WR-like numbers. He’s well worth his early third-round asking price. I think Zeus ascends the Fantasy Olympus once again in 2018, returning a high yield on investment and producing at an elite level
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Thanks again to Zak and Jon for taking part in this debate. Let us know what you expect from Travis Kelce in 2018 @FantasyPros.
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Zachary Hanshew is a correspondent at FantasyPros. For more from Zachary, check out his archive and follow him @zakthemonster.
Jon Munshaw is a correspondent at FantasyPros. For more from Jon, check out his archive and follow him @jon_munshaw