Running backs and tight ends are the stepchildren of fantasy football. Quarterbacks and wide receivers get the big contracts and all the best endorsement deals. Fantasy managers seek out the names they know. Most of the time, those names are a QB/WR stack like Josh Allen and Stefon Diggs or Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase. RBs get no respect in this day in age, but their plight is only a recent development compared to that of the TEs.

Jimmy Graham was a WR with a little too much meat on his bones to avoid the TE designation. His teammate Marques Colston was a lankier TE who was deployed on the outside by Sean Payton in those days. Drew Brees loved both of them. They both produced incredible receiving numbers. The Saints avoided paying Graham what he deserved because of a bogus positional designation.

That old story is still the same for many receivers who are on the beefy side. Some NFL TEs hardly ever line up at the traditional tight end spot and are still paid like the glorified third offensive tackle who comes in on jumbo sets and catches a few passes each season. Even elite tackles are paid more to protect the QB than the guy who can do that and get open quickly so the pretty boy keeps his jersey clean. Volatility in receiving production is the norm for TEs in fantasy. For every Travis Kelce, who is paid like the WR he is, there are three Jimmy Grahams. Some of them can’t help but let us down on Sunday, whether via game plan or flow.

There are three TEs who really hurt us in 2022 and are better than their showings in the stat sheet. They offer a growing role as a pass catcher or an improved offensive situation as a whole compared to last season. We have been jaded into reticence by years of TE volatility, but the silver lining is we can gain that power back by nailing the breakouts for the upcoming season.

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Bounce-Back Tight Ends

Kyle Pitts (ATL)

This article could have very easily just been “One Bounce-Back TE.” Kyle Pitts is the best TE prospect in history. Everything he has done on the field has been good, especially when adjusted for age at a position notoriously difficult on youngsters. He was bridled by his agonizingly conservative head coach Arthur Smith as a rookie. Pitts sported a ridiculously low snap share and route percentage in the red zone in 2021, despite his reputation as an unstoppable touchdown-scoring force at Florida and his unparalleled subsequent draft capital.

The 6-foot-6 monster with 4.4 speed was unleashed as a second-year receiver. Smith routinely moved Pitts and rookie Drake London around the formation to create mismatches in 2022. Marcus Mariota was so abysmal when targeting Pitts that box score scouts would swear the player known as “The Unicorn” was going to be a massive bust. When you look at QB-independent data and (more importantly) the game tape, Pitts was utterly dominant last season before a season-ending knee injury. According to Player Profiler, Pitts was the top TE in target rate (targets per route run). Being better than Travis Kelce at any metric is impossible to ignore. He also led all TEs in Air Yards Share and Deep Targets, lending more to his deployment as a vertical weapon (PP). Desmond Ridder need only make 60% of his Pitts targets catchable to improve on Mariota’s line from last season. Smith can also afford to have Pitts run more routes than on the 76% of team pass plays. He wasn’t drafted to block, period.

Darren Waller (NYG)

Before Kyle Pitts broke into the league, it was Darren Waller who potentially sacrificed a lot of future money to transition from WR to TE. Waller broke out with the Raiders in 2019 and flashed athleticism in a receiving-only TE rarely seen in professional football at the time. His role was to make big plays across the formation. He and Derek Carr were completely in tune with one another and easily eclipsed 110 targets and 1,100 receiving yards in 2019 and 2020.

Injuries unceremoniously halted that momentum over the last two seasons in Las Vegas. Waller is now 30 years old, and suddenly, fantasy managers are wondering how much he has left to offer. His new gig with the New York Giants should excite everyone who scoffs at the term “injury prone.” Daniel Jones has a bevy of diminutive slot options at WR this season, but Waller is a towering presence who has the athleticism and skill to win all over the formation. It has been two years since Waller was a dominant force in the world of fantasy TEs, but there’s no way to fade a healthy Darren Waller. You have to believe.

Trey McBride (ARI)

The Arizona Cardinals have seized the baton from the Washington Commanders as the worst-run franchise in the NFL. They mercifully excused Kliff Kingsbury from the role he never deserved and ran right into another very controversial hiring of Jonathan Gannon. Why invest in the Cardinals in fantasy? It’s cheap, and they still have good players. McBride took over for the injured Zach Ertz and was peppered by Colt McCoy et al. when Kyler Murray went down. Although McBride had only one huge Week 17 when he was TE2, he surpassed a 70% route percentage in five of his last six games.

Gannon is allegedly more of a defensive-minded coach, so the new offensive coordinator bears a lot of weight in what role McBride might see in 2023. Former Browns QB coach Drew Petzing gets the gig, and it’s a really nice fit for the personnel on the roster. Petzing is a Kevin Stefanski disciple, which means the Cardinals are likely to have both Ertz and McBride on the field in 12-personnel quite often. The run game is also going to be wide-zone heavy, with bootlegs off play action that get athletic QBs (and receivers) in space. McBride excelled at these types of plays at Colorado State, where he was the entire focal point of the offense at times. If Ertz is hurt again, McBride will have even less target competition over the middle of the field. At his current ADP, he’s worth a deep shot.

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