The third and final feature of this draft capital trilogy is the tight ends. If you missed the running back article, click here and if you missed the wide receiver article, click here! What we did was look back over the last 10 years (2011-2020) to see how many consistent fantasy contributors came out of each round of the NFL draft. We aren’t going to be talking about one hit wonders. Instead, we are highlighting the players who were able to sustain some level of fantasy success over their careers.
In this article we are reviewing the tight end position. The benchmark used was 6.5 points per game (PPG) in half point per reception (PPR) for their career. Even with the extremely low point total of 6.5 you will see very few tight ends ever become consistent fantasy contributors. Another key factor why the benchmark is a lot lower for tight ends is how poorly they perform as rookies. For example, notable tight ends George Kittle (5.7) and Mark Andrews (5.6) and T.J. Hockenson (5.4) all failed to hit 6 PPG in their rookie seasons.
Below you will find a chart breaking out draft capital by round for tight end. The chart is broken out into four columns:
- Round Drafted – Identifies the round in the NFL draft that the tight end were drafted
- Total tight end drafted – This is the total number of tight end drafted in that round over the past 10 years
- Career 6.5 PPG in .5 PPR – This column represents how many tight end drafted in that round hit the benchmark of 6.5 PPG for their careers in .5 PPR
- % Hit Rate – The final column shows what percentage of the tight end drafted in that round hit that benchmark
Feel free to just review the chart only and take what you want from it. If you want some additional insight on how we feel about 2021 prospects based on this data, it will be included later in the article!
| Round Drafted |
Total Tight Ends Drafted |
Career 6.5 PPG in .5 PPR |
% Hit Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 8 | 6 | 75% |
| 2 | 18 | 5 | 28% |
| 3 | 24 | 4 | 17% |
| 4 | 24 | 1 | 4% |
| 5 | 19 | 1 | 5% |
| 6 | 21 | 1 | 5% |
| 7 | 25 | 0 | 0% |
| Total | 139 | 18 | 13% |
| Total after Rd 3 | 89 | 3 | 3.40% |
