Fantasy owners were dealt the first major injury to star tight ends this calendar year when it was announced last week that Cincinnati Bengals tight end Tyler Eifert would need ankle surgery to repair a “loose ligament”.
Former NFL head team physician David Chao reports Eifert will require 3-4 months to recover and could miss the first couple games of the 2016 regular season.
Coming just a year after the Eifert was a top three tight end in standard scoring fantasy leagues, this is awful news, but in actuality, it really doesn’t change how owners should go about their tight end rankings.
The Bengals tight end had the best season of his career, catching 52 passes for 615 yards, but the real reason he was so dominant was his 13 touchdowns. That was the most among all tight ends, including two more than Rob Gronkowski, who should once again be the consensus No. 1 fantasy tight end in 2016.
In fact, Eifert’s 13 receiving touchdowns were ranked fourth-most in the league behind only Brandon Marshall, Doug Baldwin and Allen Robinson, who scored 14 touchdowns each. Making his feat even more incredible, Eifert missed three games and still nearly led the league in receiving scores.
However, the problem moving forward is how hard it’s going to be for the Bengals tight end to repeat those numbers. It would be one thing if he also had a history of posting lots of 100-yard receiving games, but he has just one of those in his three-year career.
Without a doubt, Eifert is much better in the red zone, which makes him a touchdown dependent fantasy player.
For that reason, the 25-year-old shouldn’t have been considered a top three fantasy tight end going into 2016 even if he was still healthy. Rob Gronkowski and Greg Olsen are going to be No. 1 and 2 on practically everyone’s list. After that, Jordan Reed, Travis Kelce and Delanie Walker are all superior options to Eifert. Check out the chart below to see why.
| Name | Catches | Receiving Yards | Touchdowns |
| 1. Rob Gronkowski | 72 | 1,176 | 11 |
| 2. Greg Olsen | 77 | 1,104 | 7 |
| 3. Jordan Reed | 87 | 952 | 11 |
| 4. Travis Kelce | 72 | 875 | 5 |
| 5. Delanie Walker | 94 | 1,088 | 6 |
| 6. Tyler Eifert | 52 | 615 | 13 |
*2015 statistics
Gronkowski and Reed, who both missed a couple of games last season too, nearly had as many touchdowns, but had more targets, catches, yards and a higher yards per catch average.
Meanwhile, Olsen is the only tight end with at least 75 catches and 1,000 yards in each of the last two years. With those kinds of numbers, it’s extremely hard not to pick him second immediately after Gronkowski. Kelce had less than half as many touchdowns as Eifert, but at 6-foot-5 and 255 pounds, he is a similar size and can be a match up problem in the red zone just the same.
That leaves only Walker, who had a career-season in 2015 with the Tennessee Titans. His targets, catches and yards have only gone up during his three years in Tennessee. That, along with the potential of quarterback Marcus Mariota, Walker is a much safer pick than Eifert even before the injury.
Fantasy Pros’ very early rankings has Eifert as the No. 5 tight end behind Gronkowski, Olsen, Reed and Kelce. There’s nothing wrong with that list of rankings, but personally, I would also move Walker ahead of the Bengals tight end because he had far more targets and catches.
Either way, both list of rankings clearly indicate that the tight end landscape doesn’t really change with this injury. His touchdown dependency alone was enough of a red flag to keep him out of the top 4.
Owners should obviously monitor his injury situation, but for now, he doesn’t fall any further, behind Gary Barnidge, Ladarius Green, Julius Thomas and Coby Fleener, who round out the rest of the top 10 tight ends.
If Eifert doesn’t come back until the end of September, one could argue taking Barnidge before him, but in the Browns offense, lots of owners will still prefer Eifert and for good reason. The Bengals offense is more likely to produce at the end of the season while competing for the playoffs.
As for Green, Thomas and Fleener, they are either touchdown dependent or unproven commodities with new teams. It’s one thing to try to draft a tight end who has the potential for 1,000 yards and can find the end zone, but if owners are going to draft a touchdown dependent tight end, it might as well be Eifert because he’s the best scoring TE in the league.
Even though it’s an injury that could certainly effect fantasy owners down the road, right now, it does very little to change any draft rankings. Eifert shouldn’t have been considered a top 4 tight end anyway, but at the moment, his upside is too great to drop him out of the top six.
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