ADP: 170th (TE19)
Eric Ebron had his long-awaited breakout last year, catching an insane 13 touchdowns, and it's made Jack Doyle an afterthought. But we shouldn't be so quick to cast aside Doyle.
When he was healthy, Doyle was the Colts' top tight end. Doyle played six games in 2018, and here are Doyle's and Ebron's snap rates in those six games, per Football Outsiders. (Colts had their bye in Week 9, and Doyle was hurt for Week 3 through Week 7.)
| Snap Rates | Doyle | Ebron |
|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | 94% | 45% |
| Week 2 | 97% | 26% |
| Week 8 | 73% | 22% |
| Week 10 | 88% | 38% |
| Week 11 | 82% | 40% |
| Week 12 | 57% | 71% |
Week 12 was the only time all season when both of the Colts' top two tight ends played and Ebron was in on more snaps than Doyle was. That also marked the first time all season Ebron out-targeted Doyle in a game in which they both played. And we may be able to explain Doyle's lower snap rate in that one. After that game, he was lost for the season due to a kidney procedure, so his decreased snap rate could have been related to that.
Or maybe it was a changing of the guard, with Ebron taking over?
That seems unlikely, because following Week 12, Ebron remained a part-time player even sans Doyle, seeing fewer snaps than Mo Alie-Cox in three of seven games (counting the postseason), including the Colts' Wild Card win over Houston. And in the week prior, a must-win game against Tennessee, Ebron was in on just 49% of the snaps, compared to 48% for Cox.
It sure seems like Indy doesn’t view Ebron as an every-down tight end, rather deploying him as purely a pass-game option, which is why he didn't play as much against the Titans and Texans, two games where the Colts jumped out to an early lead and played with a positive game script.
All of that is to show that Doyle should still have a meaningful role in the Colts' offense in 2019.
On top of typically registering a better snap rate than Ebron, Doyle out-produced Ebron in the six games the two played together, with Doyle finishing as the weekly PPR TE14 or better in four of his six games, including single-game outings of TE2 and TE7. Doyle put up per-game averages of 4.3 grabs and 40.8 yards over his six games. In Doyle’s six outings, Ebron averaged 3.0 catches and 39.7 yards.
Now what Ebron did do was score touchdowns -- a lot of them -- but there's reason to be skeptical about his prospects of maintaining that scoring proficiency.
Ebron hauled in a touchdown roughly once every five receptions and once every 57 yards. Even if he was playing a ton of snaps -- and he wasn't -- it’s going to be difficult for him to sniff that kind of touchdown production in the future. Knowing that Ebron didn't play huge snaps, it makes negative touchdown regression even more likely unless Ebron all of the sudden becomes close to a full-time player.
NFL teams can change drastically from year to year, so maybe Ebron will seize a bigger role in 2019, forcing Doyle to backup duties. Heck, Doyle can be released with no cap penalty, so it's not out of the realm of possibility the Colts cut him, though Indy has gobs of cap space.
Time will tell how this situation plays out. All we know for sure is that when Doyle played last year, he usually played more snaps and amassed more catches and yards than Ebron did. That makes Ebron a nice sell-high option while simultaneously making Doyle a buy-low guy. At worst, Doyle is cheap way to get exposure to a tight end who plays a lot of snaps in a fantasy-friendly offense.