Over the summer, everyone seemed to have strong opinions about the tight end position in fantasy football entering the season. Heading the list were the usual suspects of pro-football-reference.com, we can assess red zone success thus far in the 2014 season.
| Player | Red Zone Targets | Red Zone Receptions | Yards | Touchdowns |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gates | 5 (9th) | 4 (4th) | 36 (5th) | 4 (2nd) |
| Thomas | 9 (2nd) | 8 (1st) | 56 (1st) | 6 (1st) |
| Olsen | 5 (9th) | 5 (4th) | 43 (3rd) | 3 (6th) |
| Kelce | 6 (5th) | 4 (5th) | 29 (8th) | 3 (6th) |
| Bennett | 9 (2nd) | 6 (3rd) | 50 (2nd) | 4 (2nd) |
| J. Graham | 8 (4th) | 4 (5th) | 30 (7th) | 3 (6th) |
| Gronkowski | 6 (5th) | 4 (5th) | 41 (4th) | 4 (2nd) |
| Walker | 6 (5th) | 2 (10th) | 12 (10th) | 2 (10th) |
| Allen | 6 (5th) | 5 (4th) | 27 (9th) | 3 (6th) |
| Donnell | 10 (1st) | 7 (2nd) | 32 (6th) | 4 (2nd) |
If red zone success is an indicator of rest of season outlook, Thomas' touchdowns, yardage, receptions and number of targets are exactly what you as a fantasy owner want in a tight end. Bennett, Graham, and Gronkowski all perform very strongly in the red zone as well, all with four touchdowns apiece. From a consistency standpoint, both Gates and Larry Donnell each had a game with three touchdowns and all but one of those were in the red zone, with Gates scoring a 21 yarder as well in Week 2 vs. the Seahawks.
The story here, however, is that plenty of tight ends are seeing red zone opportunities in 2014, providing more parity at the top of the position.
Rest of Season Projections
In terms of the remainder of 2014, it isn't surprising that the top-three tight ends in the preseason are expected to produce at the highest clip in terms of our projections. This makes sense given Graham's ability to dominate, Thomas' red zone success, and Gronk getting his health and swagger back. Rounding out the top five are Olsen and Gates, whose revival we expect to continue behind the early season MVP campaign of Philip Rivers.
In single-tight end fantasy leagues - the majority of them - it's clear that many teams are finding tight end success early on in 2014. And because of that, the elite tight end gap is starting to close.