Are We Overreacting to Tight End Performance

One thing the so-called experts are great at in Fantasy Football is overreacting to what happened the week before. But this season, most of those experts are telling us that scoring is way down at the TE position to the point that the “Elite TE” strategy is being questioned. The scoring seems to be down, especially for the TEs that were expensive to acquire for this Fantasy Football season. Are we overreacting to the first four weeks, and how much is scoring down? Since I didn’t know the answer, I did a little research.

Methodology of Study

Big point weeks move the needle regarding Fantasy Football reactions and, therefore, overreactions. Instead of looking at the top drafted TEs and checking on how they have performed in the first four weeks, I simply looked at scoring week by week for each of the last four seasons. This assessment is not meant to be the definitive study on the subject but just a quick data look to compare year to year on the higher end of the scoring for the TE position. A standard PPR scoring of 1 point for every 10 yards gained, 1 point per reception, and 6 points for a touchdown were used for this study.

Left Counts per year TE Scoring Levels. Right Scaled Counts From 4 Year Median

While the number of games with ten or more PPR points has sharply declined this season, the higher point totals did not experience as large a drop from last season. Compared to the four-year median, scoring has been down at the TE position the last two seasons by a wide margin except in the 25-point or more-point games, which are closer.

Conclusion

Data studies after last season showed without a doubt that weekly scoring in Fantasy Football has been dropping off over the last couple of seasons. This year, the number of 15+ PPR point games stayed the same over the first four weeks compared to the previous season. The perception that scoring is way down this season at the TE position and, therefore, the strategy option of drafting a TE early has been an incorrect decision, which is false. The data in this limited study shows that scoring, while down versus more extended time frames, has not dropped off significantly at the upper point levels for the TE position this season versus 2023.