The World Champion Philadelphia Eagles took just one fantasy football eligible player in the 2018 NFL Draft. No, they didn’t add to their stable of running backs or try to bolster their wide receivers or add depth to a QB room so deep that they won the Super Bowl with a backup last year. No, they only drafted one fantasy football eligible player, and they did so at tight end. He’s talented but has some impediments to production for 2018. Let’s take a deeper look at him.
Dallas Goedert, Tight End, Round Two
Reportedly, the Cowboys wanted to take Goedert home to the city he’s named after. Instead, Dallas settled for Dalton Schultz after Philly traded up to get Goedert. He’s a Trey Burton replacement, as Burton absconded off to Chicago. As such, you can expect Goedert to have a similar outlook as Burton last year. He’s second fiddle for targets behind Zach Ertz, but reports are that he will have a significant role come week one. I doubt that role sees him as a target monster out of the gate, but we will see.
As a Trey Burton replacement, he’s pretty great. As a Zach Ertz replacement… well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Goedert has amazing body control and is an excellent hands catcher. He also uses all of his massive frame to ensure he comes down with passes in traffic. He’s fast and athletic and massive, which makes the rest of his evaluation make sense. He moves like a freight train; his change of direction is not great and after he gets the ball he mostly runs forward until someone is strong enough to bring him down.
The question isn’t “is Dallas Goedert going to be a useful fantasy football tight end that I should take in my draft?” The answer to that is a resounding no, you idiot. Zach Ertz is there. However, should Ertz go down, Goedert will be the superpowered Trey Burton there to snatch up targets, yards, touchdowns, opportunities, everything. If that takes place in the second half of the season after Goedert has a chance to learn at Ertz’s feet, the 45 yards and an 80% chance at a score that Burton averaged without Ertz over his time in Philly is a pretty nice expectation to have. Unless Ertz goes out, Goedert is useless. Should Ertz go out, Goedert… more like Pay…dert.
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