It’s that time of year once again! Football Absurdity will bring you a breakdown of every notable fantasy football-relevant player throughout June, July, and August. We continue with the tight ends. Today, we take a look at an athletic tight end in a powerful offense that I do not want anywhere in any fantasy football league. Should be fun! Let’s take a look at the Dawson Knox fantasy football player profile!
Dawson Knox ADP and AAV:
Average Draft Position: TE9, 91 overall
Average Auction Value: $2.6
Dawson Knox Statistics:
| Year | G | GS | Tgt | Rec | Yards | TD | Tgt/G | Rec/G | Rec% | Yds/Tgt | Yds/Rec |
| 2021 | 15 | 14 | 71 | 49 | 587 | 9 | 4.73 | 3.27 | 69.0% | 8.27 | 11.98 |
| 2020 | 12 | 7 | 44 | 24 | 288 | 3 | 3.67 | 2.00 | 54.5% | 6.55 | 12.00 |
| 2019 | 15 | 11 | 50 | 28 | 388 | 2 | 3.33 | 1.87 | 56.0% | 7.76 | 13.86 |
| Year | Std Pts | HPPR Pts | PPR Pts | Pts/G | HPPR Pts/G | PPR Pts/G | Pts/Tgt | HPPR Pts/Tgt | PPR Pts/Tgt |
| 2021 | 115.1 | 139.6 | 164.1 | 7.7 | 9.3 | 10.9 | 1.62 | 1.97 | 2.31 |
| 2020 | 42.8 | 54.8 | 66.8 | 3.6 | 4.6 | 5.6 | 0.97 | 1.25 | 1.52 |
| 2019 | 51.7 | 65.7 | 79.7 | 3.4 | 4.4 | 5.3 | 1.03 | 1.31 | 1.59 |
| Year | Air Yards | aDOT | YAC | YAC/Tgt | YAC/Rec | AYMS | Tgt MS |
| 2021 | 524 | 7.38 | 277 | 3.90 | 5.65 | 12% | 14% |
| 2020 | 336 | 7.81 | 162 | 3.77 | 6.75 | 8% | 10% |
| 2019 | 455 | 9.1 | 144 | 2.88 | 5.14 | 10% | 11% |
2022 Dawson Knox Fantasy Football Overview:
2022 Dawson Knox reminds me a lot of 2021 Robert Tonyan: a player coming off of very few targets, minimal yards, and a ton of touchdowns. I screamed regression for Tonyan, and I am doing the same for Knox. While Knox’s 2021 résumé isn’t as damning as 2020 Robert Tonyan’s, I still dislike Knox for the same reasons.
Robert Tonyan finished 2020 with 59 targets, 52 receptions, 586 yards, and 11 touchdowns. Knox had just 49 catches for 587 yards on 71 targets last year, which ranked fifteenth, eighteenth, and twentieth among tight ends, respectively. However, he finished 2021 as TE8 thanks to one thing and one thing only: touchdowns. Knox had 9 touchdowns, which tied him for the most in the league last season. Four tight ends had 9 touchdowns last season: Knox, Mark Andrews, Travis Kelce, and Hunter Henry. While drafters have correctly marked Henry for touchdown regression (TE14 off the board, 120 overall), Knox gets a pass. This is the same thing that happened with Tonyan in 2021, as he ranked inside the top ten despite falling short in every metric but touchdowns. Before tearing his ACL, Tonyan played in eight games and had ten or fewer yards in five of them. He was not very good en route to averaging 2.2 receptions for 25 yards per game in 2021. He also averaged a touchdown every four games, instead of two touchdowns every three games, as he did in 2020.
Knox is due for a hard touchdown regression as well, as he caught a touchdown every eighth pass, which was twice the average TE rate in 2022.
2022 Dawson Knox Fantasy Football Draft Strategy:
Dawson Knox Salary Cap Value: $1
Draft Ranking: Find out for your league settings in a Beersheet!
Dawson Knox is currently TE9 off of the board, and pick 90 overall. In salary cap drafts, he’s $2.5. I just can’t trust Knox in 2022 when the only thing that differentiates him from Hunter Henry, who goes three rounds later (and for half the price), is his offense. Knox had a touchdown every 15 targets in the same offense in 2021 and nearly doubled that in 2022. I’m not reaching in on Knox at his price point to get burned by him turning into Hunter Henry.
That’s especially true when you consider how much more crowded the short area passing game in Buffalo has become. Sure, they ditched Cole Beasley, but they replaced him with Younger Cole Beasley in Jamison Crowder. They also added O.J. Howard at tight end, and Duke Johnson and James Cook at running back. All of these players could take targets away from Dawson Knox in 2022.
Best Case Scenario:
Dawson Knox steals all the targets intended for Gabriel Davis. That’s right, he’s the new downfield threat for the Bills. He finishes with 1,000 yards and 10 touchdowns, and people inexplicably draft him over Diontae Johnson in 2022.
Worst Case Scenario:
Dawson Knox does a full Robert Tonyan and gets ten yards or fewer in ten games in 2022.
Check out all our 2022 player profiles, here.
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[Statistics are sourced from pro-football-reference.com, airyards.com, and ftnfantasy.com]
[Image Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Stefon_Diggs_and_Dawson_Knox_SEPT2021.jpg, cropped under CC BY SA 2.0]
