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 a tight end who had the best rookie tight end season of the fantasy football era and then promptly fell off a cliff. What should we be doing about Evan Engram in his new digs in Jacksonville? Let’s take a look at his 2022 fantasy football player profile!
Evan Engram ADP and AAV:
Average Draft Position: TE20, 151
Average Auction Value: $1.3
Evan Engram Statistics:
| Year | G | GS | Tgt | Rec | Yards | TD | Tgt/G | Rec/G | Rec% | Yds/Tgt | Yds/Rec |
| 2021 | 15 | 12 | 73 | 46 | 408 | 3 | 4.87 | 3.07 | 63.0% | 5.59 | 8.87 |
| 2020 | 16 | 14 | 109 | 63 | 654 | 1 | 6.81 | 3.94 | 57.8% | 6.00 | 10.38 |
| 2019 | 8 | 6 | 68 | 44 | 467 | 3 | 8.50 | 5.50 | 64.7% | 6.87 | 10.61 |
| Year | Std Pts | HPPR Pts | PPR Pts | Pts/G | HPPR Pts/G | PPR Pts/G | Pts/Tgt | HPPR Pts/Tgt | PPR Pts/Tgt |
| 2021 | 56.5 | 79.5 | 102.5 | 3.8 | 5.3 | 6.8 | 0.77 | 1.09 | 1.40 |
| 2020 | 78 | 109.5 | 141 | 4.9 | 6.8 | 8.8 | 0.72 | 1.00 | 1.29 |
| 2019 | 65.4 | 87.4 | 109.4 | 8.2 | 10.9 | 13.7 | 0.96 | 1.29 | 1.61 |
| Year | Air Yards | aDOT | YAC | YAC/Tgt | YAC/Rec | AYMS | Tgt MS |
| 2021 | 366 | 5.01 | 185 | 2.53 | 4.02 | 12% | 15% |
| 2020 | 785 | 7.2 | 287 | 2.63 | 4.56 | 21% | 21% |
| 2019 | 397 | 5.8 | 252 | 3.71 | 5.73 | 17% | 22% |
2022 Evan Engram Overview:
There was a time when Evan Engram was Kyle Pitts. Back before Noah Fant was Kyle Pitts, but after Vernon Davis was Kyle Pitts, Evan Engram set the NFL on fire. This was all the way back in the forgotten times of 2017 when he finished with 64 catches, 722 yards, and six touchdowns. He finished as the highest-ranked slot a rookie tight end has ever occupied in the fantasy football era, as he was TE6 on the season. Then, things sort of… fell apart. He missed five games in 2018, eight games in 2019, and then it was Daniel Jones Time in New York. Over the last two years, Evan Engram averaged 100 targets, 60 receptions, 582 yards, and two touchdowns per seventeen games. The problem with that 60% catch rate is that it came with seventeen drops in the last two seasons.
But, drops aren’t sticky. Especially when you consider he had six last season, eleven the season before, and six in the two previous seasons combined. So, what happens if he just… remembers to catch footballs, as he did back before he had one of the worst quarterbacks in the league throwing him the ball in one of the messiest offenses in the NFL?
Well, in his new situation, he has a quarterback who targeted tight ends at a league-average rate last year (19.2% of targets). But, his head coach spent years in Philadelphia making Zach Ertz and Dallas Goedert pop. Doug Pederson was the head coach of the Eagles from 2016 through 2020, and in that timeframe, Zach Ertz and Dallas Goedert combined for 13 targets per game. The 795 targets to tight ends during Doug Pederson’s reign in Philadelphia ranks third among raw targets for the position from 2016 – 2020, but he targeted the position 33.8% over the time, the highest by 3% (Kansas City, with 30.11%, and Travis Kelce, ranked second).
So, Doug Pederson will use the tight end, and Evan Engram has a history of producing well when he was getting targets from not-the-worst-QB-in-the-league. So, it’s well within the range of outcomes that Evan Engram returns to fantasy football relevance.
2022 Evan Engram Fantasy Football Draft Strategy:
Evan Engram Salary Cap Value: $0
Draft Ranking: Find out for your league settings in a Beersheet!
But, the worst thing you can do is actually pay for Evan Engram on draft day. You don’t have to do that, as he’s undrafted in 98% of drafts, according to Yahoo! draft data. So, your plan with Engram should be to keep an eye on him early in the season. Unless you’re in a fourteen-team or deeper league, there’s no reason to draft Evan Engram. But, I just wanted to remind you that he has a coach who loves to utilize tight ends, and he was good once upon a time.
Best Case Scenario:
Evan Engram is resolved to return to just dropping three balls all season long, and finishes as a top-six tight end.
Worst Case Scenario:
Evan Engram is resolved to drop three balls per game.
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: Image Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/Evan_Engram_%2831312659107%29_%28cropped%29.jpg, cropped under CC BY-SA 2.0]
