I never like making the fantasy football bust series. I really don’t. I want everyone to be good, and I want everyone’s sleepers to hit, and I don’t want anyone to be a bust. Unfortunately, fantasy football doesn’t work that way. That means we have to take a look at some bust tight end candidates for 2022 fantasy football. There are no criteria here except for the ol’ gut. Generally, I looked for guys getting drafted at or above their perceived ceiling for 2021 fantasy football. To find these numbers, I used 4for4.com’s consensus average draft position tool. Let’s dive in.
Tight End Bust #1: T.J. Hockenson, Detroit (TE7, 64 overall)
Hockenson is the top guy in The Tight End Blob, which means that he’s the player that I absolutely refuse to draft anywhere near his ADP. Granted, he’s in the “upper blob” that includes Hockenson, Zach Ertz and Dallas Goedert, but he’s part of The Blob nonetheless. Last year, Hockenson had an 8/97/1 line in week one and 8/66/1 in the first two weeks of last year, which gave him 46.3 PPR points. That was over 30% of his season-long production, as he averaged as many points per game the rest of the season as Tyler Conklin and Maxx Williams. He was Just Okay after his big blowup games, and he’s never been a consistent boom-bust tight end, as those were the second and third 20+ PPR games of his career. He’s fine, but he’s closer to Hunter Henry than a lot of people want to admit. And because of that, I can just take Hunter Henry 50 picks later, instead.
Tight End Bust #2: Dawson Knox, Buffalo (TE10, 92 overall)
If you read my reasons for Robert Tonyan as a 2020 TE bust, then you can just skip this one. They’re basically the same. While Knox had a higher target volume, it wasn’t by much, and he finished last year with 49 catches (15th among TE) for 587 yards (18th among TE) on 71 targets (20th among TE) last year. However, his absurdly high league-leading nine touchdowns helped him finish as TE8 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. Knox caught a touchdown once every eight targets, which was twice the league average last year. I can’t trust Knox this season to not go back to his one touchdown every fifteen targets he had in 2020. And given his top-100 price tag? I’m out.
Tight End Bust #3: Mike Gesicki, Miami (TE12, 109 overall)
Things aren’t going well for Mike Gesicki in Miami this season. The traditional “tight end in name only” has been getting more and more run in-line and blocking at Dolphins camp, and it’s not going well. Gesicki is a route runner (he ran a route on 93.5% of his pass play snaps last year, second to Kyle Pitts), and putting him in to block is likely going to be a disaster since we all agree that he’s not very good at it. I fear that Mike McDaniel is trying to put a square peg (Gesicki) into a round hole (George Kittle with the 49ers) and that it’s going to lead to Gesicki checking out on the Dolphins, like 2021 Allen Robinson and the Bears. After all, Gesicki was all but gone until a franchise tag brought him back for one last season.
I just fear this all goes sideways for Gesicki and you’re stuck digging back into The Blob to try to find someone useful. Start off with someone useful… Cole Kmet is the next tight end by ADP. Try him, instead.
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