Over the past few years, there have been two very popular articles written by our very own Chase Stuart that look at an interesting approach to building a fantasy team with late value picks. Based upon the theory of using both Strength of Schedule ("SOS") and taking two players as a combination to build one very good player, he has discussed both Team Defense by Committee ("TDBC") and Quarterback by Committee ("QBBC") as a general fantasy league strategy. In general I think that this is a wise move because very early on in fantasy drafts there are a ton of running back and wide receiver prospects to go after to build a great team. While there are a few studs at quarterback and also a few choice defenses, I do not see a huge need in leagues to pursue either too hard in the beginning stages of a fantasy draft.
So with this in mind, I started to think about what else can be done with the committee approach. Wide receiver? Perhaps, but not a WR1. Running back? Maybe. Tight end? Hmmm, that's really intriguing. What if you could grab tight ends later in the draft that could combine to perform on a TE1 level, based solely on their current projections and their schedule? Now we're talking. This really got my attention, so I went after this. Let's take a look at how I went about building this committee and then we can digest and discuss the results.
(TIGHT) END GAME
So how to begin? Defenses and quarterbacks are relatively easy to "committee" together. There's usually only one quarterback and certainly only one team defense per NFL club, so the approach is pretty simple as far as picking out which players / teams to try and pair up. When it comes to tight ends, the line is not quite so easy to draw, but I needed some basis to pick which players it made sense to try and combine for a decent committee. I decided that I would use the following criteria to decide which players to start with for evaluating:
CRITERIA #1 - TE13 AND BEYOND
This seems pretty simple. If we want to have a duo that puts up TE1 numbers, that means we want TE12 or better production - else we would just draft TE12 or higher and forget the whole idea. So here is the list of players with which I started, based on their Average Draft Position (ADP):
ADP | Player | ADP | Player |
TE13 | Jimmy Graham | TE22 | Kyle Rudolph |
TE14 | Martellus Bennett | TE23 | Clive Walford |
TE15 | Eric Ebron | TE24 | Jordan Cameron |
TE16 | Dwayne Allen | TE25 | Will Tye |
TE17 | Jason Witten | TE26 | Vance McDonald |
TE18 | Zach Miller | TE27 | Cameron Brate |
TE19 | Austin Seferian-Jenkins | TE28 | Hunter Henry |
TE20 | Charles Clay | TE29 | Ben Watson |
TE21 | Jared Cook | TE30 | Richard Rodgers |
Table 1: Tight Ends TE13-TE30 Based on ADP
I went all the way to TE30 because a few tight ends are definitely worth consideration outside of the Top 24 tight ends, and also because there is a lot of churn and uncertainty in the TE2 category this year. Green Bay (if Richard Rodgers outperforms Jared Cook) and Cameron Brate (if he continues to be ahead of Austin Seferian-Jenkins) are both worth a look late in drafts. Even rookies Hunter Henry (TE28) or possibly Austin Hooper (TE33) or Tyler Higbee (outside of the Top 35 tight ends) could have value if they emerge - adding more weight to the tight end by committee approach. So I took the Top 30 tight ends from the ADP list, removed the Top 12 and that left me with 18 guys to pair up and see how they do. That makes 153 potential committees, so there had better be a decent one (or several, we hope) out of all of those couplets. Now, before I go over the method of how to pair them up and the results, we need one more rule:
CRITERIA #2 - NO MORE THAN ONE TE FROM ROUND 10 AND ONE FROM ROUND 12
This could get tricky here, but understand the overall goal. The point of TEBC is to "free up" the first 9-10 rounds of your fantasy draft to pursue all of the other positions for your team. Grabbing 3-4 running backs and 4-5 receivers after grabbing a stud RB or WR in Round 1 sounds like a good idea to me. This also gives you the flexibility of grabbing a stud QB, depending on your personal preference, or even to get TE1 if there's a huge value play available and have the "TEBC" be your TE2 (although I would only recommend this in very deep leagues with 20+ roster spots). Flexibility is the name of the game here. We all want value in our drafts, and having the ability to grab lots of RBs and WRs in the first 9-10 Rounds gives us that ability.
Here is the good news - all of the tight ends on the list above have ADPs that are Round 10 or higher (later). In fact, only Antonio Gates and Jimmy Graham have ADPs in Round 10, with Martellus Bennett presently going in Round 11. We will have to keep that in mind when we look at the result because if we decide to wait unit Round 11 to get this pair to make up our TEBC we may be pushing it a little too far and may not get the combination that we want.
So what do we do now to figure out some TE pairs?
CRITERIA #3 - USE FOOTBALLGUYS' TE STRENGTH OF SCHEDULE
This sounds pretty simple, doesn't it? Just take the TE Strength of Schedule to figure out when certain players are more likely to score well. What I did is similar to what the Projections Dominator and Draft Dominator do for you - take the projected fantasy points and slice them up over 16 weeks based on the strength of schedule. I call this result the "distributed fantasy points" for each receiver.
After I had all 18 tight ends with distributed fantasy points on a weekly basis, I just compared all of the possible TE pairs to find the best duos for TEBC. So here we are - time for some results.
Rank | Tight End 1 | Tight End 2 | Value |
1 | Dwayne Allen | Jason Witten | 160.7 |
2 | Martellus Bennett | Jason Witten | 160.1 |
3 | Eric Ebron | Jason Witten | 159.4 |
4 | Martellus Bennett | Dwayne Allen | 158.1 |
5 | Jason Witten | Zach Miller | 156.3 |
6 | Jason Witten | Kyle Rudolph | 156 |
7 | Jason Witten | Charles Clay | 155.8 |
8 | Jimmy Graham | Jason Witten | 155.1 |
9 | Martellus Bennett | Kyle Rudolph | 154.5 |
10 | Jason Witten | Will Tye | 153.9 |
11 | Martellus Bennett | Eric Ebron | 153.2 |
12 | Jason Witten | Clive Walford | 152.8 |
13 | Jason Witten | Jordan Cameron | 152.8 |
14 | Martellus Bennett | Charles Clay | 152.6 |
15 | Martellus Bennett | Cameron Brate | 152.5 |
16 | Jimmy Graham | Dwayne Allen | 152.1 |
17 | Jason Witten | Jared Cook | 151.5 |
18 | Jason Witten | Richard Rodgers | 151.5 |
19 | Jason Witten | Cameron Brate | 151.4 |
20 | Jimmy Graham | Martellus Bennett | 151 |
21 | Dwayne Allen | Will Tye | 150.9 |
22 | Martellus Bennett | Will Tye | 150.7 |
23 | Dwayne Allen | Zach Miller | 150.5 |
24 | Dwayne Allen | Kyle Rudolph | 150.2 |
25 | Martellus Bennett | Jared Cook | 149.8 |
26 | Martellus Bennett | Richard Rodgers | 149.8 |
27 | Jason Witten | Ben Watson | 149.8 |
28 | Dwayne Allen | Cameron Brate | 149.5 |
29 | Dwayne Allen | Jared Cook | 149.5 |
30 | Jason Witten | Vance McDonald | 149.5 |
31 | Jason Witten | Hunter Henry | 149.5 |
32 | Eric Ebron | Kyle Rudolph | 149.4 |
33 | Dwayne Allen | Richard Rodgers | 149.4 |
34 | Dwayne Allen | Jordan Cameron | 149.4 |
35 | Martellus Bennett | Clive Walford | 149.2 |
36 | Martellus Bennett | Jordan Cameron | 148.7 |
37 | Martellus Bennett | Vance McDonald | 148.3 |
38 | Martellus Bennett | Ben Watson | 148.3 |
39 | Jason Witten | Austin Seferian-Jenkins | 147.8 |
40 | Eric Ebron | Zach Miller | 147.6 |
41 | Eric Ebron | Dwayne Allen | 147.3 |
42 | Jimmy Graham | Eric Ebron | 146.8 |
43 | Dwayne Allen | Ben Watson | 146.3 |
44 | Martellus Bennett | Hunter Henry | 146.2 |
45 | Eric Ebron | Cameron Brate | 146.1 |
46 | Martellus Bennett | Austin Seferian-Jenkins | 145.8 |
47 | Dwayne Allen | Vance McDonald | 145.8 |
48 | Eric Ebron | Jordan Cameron | 145.2 |
49 | Eric Ebron | Will Tye | 144.9 |
50 | Dwayne Allen | Hunter Henry | 144.5 |
51 | Jason Witten | 144.5 |
Table 2: Tight End Committee Pairs
As we can see from Table 2, we have some very good pairs to select from for TEBC. There are 50 pairs that are worth more than Jason Witten by his lonesome, who is projected to come in with 144.5 points. Let's also take a look at how often some of these guys show up on the table:
Tight End | Freq | Tight End | Freq |
Jason Witten | 17 | Ben Watson | 3 |
Martellus Bennett | 16 | Hunter Henry | 3 |
Dwayne Allen | 14 | Jared Cook | 3 |
Eric Ebron | 9 | Richard Rodgers | 3 |
Cameron Brate | 4 | Vance McDonald | 3 |
Jimmy Graham | 4 | Zach Miller | 3 |
Jordan Cameron | 4 | Austin Seferian-Jenkins | 2 |
Kyle Rudolph | 4 | Charles Clay | 2 |
Will Tye | 4 | Clive Walford | 2 |
Table 3: Tight End Committee Pair Appearances by Player
As we can see from Table 3, the results are dominated by three guys – Jason Witten, Martellus Bennett and Dwayne Allen. They appear to be relatively interchangeable with 14-17 appearances each, which strongly hints that the frequency is predominantly tied to bye week alignment (pairs with the same bye week will be lower than Witten by himself). Only one other player (Eric Ebron, nine appearances) shows up more than four times, and given the dominance of the top three names, 3-4 appearances is not that significant as they are likely secondary couplings with the Top 3. It is quite possible that putting two of these four guys together will form this year's best option for TEBC, but we need to look closer at all of the results. .
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
Now that we have 50 possible pairs that are better than Jason Witten, what exactly does that mean? Should he be the basis of our comparison? Of course not. Remember our goal - find a pair of tight ends that can combine for TE1-type fantasy production. To figure that out we need a better metric, so here are the projections for the Top 12 TEs in standard scoring:
ADP | TE Rank | Player | Team/Bye | FPs | FP Rank |
8 | 1 | Rob Gronkowski | NE/9 | 247.7 | 1 |
49 | 3 | Greg Olsen | Car/7 | 188.8 | 2 |
65 | 4 | Travis Kelce | KC/5 | 180.9 | 3 |
39 | 2 | Jordan Reed | Was/9 | 179.2 | 4 |
96 | 9 | Zach Ertz | Phi/4 | 170.4 | 5 |
98 | 10 | Gary Barnidge | Cle/13 | 166.7 | 6 |
69 | 5 | Coby Fleener | NO/5 | 166.3 | 7 |
71 | 6 | Delanie Walker | Ten/13 | 160.8 | 8 |
74 | 7 | Tyler Eifert | Cin/9 | 156.7 | 9 |
95 | 8 | Julius Thomas | Jac/5 | 151.7 | 10 |
150 | 17 | Jason Witten | Dal/7 | 144.5 | 11 |
127 | 14 | Martellus Bennett | NE/9 | 141.4 | 12 |
139 | 16 | Dwayne Allen | Ind/10 | 140.6 | 13 |
116 | 12 | Antonio Gates | SD/11 | 134.4 | 14 |
135 | 15 | Eric Ebron | Det/10 | 134.4 | 15 |
108 | 11 | Ladarius Green | Pit/8 | 128.5 | 16 |
119 | 13 | Jimmy Graham | Sea/5 | 122 | 17 |
Table 4: Projected Fantasy Points for Top 12+ ADP TEs
Based on Table 4, we see that there is some uncertainty after the very elite tight ends. The second tier names (TE5-TE10) are all jumbled together in the 150-170 projected point range. The most notable portion of the chart are the first two names listed after the Top 10 - Jason Witten and Martellus Bennett - followed by Dwyane Allen. How about that! The three TE2s we are considering are actually projected to score more fantasy points than TE11 Ladarius Green and TE12 Antonio Gates. Once again, this speaks to the jumbling at the position after the very elite options.
So how best to evaluate the TEBC pairs from Table 2 against the top tight ends? The best way for me is to pick a baseline of the worst projected Top 10 tight end (Julius Thomas, 151.7 points projected) and add 5-7 points for a bye week filler tight end to cover Thomas' bye week. That creates a baseline score in the 156.7-158.7 range. Casting our gaze back at Table 2, the Top 4 tight end pairs on the list fall right in this range. This tells us that choosing the correct pair can give us the result we wanted - TE1 production on the cheap.
Considering all of the results, the TEBC committee recipe for 2016 has two options this year. Plan A is to snap up Martellus Bennett in Round 10, then grab Jason Witten or Dwayne Allen in Round 12. This plan considers the rising value of Bennett, who presently has an ADP of 127 as TE14 overall, but his stock is rising with lots of positive press in the preseason. With Tom Brady suspended for four weeks to start the year and Rob Gronkowski owning the tight end spotlight for the Patriots, Bennett could still get overlooked despite the history of Brady, Bill Belichick and New England using two tight end offenses back in the Aaron Hernandez years. So the best plan here is to take Bennett in Round 10, then snap up either Jason Witten (TE17, ADP 150) or Dwayne Allen (TE16, ADP 139) in Round 12. A combination of Bennett-Witten or Bennett-Allen gives a Top 4 TEBC this year at a very reasonable price.
Now you might wonder about the first pair on the list on Table 2 - Witten-Allen. Both should be available in Round 12, but of course you cannot take both. To secure this pair, you will likely have to take one in Round 11, and given the frequency of Witten in the Top 10 (eight appearances) that would be the safer choice. That creates the ultimate fallback position of taking either Zach Miller or Kyle Rudolph if Allen is gone by your Round 2 (or if you are daring, Round 13) pick. As pointed out in my Late Round Tight End article, both Witten and Rudolph are very viable options this season, and so is Miller as the starting tight end for the Bears in 2016.
Two example schedules are provided in Tables 5 and 6 for my favorite two TEBC options this season. Here I give you the best weekly plays for each tight end, based on projections.
Week | Suggested Player | Opponent |
1 | Jason Witten | New York Giants |
2* | Jason Witten | at Washington |
3** | Martellus Bennett | Houston |
4 | Martellus Bennett | Buffalo |
5 | Jason Witten | Cincinnati |
6 | Martellus Bennett | Cincinnati |
7 | Martellus Bennett | at Pittsburgh |
8*** | Martellus Bennett | at Buffalo |
9 | Jason Witten | at Cleveland |
10**** | Martellus Bennett | Seattle |
11 | Martellus Bennett | at San Francisco |
12 | Jason Witten | Washington |
13 | Martellus Bennett | Dallas |
14 | Jason Witten | at New York Giants |
15 | Martellus Bennett | Indianapolis |
16 | Jason Witten | Detroit |
*Week 2 = Close call with Bennett vs. Miami | ||
**Week 3 = Close call with Witten vs. Chicago | ||
***Week 8 = Close call with Witten vs. Philadelphia | ||
****Week 10 = Close call with Witten at Pittsburgh |
Table 5: Suggested TEBC Schedule Plan - Martellus Bennett and Jason Witten
Week | Suggested Player | Opponent |
1 | Jason Witten | New York Giants |
2* | Dwayne Allen | at Denver |
3** | Dwayne Allen | San Diego |
4 | Dwayne Allen | at Jacksonville |
5 | Jason Witten | Cincinnati |
6 | Jason Witten | at Green Bay |
7 | Dwayne Allen | at Tennessee |
8 | Jason Witten | Philadelphia |
9 | Dwayne Allen | at Green Bay |
10 | Jason Witten | at Pittsburgh |
11 | Dwayne Allen | Tennessee |
12*** | Dwayne Allen | Pittsburgh |
13 | Jason Witten | at Minnesota |
14 | Jason Witten | at New York Giants |
15**** | Jason Witten | Tampa Bay |
16***** | Dwayne Allen | Detroit |
*Week 2 = Close call with Witten at Washington | ||
**Week 3 = Close call with Witten vs. Chicago | ||
***Week 12 = Close call with Witten vs. Washington | ||
****Week 15 = Close call with Allen at Minnesota | ||
*****Week 16 = Close call with Witten vs. Detroit |
Table 6: Suggested TEBC Schedule Plan - Dwayne Allen and Jason Witten
The committee approach is not a perfect one, but having this knowledge prior to your fantasy draft can prove to be invaluable if you decide to adopt this approach. If all the players on your starter list are gone, goiong with a committee can save your team and help you deal with the loss of bigger names. The method is also a big help in "Best Ball" leagues, where lineup decisions are not necessary every week. That's exactly where a committee can do the best, as either player can count for you each week.
Questions, suggestions and comments are always welcome to pasquino@footballguys.com.