As many of you know, there is a group of Footballguys, myself included, that take great pleasure in the use of statistical analysis as a means to succeed in fantasy football. Traditionally, we do much of our work leading up to the draft, using historical trends analysis and number crunching to help fine tune our annual projections for players and teams. But statistical analysis can, when used in conjunction with logical reasoning and sound football acumen, be useful during the season, as well. With that in mind, I will attempt to address some relevant in-season issues each and every week, with a statistical slant of course…

Most leagues, mine included, require owners to start a tight end every week. While that's fine as it keeps with the purity of the game per se, that doesn't mean we can't recognize that the tight end position is by and large unsatisfying.

What exactly do I mean? Tell me if one of these scenarios doesn't sound familiar:

1. It's draft day and you have never been more confident in your draft preparation. Months of diligent research on the Footballguys message boards and main site, building custom projections and importing those projections into Joe & David's VBD application have you convinced that you're going to dominate your draft. It's the 3rd round, and when it comes time for your selection you look down at your customized cheatsheet to find the highest ranked player left on the board; Todd Heap. So with a big sigh, you confidently call out your selection, "Give me Torry Holt." I'm willing to bet that at least half of you have gone through this. You consider yourselves VBD purists, yet when push comes to shove you abandon your VBD projections when faced with taking a TE early.



2. As you look over your weekly matchup, you break into a smile upon seeing that you're bringing Tony Gonzalez to the table while your opponent is starting Josh Norman. Fast forward to Monday morning, and to your disgust he's netted 7 points on 1 reception for 10 yards and a TD while you netted a whopping 3 points on a 5 for 35 yard game; giving him the edge.

If you've been at this long enough, I KNOW that one, or both, of the aforementioned scenarios has impacted you. At the end of the year your TE is ranked 4th or 5th, yet it never seemed like he made a difference in helping you win on a weekly basis. So how do we reconcile the notion that a TE earns a certain VBD score over a season, yet so many of us don't feel as though the tight ends on our roster lived up to their VBD rankings on a weekly basis?

• Let's start with the obvious: Tight Ends don't score a lot of points

  This isn't Earth shattering stuff, but I think it's important to reinforce just how marginal the tight end position is using traditional performance scoring. In the last 30 years, only eight tight ends have averaged more than 10 points per game over a full season (defined as 14 games played or more). It's only happened three times in the last decade. Compare that to the wide receiver position, which routinely sees 15 or more WRs score 10+ points per game in a given year.

  The best you can do, even if you land the top TE in the league, is to hope and pray for a 9 or 10 PPG average. How often is that going to be the difference maker in competitive head-to-head matchups?

Table A: TEs with 10+ PPG (1973-2002), Minimum 14 GP

But let's look beyond the top tier, because not everyone is lucky enough to draft the top rated fantasy TE in a given season. In fact, most of us, particularly those that eschew highly rated TEs on draft day, are simply trying to land a TE that might finish in the top 10, ideally late in our drafts.

But take a look at the level of futility we're dealing with:

Table B: 10th Ranked Fantasy TEs (1993-2002):

On average, the 10th ranked fantasy TE nets you a whopping 4.2 points per game. This is approximately half of what a competent fantasy kicker will get you, and wholly troublesome when you realize that you can be beaten by any TE that catches a random TD reception in a given week.

• The difference in point production is de minimous beyond the top two or three TEs each year

  It's no surprise that since TEs catch a relatively small amount of passes primarily on short and intermediate routes (excluding the top tier guys), there isn't a great deal of variance between the 4th best TE and the 10th best, witness:

  • 2002 -- 4th (91 points), 10th (70 points) = 21 points difference (1.3 ppg)
  • 2001 -- 4th (93 points), 10th (77 points) = 16 points difference (1.0 ppg)
  • 2000 -- 4th (96 points), 10th (63 points) = 32 points difference (2.0 ppg)
  • 1999 -- 4th (79 points), 10th (61 points) = 18 points difference (1.1 ppg)
  • 1998 -- 4th (89 points), 10th (74 points) = 15 points difference (0.9 ppg)
  • AVG -- 4th (90 points), 10th (69 points) = 21 points difference (1.3 ppg)

• The Rule of Six: Inconsistency on a Week to Week Basis

  Now that we've got two of the more obvious observations out of the way, I wanted to turn your attention to a concept that's been brewing in my mind for some time. I like to call it, The Rule of Six. The Rule of Six implies that a fantasy player needs to score at least six points per game to be worthy of your attention on draft day. While 6 points might seem somewhat arbitrary, there is some rationale behind my use of that as a baseline performance indicator.

• Six points is equivalent to a touchdown, the common benchmark for all types of league scoring (from traditional TD only to high performance leagues)
• There are, on average, eight to ten tight ends who score six or more fantasy points in a given week
• The leading kickers, tight ends, and team defenses (using FBG scoring) all score north of this mark on a weekly basis

Applying the "Six Point Rule" to the tight end position further illustrates the lack of impact on a week-to-week basis. Understanding that a touchdown equals six points, it would stand to reason that ideally, you would require a TE to average at least six points to comfortably rely on the notion that he'll out produce your opponent's TE in a head to head format. So let's look at how many TEs have actually AVERAGED at least six (6) fantasy points per game:

Table C: Fantasy TEs with a per game average of 6 points or more (1995-2002)

Since 1995, thirty four (34) TEs have averaged at least six (6) fantasy points per game. In and of itself, that data isn't all that useful except to tell us what we already knew intuitively. But let's drill down a bit further. Remember that the 34 TEs listed are the top producing fantasy TEs (on a per game basis) over the last eight years; the so-called cream of the crop. With that in mind, consider the following:

Table D: Breakdown of Weekly Performance (Above/Below the 6 PPG Baseline)

You'll note that even the best fantasy TEs of the last eight seasons have had a slew of disappointing games. 45% of the time, even the top performing fantasy TEs scored less than six points in a given week; which means that even if you have TE1 at seasons' end, there's a good chance that you could be outscored at the position in a weekly head-to-head match-up with great frequency.

Concluding Thoughts

I know from personal experience that even the most devout VBD purists find themselves reluctantly selecting TEs in the early rounds. Even though the projected VBD value suggests someone like Jeremy Shockey, Todd Heap or Tony Gonzalez is worth the 3rd or 4th round pick, it just never seems like those players help you win consistently. The above data was meant to show that, at least from my perspective, there is some statistical meat behind the gut feeling that TEs don't justify their VBD rankings when all is said and done. Does that mean someone like Alge Crumpler (#1 rated TE through Week 5) cannot help you win a league title? Absolutely not, but no more so than having the top rated kicker can give you those extra one or two points per game that might swing a very tight head-to-head matchup.

Let's quickly recap what we've talked about:

• It's extremely rare for tight ends to average 10+ points per game
• On average, the 10th ranked fantasy TE nets you just 4.2 points per week
• There is virtually no difference between the 4th and 10th ranked fantasy TEs in a given year
• On a weekly basis, it's not uncommon for even the best tight ends to score less than six points per game, meaning any TE that catches one pass in the end zone can come out ahead

At the end of the day, this is more about NOT focusing too much on the tight end position during your draft. As to whether or not this conversation has any merit for the current season, I would simply point out:

• Remember that historically little will separate TE4 from TE10 or TE12. Currently Todd Heap stands at TE4 (excluding Josh Norman, who has played in just one game) while Doug Jolley (TE10), Desmond Clark (TE11), and Freddie Jones (TE12) are ranked 10th through 12th respectively. I guarantee you that there are owners in your league that would offer a decent amount at another position in trade to "trade up" to get someone like Heap or Gonzalez. Use that to your advantage.
• Even the best fantasy TEs finish below the "Six Point Rule" 45% of the time. So if you don't happen to have Crumpler, Heap, Shockey or Sharpe on your roster currently, remember that you've still got an excellent chance of winning your H2H matchup anyway. Focus on TEs who are getting a lot of targets, particularly red zone looks to find those "hidden gems"; i.e., TEs who may catch only one or two passes albeit in the end zone.

  As of Week 5, here are the most targeted tight ends in the red zone (according to Doug Drinen's Cumulative Totals Data); more than likely quite a few of these tight ends can be acquired via your waiver wire or on the cheap via trade.

  1) Bubba Franks
  2t) Christian Fauria
  2t) Steve Heiden
  4t) Ernie Conwell
  4t) Mikheal Ricks
  4t) Freddie Jones
  7t) Doug Jolley
  7t) Jeremy Shockey
  7t) L.J. Smith
  7t) Mark Campbell
  7t) Shannon Sharpe

Cheers!

Notes:
1) All fantasy point production assumes the Footballguys Scoring System:

• 1 point per 25 yards passing
• 1 point per 10 yards receiving or rushing
• 4 points per passing TD
• 6 points per rushing or receiving TD
• -1 per interception thrown

2) Special thanks to Doug Drinen and Ken Maxwell for providing the relevant statistical databases

3) Feel free to contact me ([email protected]) if you wish to discuss this column further or share other ideas for future issues