What if I told you that you don’t need to burn an early-round fantasy draft pick on an elite TE? One guy off everyone’s radar is primed for a big season.
Only three years ago, T.J. Hockenson was the overall TE2, scoring only 0.4 points less than TE1 Travis Kelce. A late-season injury sidelined him for most of the first half of the 2024 season. His fantasy production plummeted that year, in large part because he had zero scores, while his targets per game dropped year-to-year from 8.5 to 6.2.
Then he hit rock bottom last season, earning only 4.4 targets per game. 24 TEs averaged more. So of course he finished outside the top 20 in fantasy.
Here’s the thing: Hockenson is the fourth-highest-paid NFL tight end. He’s barely 29 years old and is coming off a campaign where he caught a career-high 77.3% of his looks. His subpar quarterbacks netted a sterling 109.3 passer rating when targeting him. This is not a guy on the decline. Simply put, this is a guy who was absurdly underutilized by a team that vastly underperformed.
His TE23 ADP suggests undraftability in essentially every league. It assumes that last year’s production is his new ceiling. Don’t believe the fantasy market. Hockenson is too talented and is getting paid too much to remain a decoy. I expect the Vikings to adjust. Fantasy managers should adjust, too. Hockenson is fantasy’s biggest TE bargain.
For more on this topic, listen to this podcast episode.
This article originally appeared on Touchdown Wire: Why T.J. Hockenson is fantasy’s biggest under-the-radar TE bargain
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