Bully Tight End Drafting In Best Ball

This article is taken from the 2023 Footballguys Best Ball Guide. To download the full 60+ page guide for free, click here.

Bully tight end is bulling your league at tight end, leaning into the scarcity of the position, selecting two elite options, depleting the player pool, and locking in elite production from the position weekly. As the name implies, simplicity in concept.

But can it work?

2022 is not the ideal test case. Travis Kelce's 15.4 half PPR points per game put him four points above second-place George Kittle. This positional dominance, combined with the disappointment of other high ADP options like Kyle Pitts and Mark Andrews, capped the overall effectiveness.

But as proof of concept, 2020 is an interesting case. Kelce at 17.4 points per game and Darren Waller at 14.1 were the clear top two options, with George Kittle third at 12.6. With Best Ball, we want the weekly ceiling. That year, the pairing of Kelce and Waller would have delivered eight overall TE1 weeks and 17 other top-10 finishes. The weekly highest scorer between the two would have averaged 19.85 points per game, beating Kelce's TE1 overall finish by two points. Meanwhile, the score not used in the tight end slot still exceeded ten points on seven occasions, averaging 15.8 in those games, a number good for WR4 on the season per game.

In one of the best-case scenarios, You beat the weekly TE1 production by two points while still having an elite producer in the flex position for half of your weeks.

What is the landscape for the 2023 bully tight-end strategy?

Kelce is still the king, but with an early ADP inside the top five, he requires one of the most significant investments of his career. Mark Andrews is next, at 32, while T.J. Hockenson, at 41, and Kittle, at 45, round out the top five. Already there is a problem. Early Best Ball rounds have a reputation for strict adherence to ADP, putting Andrews and Hockenson slightly out of reach. Kittle does line up well with an early selection of Kelce. But there are concerns.

Kittle delivered five weeks as a top-two scorer. That's good. But Kittle was under five points in seven games. That's bad. While Kittle has a nice upside as a compliment, the backup production to fill in flex weeks is lacking. The 49ers present a team with receiving options and questions surrounding the quarterback position. The tight end position is notorious for volatility. To illustrate further, Juwan Johnson had five weeks as a top-four tight end, essentially offering similar boom/bust potential at a TE24 ADP.

Given the impact of top-end quarterbacks working their way up the board and the sacrifice of top-end running back and wide receivers, this group could be better for a bully build. But there is a second path to accomplish a similar goal.

Tight ends two through six and scored between 9.2 and 11.4 half-point PPR points per game. T.J. Hockenson and Zach Ertz of that group represented the Moby Dick mythical white whales of the position. The breakout mid-to-late value. Ertz represented the bottom of the range and only played ten games. But Hockenson represents the path to explore on a bully tight end in 2023.