Tight End Free Agency Preview

Photo: Kyle Terada, USA Today Sports

This season’s tight end class has several former high-level fantasy contributors with a variety of different dynasty valuations.

Mike Gesicki

Mike Gesicki’s tenure in Miami fizzled out as he spent the 2022 season playing on a franchise tag under the new Mike McDaniel offense, where Gesicki simply was a bad fit. Despite his athleticism, Gesicki has a contested target rate of 28.4%, a top-two-percentile rate. In addition, Gesicki breaks a tackle once every 23.1 receptions, a 6th-percentile career performance. In other words, Gesicki has not separated and has not broken tackles in his career. This makes Gesicki a player almost entirely dependent on a passing game that will funnel targets in his direction. Coming off a down year, his market should be an indication of whether a team will feature him in the passing game. Gesicki is in the later teens in dynasty tight end valuation.

Dalton Schultz

Dalton Schultz has been a much different profile player than Gesicki. Only 15.9% of his career targets have been contested, and he is targeted on a much higher rate of his routes that are non-contested targets (15.2%) than Gesicki (12.7%). Additionally, Schultz breaks a tackle once every 6.4 receptions, a top 20 percentile performance. Like Gesicki, Schultz was franchised tagged and will enter free agency as the more versatile and dangerous player. Schultz is around the TE10 range in recent dynasty valuations.

Foster Moreau

Foster Moreau was a fourth-round selection and has been a spot starter behind Darren Waller during his rookie contract. Moreau has gotten the opportunity to start 34 games with the Raiders, including 25 in the past two seasons, but has failed to stand out. In the past two seasons, Moreau has only caught two receptions for 24.8 yards per game. During his career, Moreau has 17.1 receiving yards per game in games Waller has played, compared to 35 receiving yards per game when Moreau has not played. Moreau is in the TE30 range of dynasty valuation.