Picking through numbers. Looking for trends. That’s what I do at this time of year, trying to put together the puzzle pieces and form an initial draft board. I like to take a careful look at each team and player over the next couple of months. After that initial slotting, then the rankings can be adjusted the rest of the way, based on changes and developments.
I was just looking at tight ends. The chart below shows the guys who have been the best at catching the ball. And I’ve expanded the sample set here to three years to involve more games, passes and catches.
Below are the 32 tight ends who’ve been the intended target on at least 150 passes. It shows their catches, targets, and the completion percentage.
Two guys in the top 8 catch my eye: Brandon Myers (former of the Raiders and Giants and now property of Tampa Bay) and Scott Chandler. These guys have been better than what I would have thought. Especially Chandler. I tend to write him off as a blocking tight end, but he’s got pretty good hands. He led Buffalo in catches last year.
A couple of guys in the bottom 10 who surprise me: Owen Daniels and Greg Olsen. These guys are generally thought to be two of the better pass-catching tight ends, but they haven’t been that efficient. Daniels in particular; he’s spent most of his games on a division champion team.
Dustin Keller and Jared Cook are in the bottom 10, but I don’t see that being as meaningful. Keller was working with Mark Sanchez. Cook runs more deeper routes than most tight ends (and with the degree of difficulty going up, natural that he’d catch fewer balls).
| TIGHT ENDS, CATCHING RATES SINCE 2011 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Player | No | Targets | Pct |
| Heath Miller | 180 | 253 | 71.1% |
| Tony Gonzalez | 256 | 361 | 70.9% |
| Jason Witten | 262 | 376 | 69.7% |
| Brandon Myers | 142 | 207 | 68.6% |
| Rob Gronkowski | 184 | 270 | 68.1% |
| Antonio Gates | 190 | 281 | 67.6% |
| Vernon Davis | 160 | 240 | 66.7% |
| Scott Chandler | 134 | 201 | 66.7% |
| Aaron Hernandez | 130 | 196 | 66.3% |
| Jermichael Finley | 141 | 213 | 66.2% |
| Dennis Pitta | 121 | 183 | 66.1% |
| Jermaine Gresham | 166 | 253 | 65.6% |
| Martellus Bennett | 137 | 210 | 65.2% |
| Brent Celek | 151 | 236 | 64.0% |
| Rob Housler | 96 | 151 | 63.6% |
| Jimmy Graham | 270 | 427 | 63.2% |
| Kellen Winslow | 107 | 170 | 62.9% |
| Brandon Pettigrew | 183 | 291 | 62.9% |
| Zach Miller | 96 | 153 | 62.7% |
| Delanie Walker | 100 | 160 | 62.5% |
| Jordan Cameron | 106 | 171 | 62.0% |
| Anthony Fasano | 96 | 155 | 61.9% |
| Dustin Keller | 93 | 151 | 61.6% |
| Greg Olsen | 187 | 304 | 61.5% |
| Kyle Rudolph | 109 | 178 | 61.2% |
| Lance Kendricks | 102 | 167 | 61.1% |
| Owen Daniels | 140 | 230 | 60.9% |
| Ed Dickson | 100 | 165 | 60.6% |
| Jared Cook | 144 | 239 | 60.3% |
| Dallas Clark | 112 | 192 | 58.3% |
| Benjamin Watson | 105 | 183 | 57.4% |
| Marcedes Lewis | 116 | 209 | 55.5% |
—Ian Allan