More teams are making more use of tight ends. They’re catch more passes and touchdowns than ever before – teams have figured out ways to isolate them in matchups. And then there are the New York Jets.
While the rest of the NFL is zigging, the Jets are zagging. They completed only 8 passes to tight ends last year, the fewest by any team in this century.
Since 2000, in fact, every other NFL team (and there have been 509 of them) have completed at least twice as many passes to tight ends. In the last four years, only three teams have completed fewer than 40 passes to tight ends.
Part of this is personnel. Jace Amaro got hurt in the preseason. He was a good pass-catching tight end in college. But Amaro was struggling in camp anyway, and he was a disappointment as a rookie, struggling to pick things up and simply to catch the ball.
And Chan Gailey isn’t a big fan of featuring tight ends. He wants more blocking out of that position. In his first season coaching the Bills, they completed only 29 passes to tight ends.
There are few certainties in fantasy football, but I think we can start by pretty much disregarding New York’s tight ends entirely.
| FEWEST CATCHES BY TIGHT ENDS SINCE 2000 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Team | No | Yds | Avg | TD |
| 2015 | NY Jets | 8 | 95 | 11.9 | 1 |
| 2000 | Miami | 16 | 215 | 13.4 | 1 |
| 2001 | NY Giants | 17 | 164 | 9.6 | 3 |
| 2004 | Pittsburgh | 17 | 188 | 11.1 | 5 |
| 2002 | Pittsburgh | 18 | 133 | 7.4 | 2 |
| 2008 | Atlanta | 19 | 211 | 11.1 | 2 |
| 2001 | New England | 19 | 168 | 8.8 | 4 |
| 2002 | Washington | 20 | 244 | 12.2 | 2 |
| 2005 | San Francisco | 20 | 158 | 7.9 | 0 |
| 2000 | St. Louis | 21 | 194 | 9.2 | 3 |
| 2003 | Washington | 21 | 183 | 8.7 | 0 |
| 2004 | Houston | 21 | 230 | 11.0 | 1 |
| 2001 | Miami | 22 | 242 | 11.0 | 2 |
| 2004 | St. Louis | 22 | 231 | 10.5 | 1 |
| 2005 | St. Louis | 22 | 195 | 8.9 | 2 |
| 2000 | NY Jets | 23 | 173 | 7.5 | 6 |
| 2009 | Arizona | 23 | 245 | 10.7 | 3 |
| 2010 | Buffalo | 23 | 187 | 8.1 | 1 |
| 2000 | Pittsburgh | 24 | 275 | 11.5 | 3 |
| 2001 | Pittsburgh | 24 | 218 | 9.1 | 2 |
| 2003 | Pittsburgh | 24 | 263 | 11.0 | 2 |
| 2001 | Chicago | 25 | 256 | 10.2 | 7 |
| 2008 | Arizona | 25 | 237 | 9.5 | 0 |
| 2010 | Arizona | 25 | 210 | 8.4 | 0 |
| 2005 | Buffalo | 25 | 170 | 6.8 | 1 |
| 2000 | New Orleans | 26 | 314 | 12.1 | 5 |
| 2010 | Denver | 27 | 222 | 8.2 | 0 |
| 2002 | New Orleans | 27 | 276 | 10.2 | 2 |
| 2006 | St. Louis | 27 | 333 | 12.3 | 2 |
| 2007 | Detroit | 27 | 347 | 12.9 | 1 |
| 2002 | Cincinnati | 28 | 218 | 7.8 | 2 |
| 2005 | Chicago | 28 | 250 | 8.9 | 3 |
| 2005 | Houston | 28 | 216 | 7.7 | 0 |
| 2012 | Chicago | 29 | 297 | 10.2 | 3 |
| 2001 | Seattle | 29 | 286 | 9.9 | 3 |
| 2001 | Cincinnati | 29 | 281 | 9.7 | 1 |
—Ian Allan