There sure is nothing else like a brand spanking new calendar year that gets people to re-invest into their defunct projects. For me, that's typing up this here post, editing it, and then pressing that big orange publish button in the upper right hand corner so that my legions of anywhere between 0 to 5 followers read my thoughts on what the 2021 Dynasty Rankings at the TE position should be on January 1st, 2021. My ability to sustain any momentum when it comes to this site is extremely fleeting, but now that the calendar has flipped I can convince myself that there is optimism in writing and I'm going to give it a go once more. The over/under odds in Vegas for 1.5 total posts in 2021 (including this one) is dead even and I have fictional pit bosses texting me constantly for updates. We'll see how I do.
Tier 1
1. George Kittle - age 27
We'll get to in more in the next tier, but the general consensus is that this tier should only have one player, but that player isn't George Kittle. My reasoning for placing Kittle, alone, in the top tier is simple: he can improve in many areas in 2021. He has yet to play a full season, he has yet to have an elite QB, he has yet to have a game-changing WR line up with him, and one or all of these things can change next season. Sure he might still get stuck with Jimmy G, or maybe Brandon Aiyuk somehow takes a step lateral next year, but things look good moving forward. At a young 27, Kittle has plenty of life left in his bones to give you 4 or 5 elite seasons with the opportunity to grow.
Tier 2
2. Darren Waller - age 28
3. Mark Andrews - age 25
4. TJ Hockenson - age 24
5. Travis Kelce - age 31
Waller could have found himself in our top tier, but he doesn't have the obvious upside that Kittle does. For one, Waller already sees his lions share of targets from one of the best checkdown QBs in the league. We saw Oakland wants to add more passing game weapons when they drafted Henry Ruggs, and while Waller certainly is elite, he's not Kittle. Andrews and Hockenson are both members of the no-longer-sexy-names-and-just-put-up-very-solid-numbers-at-a-very-young-age club. No one in your draft is going to think you made a great pick when you take them, and that's on them. Consistency is key in fantasy sports, and both of these guys will be putting up consistent numbers once everyone else in the top 5 is no longer a fantasy asset. After the initial shock wears off, I hope you realize that Kelce is 6 months younger than Gronk and has never played less than 15 games in a season. That's real wear. Sure, he's tied to the best offense with the best QB in the league, with one of the top field stretching WRs in the league, but are those things going to remain going forward? I'm not doomsday predicting that any of these things collapse, but I'm also not expecting there to be no change going forward. Kelce has had a perfect environment that past few years and I don't expect things to stay the same because they never do.
Tier 3
6. Kyle Pitts - age 21
7. Hunter Henry - age 26
8. Irv Smith Jr. - age 23
9. Mike Gesicki - age 25
10. Evan Engram - age 27
11. Jonnu Smith - age 26
12. Noah Fant - age 23
13. Zach Ertz - age 30
These are just rankings for today, so without knowing where Pitts or Henry are going its hard to know where to place them, but their talent alone means ranking them above sub-optimal landing spots for the guys below. Smith's ranking is aggressive, but given all the other options in Minnesota he should be plenty of chances to get great matchups single coverage. Gesicki's, Engram's, and Fant's rankings are all tied to their QBs. Jonnu seems to have stuck in an offense that only needs him a few times a game, and it's very likely he and Irv Smith have similar numbers in 2020. Ertz is a wildcard since he is older, has no clear QB, and might not have a new coach but has put up elite numbers very recently.
Tier 4
14. Dalton Schultz - age 25
15. Logan Thomas - age 30
16. O.J. Howard - age 26
17. Dallas Goedert - age 26
18. Drew Sample - age 25
19. Harrison Bryant - age 23
20. Austin Hooper - age 26
These guys are all high variant plays, where the amount of question marks mixed with great opportunity will lead to highly divergent results.
Tier 5
21. Cole Kmet - age 22
22. Adam Trautman - age 24
23. Dawson Knox - age 24
24. David Njoku - age 25
25. Robert Tonyan - age 27
26. Eric Ebron - age 28
27. Josh Oliver - age 24
28. Hayden Hurst - age 28
29. Tyler Higbee - age 29
30. Pat Freiermuth - age 22
31. Will Dissly - age 25
32. Gerald Everett - age 27
33. Mo-Allie Cox - age 28
34. Chris Herndon - age 25
35. Ian Thomas - age 26
36. Blake Jarwin - age 27
37. Kyle Rudolph - age 32
Everyone in this has some sort of setback tied to their current status that is going to hold them from being every day players at the moment.
Tier 6
38. Jace Sternberger - age 25
39. Brevin Jordan - age 21
40. Brycen Hopkins - age 24
41. Richard Rodgers - age 29
42. Foster Moreau - age 24
43. Dalton Keene - age 22
44. Jordan Akins - age 29
45. Jake Ferguson - age 21
46. Charlie Kolar - age 22
47. Kahale Warring - age 24
48. Devin Asiasi - age 24
49. Adam Shaheen - age 26
50. Trey Burton - age 29
These are some shot in the dark young guns or very unsexy, unlikely to go off old guns.
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