Apex Insider Blog

With the rising popularity of dynasty fantasy football leagues, age has become a very important variable. Most players, or in this case tight ends, share similar career timelines. By studying the production of historical tight end seasons, we can gain information that will help us make knowledgeable predictions as to when current tight ends will improve or regress.

We’ve already investigated peak seasons for wide receivers and running backs.

Defining a Peak Season

To start this study, we must define a peak season for an NFL tight end. We will include all tight end seasons that finished with at least 170 PPR fantasy points since 2000, which gives us a sample size of 113 players. The list below includes all individual tight end seasons to meet the criteria since 2000 and was generated by the RotoViz Screener.

The average age of this group is 27.43 years old. Below is a distribution graph of the ages of the tight end seasons.

The obvious peak is from 25 to 27 years old, as 45.1 percent of the seasons fall within that range. 69 percent of the seasons land within 25 to 30 years old. Interestingly, a tight end is more likely to achieve a peak season at 30 years old than at 24 years old. We can speculate the reasoning for that but clearly, it takes some time for tight ends to develop in the NFL.

There’s certainly a gradual decline but it appears that there is a bit of a drop off after the age 31 season.

What Does This Mean For the 2018 Season?

While Rob Gronkowski’s multiple back surgeries are concerning, there’s no stopping the man. He led all tight ends in receiving yards last year while playing in just 14 games and averaged an impressive 10.32 yards per target. There’s arguably no better tight end in history, making Gronk tough to bet against entering his age 29 season.

Young stud tight ends Evan Engram and Hunter Henry will be 24 years old this season. Both are likely still improving at this stage of their careers. With Antonio Gates currently a free agent, I expect Henry to break out in a big way this season. After a promising rookie year, 24-year-old O.J. Howard’s fantasy arrow is also pointing up.

About as polarizing as they come, Eric Ebron has disappointed many fantasy owners over the years. Regardless of his past struggles, Ebron has performed impressively at a young age. Just 25 this season with a coach who believes in him, Ebron could break out at a cheap price.

Trey Burton will be 27 this season and enters an intriguing situation on the Bears. Coach Matt Nagy will use Burton to fill the “U” tight end role, which is critical to establishing mismatches. Burton was effective filling in for Ertz last season and could be undervalued heading into the 2018 season.

Jordan Reed’s age (28) isn’t a concern but his constant injury issues are. Regardless, he’s proven to be very effective when he’s healthy and could be undervalued with how many owners want to stay away.

Zach Ertz (28) and Travis Kelce (29) are both squarely in their primes. They’ll be reliable but are deservingly expensive picks. You’ll have to pay up for their top-end production.

Jimmy Graham (32) is starting to decline, averaging a career-worst 5.42 yards per target in 2017. Graham certainly has bounce-back potential on the Packers but is also currently being drafted as a top-five tight end.

Greg Olsen (33), Delanie Walker (34), and Jason Witten (36) are all getting up there in age. All three could sustain production but a breakout season at this point seems unlikely. Each remains a significant part of their offense but should only be acquired at the right price.