Cincinnati Bengals: Analyzing the tight end position

Breaking down and taking a deep look at the tight end group for the Cincinnati Bengals

Tyler Eifert showed with his time on and off the field in 2016 how valuable he is to the Cincinnati Bengals, but due to his injury issues the players behind him must be ready to step up when called upon.

Stuck in the heart of the offseason, it’s prime time to examine the Bengals roster. Thus, we’ll be going position-by-position throughout and taking a deep dive into the goings-on in Cincinnati. We’ve already looked at quarterbacks, running backs and most recently wide receivers.

Next up is the tight ends.

Tight Ends

*Tyler Eifert (47 targets, 29 receptions, 394 yards, 5 TDs)
C.J. Uzomah (38 targets, 25 receptions, 234 yards, 1 TD)
Tyler Kroft (12 targets, 10 receptions, 92 yards)
Mason Schreck (N/A)
Cethan Carter (N/A)

* = expected starter | 2016 statistics in parentheses

When he is healthy, there are few better tight end options in the league than Eifert. He may not bring to the table the same level of yardage production as many of his contemporaries, but that may have less to do with his limits and more with the offense around him.

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At its best, this offense has been cluttered with options at every level. A.J. Green has been one of the league’s best receivers throughout his career; he’s been treated as such by the play-calling, which emphasizes keeping him involved. Guys like Marvin Jones and Mohamed Sanu have been strong No.2-3 options alongside Green when they were wearing black and orange. The running game has also been a big focus, with Jeremy Hill and Giovani Bernard being given plenty of carries.

With all those others mouths to feed, it shouldn’t be surprising that Eifert doesn’t come all that close to the high bars for receptions and yards other star tight ends rack up. Where he can match them is his proficiency with catching touchdowns.

Since the merger (1970), there have been only six times where a tight end has caught at least 13 touchdownss: Vernon Davis did it in 2009 and 2013, Antonio Gates in 2004, Rob Gronkowski in 2011, Jimmy Graham in 2013, and Eifert in 2015. Eifert also managed this feat in only 13 games (the others took at least 15).

This is a great display of his abilities and the success that can be found when he’s applied well, but it does point to a limitation of sorts in value. Touchdowns are massively valuable of course, but the totals tend to fluctuate with a high degree of randomness even for the best players.

To go with those two 13-TD seasons, Davis has no others which rise above seven — including six where he didn’t even get to five. Gates is about as consistent as there’s ever been with keeping the totals high; he’s only reached double digits four times in fourteen seasons, with six years coming short of eight (basically his career average).

Graham has four seasons of at least nine, but outside of the comforts of Drew Brees’ high-level passing attack he’s managed just eight in the past two seasons. Gronkowski takes things to another level entirely (five double-digit showings in seven years), but he of course has major injury concerns which impact his ability to even line up.

Gronkowski may be the best parallel to Eifert here (though admittedly, that’s doing somewhat of a disservice to just how great that guy has been). Without putting Eifert on too high a pedestal here, I’ll just say that they share a common thread: if they can stay on the field, they are capable of dominance….but they should both be expected to miss large chunks of seasons pretty often at this point.

Because of that inherent injury risk, the people beyond Eifert are nearly as important to the Bengals offense as he is. Unfortunately, they don’t quite stack up anywhere near the level New England has had to turn to for most of Gronk’s career.

While the Patriots have had talented players like Aaron Hernandez and Martellus Bennett at most stretches of Gronk’s time in Massachusetts (as well as the best coach/QB combination of the generation), Cincinnati has continued to fall short in their tight end talent when Eifert goes down.

Early in his career, there was Jermaine Gresham — the embodiment of the phrase “average-at-best”. Since (smartly) moving on from him, they somehow managed to take a step down.

Oct 30, 2016; London, United Kingdom;Cincinnati Bengals tight end Tyler Kroft (81) during game 17 of the NFL International Series against the Washington Redskins at Wembley Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

The past couple years, the team has lined up Uzomah and Kroft out there behind (and often in place of) Eifert. The results haven’t exactly been stellar. In 26 games, Uzomah has 25 catches, 234 yards, and one score. In 30 games, Kroft has 21 catches for 221 yards and one touchdown. Neither adds much in the blocking game, either. Per Pro Football Focus’ grading, the highest either had in 2016 for pass blocking or run blocking was a 60.2 (on a 0-100 scale; that’s practically unplayable).

The smart move would’ve been to make some kind of addition to the group this offseason. Though they technically did so (drafted Schreck, picked up Cethan), these weren’t major moves in any sense at a spot where there probably should have been one. Schreck was their final pick in a draft where they had more than a dozen to work with, while Cethan was a UDFA.

I’m not saying the team should’ve necessarily spent a second- or third-rounder to fix this issue, but to throw so little at a spot that’s pretty important when they had plenty of resources to do so is willfully ignoring the obvious.

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Given that Eifert has never played a full season four years into his career — and has seen a devastating injury take large chunks of the year away from him on two separate occasions — they are deluding themselves if they bank on him staying on the field for an entire season, much less any others he’s on the team for.

Looking back at how the tight ends came off the board, there were six guys besides Schreck who were drafted in the fifth round or later — all of whom rated higher than Schreck according to NFL.com’s analysis. In fact, there were six guys who didn’t even get drafted at all who rated higher than Cincinnati’s final pick.

Surely there were issues assorted with each of them (why else would they still be on the board that late?), but at least a few of them had some possibility of moving the needle to some degree; a player like Schreck, in his best scenario, is a No. 3 guy on the depth chart. The weaknesses associated with him by Lance Zierlein fall into exactly what you don’t want to have to turn to when injury-prone pass-catching option up the middle inevitably ends up on the injured list (namely: everything associated with being a receiver).

When it comes down to it, this position group is about as high variance as can be for Cincinnati. As long as Eifert is healthy, they have a massive threat in the middle of the field and the endzone, an undoubted game-changer. When he does miss time though, the group would be lucky to be a net zero.

It appears Cincinnati is okay with running that risk for another season.

It won’t be a problem which breaks them, but it does limit their potential as an offense to having an injury-prone player find a way to not get hurt.

The Patriots can work that gamble, but even they will make necessary moves to limit the damage. They’ve had other tight ends in the past to pair with Gronk. They’ve made big (trading for Brandon Cooks) and small (recently signing former Bengal Andrew Hawkins) moves to formulate plans that don’t rely entirely on their tight end cog — and they will actually use them immediately as well as effectively.

The Bengals have yet again proven reluctant to make those type of moves to solve a clear and present problem, and given their history are likely to continue that pattern even with young additions to their receiving corps.

Next: 2017 NFL Power Rankings: First-wave OTAs edition

On its face, this tight end conundrum is a miniscule issue. When given the macro view of the team however, it shows you all you need to know about why they’ve capped out with mere playoff appearances and not true contention under Lewis. For their sake, hopefully Eifert holds up better than he’s so far shown he can; they are banking pretty heard on it being their reality in 2017.