Cincinnati Bengals: How big of a fantasy asset is Tyler Eifert?

Fantasy football owners who took the advice that Cincinnati Bengals tight end Tyler Eifert would be one of the 2015 season’s breakout stars were rewarded to a 13-touchdown campaign from the former Notre Dame star.

Tyler Eifert was just third on the Cincinnati Bengals in targets and only had three more receptions than running back Giovani Bernard, but because he scored on exactly 25% of his receptions, he brought the goods for fantasy owners. Eifert finished 2015 as the sixth-highest scoring tight end in fantasy, and this came despite the fact that he missed three games.

In his third NFL season, Eifert was as efficient as they come. An important big target for MVP candidate Andy Dalton, Eifert caught about 70% of what was thrown at him, churning out exactly one touchdown per appearance. At this rate, New England Patriots future Hall of Famer Rob Gronkowski might be the only more prolific scoring tight end than Eifert, who knows exactly how to use his 6’6″, 250-pound frame.

Staying healthy has been Eifert’s biggest problem, because after missing essentially the entire 2014 season, he dealt with a concussion and also had a minor knee injury. Neither of those are huge issues for fantasy owners in 2016 (a concussion is obviously a huge long-term issue for the player, though), because many players miss three games in a season.

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Of greater concern is Eifert’s ankle injury, and former NFL head team physician David J. Chao tweeted that the type of surgery the Bengals TE underwent usually takes three or four months to recover from.

While that could be enough to ensure that Eifert doesn’t miss any games, will this be a lingering issue this year? Will the Bengals prefer to ease him into things at the beginning of the season to avoid a let-down later on in the year? Will his role be restricted at first to third downs and red zone opportunities?

These are all the questions that increase Eifert’s risk and put a damper on his upside. Because the fact is, Eifert is in an excellent situation. Yes, the Bengals figure to run the ball plenty with Jeremy Hill and recently-extended back Bernard as the 1-2 punch, but the losses of Marvin Jones and Mohamed Sanu in free agency leave plenty of targets on the table.

November 22, 2015; Glendale, AZ, USA; Cincinnati Bengals tight end Tyler Eifert (85) catches a touchdown pass during the fourth quarter against the Arizona Cardinals at University of Phoenix Stadium. The Cardinals defeated the Bengals 34-31. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports /

Tyler Boyd seems pro-ready and Brandon LaFell is better than what he showed last season, but both players are downgrades on Jones and Sanu. Jones, in particular, is a loss worth highlighting, because he had 103 targets last season and has the fluidity and athletic profile to break out in a bigger role with the Detroit Lions.

The expectation is for A.J. Green to approach the lofty 150-170 target totals of years past on offenses that had less pronounced pass-catching depth than the Bengals did in 2015.

Eifert averaged four receptions per game last year, and that’s a number that will likely need to increase in order for him to live up to his ADP. According to Fantasy Pros, Eifert is the fourth TE off the board behind Rob Gronkowski, Jordan Reed, and Greg Olsen.

There’s no debating that Gronk and Olsen belong above Eifert, but Reed vs. Eifert is an argument worth having. While Reed’s injury concerns are even graver and his situation on offense is more crowded, he’s also the better player. Moreover, Reed isn’t as touchdown-dependent as Eifert, and while the former first-round pick has the talent to amass double-digit TDs again, is a league-high TD rate of 25% replicable?

Probably not. This makes the fact that he’s taken off boards ahead of Delanie Walker and Travis Kelce interesting, because both of those players seem safer. They have less injury concerns, they’ve had more than just one season of high production in the NFL, and they are also one of the top two targets on their respective teams.

Last season, both Walker and Kelce had more yards per game than Eifert, and they combined for 31 appearances. So if Eifert is averaging less yards per game and playing in less games, where does that leave him?

He will have more targets than the 74 Dalton set his way in 2015, but Walker and Zach Ertz were the only top TEs he beat in yards per target last season. Gronk, Olsen, Reed, Kelce, and Gary Barnidge all beat him in that department, even though Eifert’s 8.31 yards per target were more than respectable.

Then, you have to account for some of the younger tight ends lurking in the background. Coby Fleener and Ladarius Green will have more competition for targets, but they are in more explosive offenses with better and much more aggressive QBs. Zach Ertz clearly doesn’t have a QB advantage, but Eifert’s old draft class buddy is the best pass-catcher on the Philadelphia Eagles.

Eifert is an excellent red zone TE who excels in the short-field game, but his injury concerns trouble me. 100 targets is within reach, but eight tight ends, including all of the ones mentioned in this article besides Green and Fleener, surpassed 100 looks in 2015.

He’s a great player whom I owned in fantasy last year after touting in the previous offseason, but now that the cat’s out of the bag, he appears to be overvalued in the early summer months, though it is not egregiously so.

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