Fantasy Football: Fallout from Andrew Luck retirement

Tight End

Eric Ebron and Jack Doyle: More attention is suddenly being paid to Jack Doyle’s 2017 season, in which he caught 80 of 108 targets. However, Eric Ebron was not a member of the Colts in 2017. Truthers of each will continue Twitter battles to the death in order to extol the virtues of their favorites, but the simple fact remains: they will limit each other’s upside in 2019.

Doyle and Ebron are worth stashing in most leagues with adequate bench depth; in the event of an injury to one, the other instantly becomes a Top Ten tight end. Both have proven the ability to perform at that level given that opportunity. Fantasy football owners who aim stream the tight end position every week could do much worse.

Overall Rankings: Ebron: TE17 – Doyle: TE18

Kicker

Adam Vinatieri: Don’t expect Top Five numbers, but sure: go ahead and take him if your league sadly requires you to draft kickers. The Colts should still move chains, but they likely won’t be as inefficient in the red zone, yielding more field goal opportunities for the only NFL player who was alive during the Nixon administration.

Defense/Special Teams

Some IDP values will likely rise a bit due to a greater volume of plays and tackles that the Colts’ defense will need to make, but the unit as a whole slides down a bit. I had penciled the Colts in as a Top Ten defense on the rise, but the unit now becomes a streaming option at best; teams won’t have to play from behind quite as much and will take fewer risks resulting in turnovers.

The Colts are no longer a Super Bowl front-runner, nor do they remain my favorites to win the AFC South. However, if Nick Foles and the Philadelphia Eagles taught us anything over the past two seasons, it’s that Colts fans shouldn’t board up the barn before the season even starts. Fantasy football owners need to remember that this team has enough talent to make a playoff push, with or without Andrew Luck.