Fantasy Football: Top 6 rookie tight ends for 2020 season
By Drew DeLuca
2. Harrison Bryant, Florida Atlantic
Another small school prospect graces our list, as Harrison Bryant settles into the second spot our rankings on the heels of a 65-catch, 1,004-yard, seven-touchdown season, albeit against Group of Five competition. Oh, by the way, the Georgia native also won the 2019 John Mackey Award, given to the nation’s best tight end.
One of the better pass-catching tight ends in the draft, Bryant’s limited blocking skills may limit his deployment in his first NFL season. Nevertheless, the 6-5, 240-pounder has caught the attention of several analysts and scouts, including Sports Illustrated’s Shawn Childs, who rates Bryant as the top overall tight end in this year’s crop:
Harrison Bryant and Cole Kmet are the top prospects at the TE position entering the 2020 #NFLDraft. @Shawn__Childs discusses the strengths and flaws of each of the top five tight ends entering the NFL: https://t.co/ERRaXaSxiB
— SI Fantasy (@SI_Fantasy) March 27, 2020
Bryant boasted an insane 3.04 yards per route run, best of any tight end in this draft class. According to Scott Barrett of Pro Football Focus, this mark was also better than Dallas Goedert (2.94) and Mark Andrews (2.63) in 2017, as well as Evan Engram (2.59) in 2016, all of whom finished in the top two in that metric during those particular seasons. Barrett lays high praise on the Florida Atlantic Owl:
"According to our model, Bryant is the best small-school tight end prospect to come out since at least 2015. He ranks just slightly ahead of Dallas Goedert in that regard."
Bryant shows great promise, and his dominator rating of 25 percent was one of college football’s highest at the tight end position. Don’t expect a breakout rookie season, however, as he needs to improve his catch consistency and improve blocking deficiencies before he can regularly play in-line.