Fantasy Football Rankings 2021: Top 5 rookie tight ends
By Drew DeLuca
4. Pat Friermuth Pittsburgh Steelers
Friermuth makes the 2.5-hour drive from State College to Pittsburgh after being selected by the Steelers with the 55th overall pick in Round 2. Fittingly so as the Penn State product is a Heath Miller clone who’s a jack-of-all-trades, master of none.
Friermuth is not an especially bullish blocker, but he’s adequate enough to line up as a conventional tight end, which plays well in Pittsburgh. Not especially fast or twitchy, he won’t be relied upon to create separation, but he will find plenty of seams created by the presence of three gifted wide receivers: Chase Claypool, Diontae Johnson, and JuJu Smith-Schuster.
Friermuth will be a solid NFL player, and he’s a safe pick for dynasty leaguers in need of a set-it-and-forget-it depth at the position. However, we’re deviating from the consensus, which views him as the TE2 in this class.
We see his path to fantasy relevance is blocked by the steady Eric Ebron in the short run. More importantly, while Friermuth’s long-term floor is high, we don’t think he offers the upside of the three players above him in our rankings.