We are less than a month away from the start of the 2020 NFL season. With that being said, fantasy drafts are aplenty currently as fans are ready to finally watch some football and play against friends and family to potentially win their fantasy leagues. During your fantasy drafts, some players will elect to take a tight end early, while others tend to lean on high-upside players. I will be taking the latter half approach in this article and will be talking about Miami’s Mike Gesicki, who is currently being selected as the TE15 and 123rd player overall according to the Fantasy Pros PPR ADP.
Gesicki finished 2019 as the TE12 and was the TE6 from week 13 on last year. After week nine, he only had one game where he had five or fewer targets which came in week 14 against the Jets where he had five. On the season he had 89 targets which average out to about five and a half per game. He had 51 catches on the season for 570 yards, and five touchdowns, which all came after week nine. If you use his average PPG from week 12 on last year and put it to a full 16-game slate, he would’ve come in as the TE9.
Another key factor in Gesicki’s production is that Miami didn’t add any receivers early in the draft and are relying on Gesicki, DeVante Parker, Preston Williams, and a bunch of unknowns as pass catchers out wide. Both Albert Wilson and Allen Hurns have opted out for this year due to Covid-19, opening up 109 targets from those two alone. Gesicki will likely be the third option at worst this year in the passing attack. He will be on the field more this year than ever in his short career and has even been rumored to play in the slot more this year as well.
Along with that, the Dolphins aren’t very good as I ranked them dead last in my power rankings for this year. This means that whoever is at quarterback, be it Ryan Fitzpatrick or Tua Tagovailoa, will be throwing a ton, opening up even more targets for Gesicki. He showed last year towards the end of the season that he had good chemistry with Fitzpatrick and a tight end is always a rookie quarterback’s best friend.
At his current draft position, which is in the 12th round, and being the 15th tight end drafted, Gesicki could far outplay that selection. He is currently being selected after the likes of Austin Hooper, Noah Fant, and T.J. Hockenson, who all don’t have the upside that Gesicki currently has. Gesicki has the chance to truly be a breakout for fantasy purposes, similar to George Kittle in 2018 and Mark Andrews last year, and could be found as a late-round steal in most fantasy drafts as a starting-caliber tight end.
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