Fantasy Football 2019: No top tier tight end? No problem!
By Joe Metz
Fantasy Football: Evan Engram | New York Giants
It’s not all that often that you have a pass-catcher shooting up the depth chart before the preseason even starts, but with the Giants’ receiving core in shambles, we could see Evan Engram explode to kick off the 2019 season.
He had a solid sophomore season in 2018 while still playing second, third, or even fourth fiddle behind Odell Beckham Jr., Saquon Barkley, and Sterling Shepard, finishing as a top-10 tight end in roughly half of the games he played last season (45%). On top of that, he ranked 7th among tight ends in yards per game (52.5) and 8th in receptions of 20+ yards (8).
Now, without OBJ in the picture, that opens up 22.05% of the Giants targets from 2018 to be spread around.
The addition of Golden Tate was meant to fill that void, but with a 4-game suspension looming, the ACL injury to Corey Coleman, and a hand injury to Sterling Shepard that could potentially shelf him for Week 1, it’s looking more and more likely that Engram could see a similar season to that of 2017.
In that specific season, he saw 115 targets with Beckham Jr. and Brandon Marshall were on the shelf, which would be almost double what he saw in 2018 (64).
Taking the targets one step further, Beckham garnered 24.7% of the red-zone targets in New York, while Engram only accounted for 8.2% in 2018. In the same 2017 season mentioned above, Engram was 2nd on the team in target share in the red zone (18.87%), behind only Sterling Shepard.
Engram has been in a position before when he’s been asked to fill a void and produced. With two years under his belt, Odell Beckham Jr. gone, and a plethora of injuries/suspensions among the wide receivers in New York, he carries top-5, even top-3 tight end potential into 2019.