Jacksonville Jaguars tight end Evan Engram has revived his once floundering career playing with Trevor Lawrence. The question now is whether Engram can maintain his rock-solid TE1 status despite the increased target competition. Should fantasy football managers draft Engram at his ADP this season?
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Evan Engram’s Fantasy Outlook for the 2023 NFL Season
It has been a rocky road for Engram so far throughout his career. He burst onto the scene as a rookie with one of the best rookie fantasy seasons of all time. Engram was the outlier who was fantasy-relevant right away, averaging 11.6 PPR fantasy points per game.
Over the next two years, Engram struggled to stay on the field. While some pegged him as injury-prone, this was a rare case where the injuries were mostly his own doing. He was just careless with his body, taking unnecessary chances that resulted in injury.
Engram was able to stay healthy throughout the entirety of the 2020 season but was quite unproductive. After an even worse season in 2021, the Giants decided to let him go.
A fresh start in Jacksonville was exactly what Engram needed. While he didn’t reach the level of performance of his first three seasons, he did post his first TE1 season since 2019, averaging 10.4 ppg. Engram played all 17 games and registered a career-high 73 receptions for 766 yards.
The interesting part of Engram’s rebound was he did it on just a 17.1% target share. That bodes very well for Engram’s chances of maintaining TE1 fantasy value on an offense that still features Christian Kirk, Zay Jones, and added Calvin Ridley.
Despite a surplus of weapons, the Jaguars’ offense with Trevor Lawrence should remain quite efficient. Last season, they had a 57% neutral game script pass rate. It wouldn’t shock me if that ticked up a few percentage points this season, given all their improvements to the passing game.
Is Engram a Good Fantasy Pick?
Engram has a fair ADP of TE8, No. 78 overall. That is exactly where I have him ranked and exactly where we have him in our PFN consensus rankings.
With that said, I probably won’t be drafting much of Engram this season. He’s not a bad pick at cost, though. This is a philosophical thing.
Middle-round tight ends are historically bad investments. That’s not to say Engram will bust. In fact, I don’t think he will. Rather, he will be just…fine. And fine doesn’t move the needle.
MORE: Fantasy Football Draft Strategy
If Engram gets us another 10-11 ppg, that’s perfectly serviceable as a TE1 in fantasy. However, you can get 9-10 ppg streaming the position. Where Engram goes, I’d just rather take a shot on a running back or wide receiver.
My strategy at tight end is Travis Kelce or punt, with the lone exception being if Darren Waller falls to me in the sixth or seventh round. Engram, and guys like Engram, just don’t fit the strategy. He’s more floor than ceiling.
