It hasn’t been a fun start to the season for fantasy football managers who drafted Mark Andrews. The tight end position has been a wasteland across the board, but Andrews has been exceptionally problematic. What should fantasy managers do with the Baltimore Ravens TE going forward?
Should Fantasy Football Managers Trade Mark Andrews?
Andrews’ decline has been a fascinating one to watch. The longtime Ravens tight end has been top five at his position every year since his 2019 breakout. Prior to this season, he had never averaged fewer than 12.2 fantasy points per game (excluding his rookie year).
Andrews’ 2023 season was cut short due to injury, but prior to getting hurt, he was his usual elite self. He averaged 13.5 fantasy ppg, and that includes his final game of the regular season when he exited after just seven snaps.
Andrews is 29 years old, which isn’t old for a tight end. He easily should have had another 3-4 quality years left. It’s what makes his 2024 performance all the more shocking — there were absolutely no signs.
No "Open" data for Andrews for 2024 (yet) but as of <checks notes> 2023 he was still quite good. Elite TEs also tend to age well. pic.twitter.com/nVgFeguxdq
— John Paulsen (@4for4_John) September 30, 2024
Through four games, Andrews has six catches for 65 yards — a total of 12.5 fantasy points on the season! That’s supposed to be what he does on a weekly basis. In fact, six tight ends scored more than that in Week 4 alone.
The TE position is in the worst state of its entire existence in fantasy football, or at least for as long as I’ve been playing (22 years). A mere six tight ends are averaging 10+ fantasy points per game, with the current TE12 sitting at a stout 7.8 ppg.
If you can get a 3-40 performance out of your tight end, that’s a win. Yet, Andrews can’t even get close to that. So, what do fantasy managers do?
All players, even the most elite, have down games. The fact that Andrews opened the season with two underwhelming efforts was not reason enough to abandon him, but these last two weeks tell a much darker tale.
If it were as simple as Andrews not catching passes or not scoring touchdowns, that would be one thing. If it were him not being able to earn targets on his routes, that would be a pretty bad sign.
Somehow, it’s worse. Forget catching passes. Forget earning targets. Andrews isn’t even running routes. He doesn’t even have a chance to have a chance to produce.
This is not some sort of random freak occurrence. It’s a deliberate decision by John Harbaugh to diminish Andrews’ role.
In Weeks 1 and 2, things looked mostly normal. Andrews ran a total of 65 routes. He didn’t do much, but that could be chalked up to happenstance. Evidently, Harbaugh saw something in the Ravens’ 0-2 start that prompted a change in philosophy.
One of the main changes Harbaugh made was removing Andrews as an option in the passing game. In the past two weeks, Andrews has run a total of 16 routes. He’s seen exactly one target in each game, both of which he dropped.
The Ravens have scored 28 and 35 points in their last two games, respectively. What they are doing is working, and we have no reason to expect a change.
So, should fantasy managers trade Andrews? Sure…if you can get something for him. I featured Andrews on my Week 4 cut list. He can be dropped.
What Should Fantasy Managers Look To Acquire When Trading Andrews?
Andrews has name equity. We’ve seen this in the past. When it was clear guys like Adrian Peterson, Julio Jones, and Le’Veon Bell were done, fantasy managers wouldn’t accept it right away. Last year, Michael Thomas was still being drafted despite having not been relevant since 2020. This year, he’s out of the league.
It’s admittedly very challenging to believe Andrews went from a tight end to completely finished in a year at just 29 years old. But we see the games. We have the underlying data. This is a player who is seeing career lows, by a wide margin, in both snap share and routes run.
Roster spots are valuable in fantasy football. Andrews has burnt a hole in your lineup for at least three weeks (four if you were brazen enough to start him against the Bills). He’s done enough damage.
Yes, indeed, the replacement options are not exciting, but plenty of matchups are decided by five points or fewer.
Here are some tight ends available in more than 50% of Yahoo leagues: Tyler Conklin, Hunter Henry, Zach Ertz, Colby Parkinson, and Tucker Kraft. All of them have proven to be far more reliable than Andrews.
If you can trade Andrews for literally anything, you should. If not, feel free to drop him.