Bold Prediction: Mark Andrews is the new TE1

This is probably not a shocker, but I'm a HUGE NERD 🤓 of NFL football. However, I'm not as big on college football. I watch the college football playoffs and the National Championship Game, but I'm not vested in it all year. A friend of mine however is. He's obsessed with it. I get a lot of my rookie insights from him. One of those guys a few years ago was Oklahoma Tight End Mark Andrews. My friend texted me something to the effect of "He's going to be the next Travis Kelce." So, based on that advice I drafted him in my dynasty league. Needless to say, I owe my friend a few beers.

Recently I was looking at trading Andrews because on that dynasty roster I already have Zach Ertz and Dallas Goedert. However, after digging more into Andrews' 2019 season, he's likely NOT going anywhere.

Andrews finished 2019 as the TE5 in both total points and points per game in PPR. According to Player Profiler He ranked Top 5 in:

• TARGETS
• DEEP TARGETS
• TARGET SHARE
• RECEIVING YARDS
• COMPLETED AIR YARDS
• TOUCHDOWNS
• FANTASY POINTS PER GAME
• YARDS PER RECEPTION
• YARDS PER PASS ROUTE
• TOTAL TARGET DISTANCE
• AVERAGE TARGET DISTANCE
• FANTASY POINTS PER PASS ROUTE

He was all around amazing in 2019 despite only being 23 years old. And the most amazing part, he did all of that playing on only 43% of the offensive plays. Let that sink in. In less than half the offensive plays, Andrews was able to finish top 5 or close to it in almost every meaningful tight end stat there is. His snap share ranked 67th at the position. Travis Kelce, Darren Waller and Zach Ertz all played in over 90% of their team's snaps. He wasn't even on the field as much as his teammate Nick Boyle (67% snap share). He ranked 38th at the position in total offensive plays. Kelce's 981 offensive snaps was 514 more than Andrew's 467.

Looking ahead to 2020, the biggest change is that Baltimore traded away its former 1st round pick, tight end Hayden Hurst. That's huge. Hurst played exactly 1 less snap in 2019 than Andrews. With Hurst now in Atlanta you have to think Baltimore will put replace the majority of those snaps with Andrews. Along with that, it will be difficult for Baltimore to be as dominant in the run game as they were in 2019. The Raven's ranked dead last in pass plays per game because the team was so good running the football. They will still be good, but teams will now have an entire season of film on Lamar Jackson and the Ravens will be forced to pass more. That's a guarantee. Combine the added pass attempts with the added snaps and it's easy to see a path for Andrews finishing as the Top tight end in 2020. Given he is being drafted roughly two rounds after Kelce and Kittle, he's a player that can be targeted at a discount with similar elite potential.