Ian Allan
Picking through the numbers (which is what I do a lot of at this time of year), I notice that tight ends have tended to be on the rise recently. They’re catching a lot more touchdowns now than they did 15-20 years ago.
Look at the chart below, which shows overall touchdown catches (league-wide) for the last 20 years. You’ll see that tight ends collectively caught 194 touchdowns last year, which is over twice as many as 20 years ago.
The number of teams has changed, of course, and more teams and games equals more touchdowns. But tight ends collectively caught over 27 percent of touchdown passes last year, the highest number of this 21-season time period. The old record for 26.3 percent, which was set just two years ago.
Of this sample set, in fact, five of the six most productive seasons for tight ends (at least in terms of tight ends scoring) have come in the last six years. The lone exception wasn’t too far back, when tight ends caught 24 percent of touchdowns in 2001.
Compare that to the numbers from back in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. In none of the first four seasons on this chart did tight ends catch more than 18 percent of touchdown passes. Big difference.
This doesn’t, however, mean that we should all start moving tight ends up our draft boards. It might mean the opposite. Fantasy football is a game of scarcity. And with so many productive tight ends out there, there are sure to be some good ones each year that are selected outside the first 10 rounds – or maybe not even selected at all.
TIGHT END SCORING, 1989-2009
League-wide numbers, with touchdown totals and percentage of league TD passes.
TD Pct Year
95 16.3% 1989
95 16.5% 1990
92 18.0% 1991
92 17.8% 1992
109 21.1% 1993
117 20.1% 1994
105 15.8% 1995
111 17.7% 1996
135 21.8% 1997
134 20.3% 1998
137 20.6% 1999
132 20.8% 2000
153 24.1% 2001
137 19.7% 2002
132 20.2% 2003
189 25.8% 2004
153 23.8% 2005
154 23.8% 2006
189 26.3% 2007
139 21.5% 2008
194 27.3% 2009
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