Hunter Henry is the Next Great Fantasy Tight End

Photo: USA Today Sports

Why Buy High?

Travis Kelce will be gone by the end of the second round in 90% of 12-team drafts, and Zach Ertz and George Kittle will follow suit by the end of the third round. Kelce stands alone, and his ADP is entirely justifiable. Ertz and Kittle's ADPs, on the other hand, are both understandable and misguided. Both players earned their respective draft positions by providing a substantial weekly edge over every (non-Kelce) tight end in 2018. But Ertz and Kittle didn’t appear on so many championship rosters last year based on raw production alone.

Ertz was usually a fourth-or-fifth-round pick, while Kittle had a 12th-round ADP last August. Their bargain prices allowed fantasy managers the opportunity to surround their stud tight ends with elite running backs and wide receivers in the early rounds of drafts.

This year, however, drafting Ertz likely means missing out on foundational wide receivers like A.J. Green or T.Y. Hilton, while taking Kittle squanders an opportunity to pick potential stud running backs including Derrick Henry and Marlon Mack. Instead of drafting Ertz and Kittle at their respective ceilings headed into this season, shouldn’t we be looking to replicate the roster construction that worked so well for their fantasy managers last year?

It’s unlikely we’ll see another tight end of Kittle’s magnitude emerge in the late rounds (we tried to identify some for you here anyway), but there is a way to invest your early draft capital in running backs and wide receivers and still come away with top-3 tight end production this year.

The key is to prioritize drafting Hunter Henry

• Before tearing his ACL last May, Henry was on a rare career trajectory
• Antonio Gates is finally out of his way
• Both Philip Rivers and offensive coordinator Ken Whisenhunt are accustomed to leaning on tight ends in the passing game
• Henry is a bonafide touchdown-maker

How Soon We Forget

Barely over a year ago, many in the industry were anointing Henry the next great fantasy tight end. In the days leading up to the ACL tear, his ADP swelled to TE4 in 2018 CBS leagues. While Henry remains well-regarded by the fantasy community, as evidenced by his sixth-round ADP in early 2019 drafts (TE6), predictions of a breakout season have yet to pick up the same steam.

When the season begins, Henry will be 15 months removed from ACL surgery, which is more than enough time to make a full recovery (he even appeared in LA’s Divisional Round loss to New England last year). So why isn’t the prevailing opinion that he’ll make the leap into the top tier of tight ends?

There’s only one logical answer -- people forget how good he is.

Here is the entire list of tight ends since 2000 to accumulate at least 250 PPR fantasy points in their first two seasons, before turning 24-years old:

Some takeaways:

• Henry appears in the same cohort as four of the best athletes to ever play the position (and Jermaine Gresham) despite receiving 60 fewer targets than any of them.
• If we extrapolate Henry’s rate stats over 175 targets instead of the 115 he received, the resulting 337.8 fantasy points would have placed him behind only Gronkowski and Hernandez.
• An unsustainable touchdown rate played a major role in his extreme efficiency, but Henry’s production was not strictly touchdown dependent. His 9.19 yards per target is more than any player listed besides Gronkowski.
• Henry’s elite per-target efficiency is supported by Pro Football Focus’ yards per route run metric. Since entering the league in 2016, his 2.0 yards per route run ranks fourth among relevant tight ends.

In short, good things happen when the ball gets thrown Henry’s way. And for the first time in his career, he should earn a target share commensurate with his talent.

Open the (Flood) Gates

Henry played on 53.7% of the Chargers’ offensive snaps in 2016 and 56.2% in 2017. His path to a full-time role was blocked by Antonio Gates -- the second-highest scoring fantasy tight end in league history. Even with his per-snap efficiency and Gates’ advancing age, Henry faced more of an uphill climb to regular playing time than most second-round draft picks.

As of this writing, Gates is no longer on the roster. And after watching him labor on 36% of LA’s offensive snaps last season, he’s no longer a threat to Henry’s playing time, even if he re-signs during training camp for one last chance at a Super Bowl. Gates only leaves behind 46 targets from a season ago, but there is enough opportunity in the Chargers’ offense for Henry to at least double that amount this season.

Tyrell Williams’ departure in free agency vacates another 64 targets from 2018. A significant portion of those, particularly the downfield throws, are earmarked for Mike Williams. But somewhat surprisingly, about 40% of Tyrell Williams’ targets came on slot routes last season, a position we can expect Henry to operate from on about 65% of his snaps if offensive coordinator Ken Whisenhunt’s tendencies can be trusted. Whisenhunt lined up Gates in the slot on 63% of LA’s snaps in each of his past two seasons since returning as Chargers offensive coordinator.

If we only project Henry to soak up the opportunities left behind by Gates and Williams (on slot routes only), as well as about half of the 27 targets that went to Virgil Green last year, we’re already hovering around 90 targets -- a benchmark cleared by only six tight ends in 2018. But a safe target floor is only the beginning for Henry.

Elite Upside

While it’s unlikely Henry will continue to score on more than 10% of his targets, we can count on him as Philip Rivers’ go-to option inside the red zone this season, which puts double-digit touchdowns well within his range of possible outcomes. Henry was knocked in the pre-draft process for having short arms and being more of a finesse player than a contested-catch specialist, making his career-to-date red zone production all the more remarkable.

He still ranks eighth in total tight end red zone touchdowns since 2016, despite missing the entire 2018 season.

And he did it while competing for targets with Gates, who led the Chargers with an elite 20% red zone target market share over the same span.

Just be careful not to confuse Henry with a touchdown-dependent fantasy option like Eric Ebron or Kyle Rudolph. Whereas those tight ends are forced to fight for scraps in crowded offenses, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Henry finish second on LA in targets this season, behind Keenan Allen.

Since 2004 (Rivers’ rookie year), only three teams have targeted the tight end position more than the Chargers. Of course, it helped to have Gates -- a future Hall of Famer -- on the roster commanding those targets the entire time. But Henry is a former second-round pick whose career couldn’t have gotten off to a much better start. He’s also one of the smoothest route runners in the league at the position and should benefit from Whisenhunt’s play-calling.

Prior to last year, when he was forced to platoon Green with the dried out husk of Gates, Whisenhunt’s teams finished Top 5 in tight end fantasy scoring in three of the previous five seasons and targeted tight ends on at least 25% of team pass attempts in four out of the last five:

Since Whisenhunt’s return in 2016, the Chargers have averaged 564 pass attempts per season, giving us a rough idea of the size of the offensive pie in LA. If we assume target shares for Keenan Allen, Melvin Gordon, Austin Ekeler, and Travis Benjamin remain static, and Mike Williams jumps from 13% to 17% (which isn’t far removed from David Dodds’ current projection), there’s still 28% left over.

When guys like Green, Justin Jackson, and Artavis Scott are done fighting for crumbs, it’s not unreasonable to project Henry for a 22% share of the targets, which works out to about 125 for the season -- an amount eclipsed by only Ertz, Kelce, and Kittle in 2018.

PROJECTIONS

Final Thoughts

Henry tearing his ACL in mini-camp last year was as devastating for the Chargers as it was for fantasy gamers. The silver lining, for those savvy enough to draft him this year, is that unlike the tight ends being drafted in front of him, he remains priced to turn a profit at his current ADP.

Before the injury, Henry was a consensus favorite to make the leap into the top tier of tight ends. His efficiency stats were near-historic in his first two seasons, Gates likely wasn’t going to be asked back, and the Chargers offense provided fertile grounds for fantasy scoring. Entering this season, every one of those statements remains true, except we get to enjoy a two-round ADP discount since he’s been out of sight for so long.

It pays to have a long memory in fantasy sports -- in Henry’s case, for more reasons than one. Not only should we remember how great he was in his first two seasons, but it was only last year Ertz and Kittle illustrated how drafting an eventual top-3 tight end after securing top running backs and wide receivers with your premium picks, can pave the way to a championship season. Henry has the talent, and finally the opportunity, to make a similar fantasy impact this season.

Other Thoughts From Around The Web

Jennifer Eakins of SI.com also feels Henry is a great target in the second tier of tight ends:

"He’s a solid playmaker in an offense that, over the last three seasons, has ranked 10th in total offense on average. With ample opportunity to produce, especially in the red zone, Henry could be your guy for those not wanting to punt, but also unwilling or unable to secure the services of Kelce, Ertz or Kittle."

David Latham of Last Word on Pro Football sees Henry as riskier:

"Grabbing Henry in the sixth means passing on significantly safer players. Henry has the potential to justify this selection, but the fact he’s coming off a knee injury and has never truly been a TE1 means that he comes with quite a bit of risk."

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