For Brandon, It’s a Tight End Wasteland!

Out here in the fields
I fight for football unreal
I get my backs into my lineup
But I know it hurts
To play without Ertz
My draft day decisions need to be forgiven

Don’t cry
Don’t raze your eye (phone)
It’s only tight end wasteland

Tight end wasteland
It’s a freakin’ tight end wasteland
Tight end wasteland
Oh no, tight end wasteland
They’re all wasted!

Those of course are the original lyrics to The Who’s classic song, “Baba O’Riley.” It was only due to the relative obscurity of fantasy football in 1971, when the song was released, that the lyrics were eventually changed to “teenage wasteland.” Turns out Pete Townshend was a huge fantasy football player. Who knew?

And this season we are certainly mired in a tight end wasteland. Early injuries to several prominent TEs including Delanie Walker, Hunter Henry, Greg Olsen, Tyler Eifert, Evan Engram and others have led to guys like Will Dissly, Dallas Goedert and Fabricio Gelato actually being rostered by your fellow league mates. (Okay, I totally made that last one up, but the fact that you didn’t blink at a man named after Italian soft serve shows just how desperate things have gotten.)

In fact, the league average scoring for TEs is down 6% to just 6.2 ppg. And if we exclude the owners of Gronkowski, Kelce and Ertz, that average drops to 5.2. By comparison, that’s less than 62% of what kickers score. And believe me, if I could start a kicker in my TE spot, I would.

That’s because no team owner has been more wasted at the TE position than Brandon. The Who, as it turns out, would also make a great name for the group of TEs he’s started this season—David Njoku (1 point), Jack Doyle (2), Eric Ebron (3), Benjamin Watson (2) and Hayden Hurst (0). Not exactly a memorable bunch.

And after the fifth straight week of getting three or fewer points from the position, reportedly Brandon was seriously considering going Zero TE. That is to say, not starting a TE at all. I mean, what’s the point? Certainly a valuable bench spot spent on a flex player or backup QB is worth more for the rest of the season than the league-low 1.6 points he’s been getting from TEs. After all, only three games (out of 30) this season have been decided by a margin of three points or less. What’re the chances a TE would even make a difference? I guess technically 10%.

But luckily, cooler heads prevailed. And in a trade late Thursday night, Brandon sent Buccaneers WR Chris Godwin to Nick in exchange for Jordan Reed. For Brandon, it’s an attempt to emerge at last from his own personal tight end wasteland by rostering Reed, a TE who is averaging a whole 5.3 points this season (!), but has shown great ability in the past, leading the league in TE scoring in 2015 and 2016 in the weeks in which he played “full” games.

Of course, Reed has often not finished games and rarely, if ever, played full seasons, missing 28 of 80 regular season games in his career prior to 2018. Given that history, there’s a good chance Reed finds himself in the training room and Brandon back in the wasteland at some point this season.

For Nick, he’s set at TE, averaging 10.2 ppg from the position (2nd most in the league), having rostered the suddenly explosive Eric Ebron along with injured teammate Jack Doyle earlier this week. Ironically, it was Brandon who dropped Ebron just before he scored 10 and 22 points in Weeks 4 and 5. But such are the whims of the wasteland.

So in trading for Chris Godwin, Nick acquires a flex option with upside, one who is averaging 8.5 ppg for one of the most unexpectedly dynamic offenses of 2018. On a per-game basis, that ranks as WR27. And this week with Michael Thomas on bye, Nick is in need of a WR given that Courtland Sutton (3.8 ppg) is currently the best available option on his bench. Fortunately, Godwin has a plus matchup with the Falcons this week.

Meanwhile, the quest to escape from the fantasy desert continues. Will Jordan Reed lead Brandon out of the wasteland? Or will Brandon be doomed to wander the labyrinthian waiver wire in search of four measly points each and every week?

(The) Who knows?