Pat Freiermuth can absolutely ball out for your fantasy team. As a rookie, he finished as the TE13. Last year, he was the TE7. But he has never taken that jump into the top five tight ends, in part because he just can't seem to command elite passing target numbers. He's had less than 100 targets in back-to-back years. However, when he does get them, he finds a way to reward fantasy managers.
In 2022, with rookie quarterback Kenny Pickett, Freiermuth was able to post top 15 fantasy numbers in nine of the 15 games he played in. But he didn't have a single top five week at the position. From an injury perspective, the interesting thing to note with Freiermuth isn't the MCL sprain that actually ended his season last year, but the fact that he's had three concussions in the last two seasons. Two of these concussions involved hits so bad that he couldn't stand afterwards.
Medically, that's concerning because we know that the research says that symptoms tend to last longer after each consecutive concussion. So, each concussion he has going forward, the symptoms could last even longer than the ones he has had in the past. If Freiermuth has another concussion next year, will he be at risk of missing a larger portion of the season than he did in the past? Possibly.
The problem is, the tight end position is so bad that you have to bet on his talent outweighing the risk of drafting him at his current ADP. I still have him on my draft list, and he's probably going to be my favorite tight end heading into next year. If you're waiting on the position, if you're trying to get the top elite guys, Pat Freiermuth is not going to be one that you're really targeting. But if you're looking for somebody who consistently gives you average to slightly above-average numbers, he's a guy that I'm targeting in that TE8 to TE12 range.
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