Best Early-Season TE Matchups - Fantasy Football Strength of Schedule Analysis

The fantasy TE position can be a tough nut to crack once you miss out on the elite options. We need all the help we can get when choosing the best action plan for our middle and later-round TEs.

We may be witnessing a changing of the guard with a highly talented young crop of TEs entering the NFL over the last few years. History shows us that the chances are low for rookie and second-year TEs to make a lot of fantasy football noise, but it is starting to occur more frequently. Kyle Pitts went over a thousand yards in his first season and Trey McBride ascended into the elite group in his second year. Then Sam LaPorta dominated the fantasy landscape as a rookie in 2023.

The number of potentially fantasy-relevant TEs has ticked upward due to this as another strong TE class enters the NFL in 2024. Now, I'm not here to tell you to draft Commanders' rookie TE Ben Sinnott as your only TE in redraft formats. But, grabbing one of these ultra-athletic rookies (or second-year guys) late as a stash is not the pipe dream it once was. Especially if any of them have a TE-fantasy-friendly schedule.

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Projected Strength of Schedule (SOS) Process

In this article, I will present my projected strength of schedule for the fantasy TE position, with a focus on the early part of the season (Weeks 1-4) and the middle time frame that follows (Weeks 5-9). The first edition of this series looked at the RB position.

A player’s strength of schedule should not be the sole reason you choose to draft or not draft that player. But it should be a piece of the puzzle. It can be a good tiebreaker if you are deciding between two players. If you are on the fence about a certain player at a given draft value, a brutal opening schedule should at least be factored into your decision.

By projecting matchup difficulties now and also breaking the season down into different time frames (e.g., early, middle, late, and fantasy playoffs), it also allows you to strategize for potential trade attempts. Suppose a player has a favorable early season schedule followed by a brutal later season schedule. In that case, you might be able to reap the rewards of both the fantasy points and the subsequent value increase, then trade that player for a better later season schedule and vice versa.

You can keep your eyes on a talented player who underwhelms through a tough early season schedule and make a play for them before their schedule opens up. To that end, a new addition to this year’s article will be the inclusion of a closer look at Weeks 5-9 ("Middle Season"), rather than just being displayed in the full-season color-coded chart.

We’ll start by looking at my season-long projections including some insight into my process and what data I use to project the strength of schedule. Then we’ll look closer at early season SOS (top 10 easiest and top 10 hardest in Weeks 1-4) as well as middle season SOS (top 10 easiest and top 10 hardest in Weeks 5-9) for fantasy TEs.

Fantasy matchups are something I’ve spent a lot of time on over the last three years. During the season I compile game log data for every game to arrive at raw fantasy points allowed to each position as soon as possible each week. The goal is to have the results available before waivers so matchup strength can be factored into those decisions.

Plenty of sites provide fantasy points allowed data. I choose to do it myself so I can rearrange and reorganize in ways I think are helpful. Raw points allowed are helpful but don’t tell the full story. It’s important to dig a little deeper and look at points allowed relative to an opponent’s average.

For example, if Team A gives up 14 fantasy points to Sam LaPorta and Team B gives up the same number of points to Cole Kmet, raw fantasy points allowed would show Team A and B having the same matchup difficulty versus TEs. Using “Points Over Average (POA)” paints a more accurate picture.

Let’s say LaPorta has averaged 15 points per game and Kmet has averaged nine points per game. Using POA, Team A held LaPorta one point under his average (a POA of -1) while Team B allowed Kmet to score five points above his average (a POA of +5). Through this lens, these two teams are far from an equal matchup difficulty. This turns raw fantasy points allowed to an “opponent-adjusted” fantasy points allowed.

The other angle I add once the weeks add up is recency. A team’s season-long average points allowed can look different than over a more recent stretch of games. Defenses improve or regress for a variety of reasons. Players get injured or return from injury, coaches adjust their schemes and game plans (on both sides of the ball), and, more qualitatively, players and teams “figure it out.” Neither season-long nor recent data sets are definitive, but it’s important to look at both when trying to increase the probability of making the right future decisions.

These are the two existing data sets in my process for preseason projections of fantasy strength of schedule:

1. Previous season POA rank (season-long).
2. Previous season POA over the team’s last five games (excluding Week 18).

Stopping there doesn’t account for the impact of changes made during the off-season. If we could simply use previous season results to predict what will happen the next season, fantasy football would be a lot easier (and less fun). For the future prediction piece of the process, I use Pro Football Focus (PFF) grades for team defensive lines, linebackers, and secondaries. These grades are added to the equation in the following way:

• Versus QB: Defensive line and secondary grades.
• Versus RB: Defensive line and linebacker grades.
• Versus WRs: Secondary grades.
• Versus TE: Linebacker and secondary grades.

2024 Season-Long Fantasy SOS

I generated tables showing each team’s full season schedule with each weekly opponent color-coded based on that opponent’s projected rank (1-32) versus the fantasy RB position. Lower number ranks with a red color indicate more difficult fantasy matchups. Higher number ranks with a green color represent easier matchups. Also known as schedule “heat maps,” the full season schedule for RBs is included at the end of the article.

Also included are each team’s season-long SOS, which is the average of their opponents’ ranks in Weeks 1-17.

As described above, the projected ranks are based on:

• 2023 POA season-long rank
• 2023 POA rank over the team’s last five games (Weeks 13-17)
• 2024 PFF grades for defensive lines, linebackers, and secondaries
  • In this article, for TEs, it will be linebacker and secondary grades

Softest Early Season Schedules – Process

In separating the full season into “early, middle, and late” time frames, I define each as follows:

• Early Season: Week 1-4
• Middle-Season: Weeks 5-9
• Late Season: Weeks 10-14
• Fantasy Playoffs: Weeks 15-17

In this article, I will be looking at the Early and Middle Season schedules and the teams with the Top 10 easiest fantasy matchups for TEs. I will look closer at Late Season and Fantasy Playoffs in a future article.

My process for determining the Top 10 easiest Early Season schedules for each team’s TE group is the same as season-long. I average the opponents' ranks in Weeks 1-4 for each team, and the ten highest averages comprise the Top 10.

When I wrote this article during the 2023 off-season, I introduced what I call “Top-Heavy” schedules. Some of the “easy schedules” that are initially determined by average projected rank tend to include an additional top-heavy characteristic:

1. Top-Heavy schedule: A mixture of bottom-ranked opponents with one Top 10 matchup. This could also be called “Extreme Matchups.” In this scenario, there may be one week where you are hesitant or at least need to curb expectations, but outside of that, the probability of ceiling games for your fantasy players on those teams is higher. I developed a formula for determining Top-Heavy schedules. I remove each team’s most difficult matchup from the average rank. I then averaged the remaining three ranks. From there I added the difference between 32 (easiest rank) and the new average of the team’s three easiest ranks. This is then filtered from highest to lowest to show the Top-Heavy SOS score and rank. The purpose here is to remove the impact of the one difficult matchup on the overall average while also accounting for just how easy the easier matchups are. The bigger the difference between 32 and the average of the team’s easiest three matchups, the lower the score, because that difference is being subtracted.

The reason I chose to look at this particular breakdown was to determine if there is a significant deviation from the score arrived at by simply averaging the ranks of the first four opponents. I know we cannot simply ignore difficult matchups, but I would rather take my potential lumps with one brutal matchup if it means the chances are higher that the other three opponents could be week-winning matchups. The results? The order the teams fall in using the Top-Heavy SOS score is very close to the order generated by averaging the rank of the first four opponents, with some notable exceptions.

Soft Early Season Schedules – TEs

The following chart shows the teams with the projected Top 10 easiest Early Season schedules for fantasy TEs, along with the rest of the teams from 11 to 32.

The following chart shows each Top 10 team’s matchup rank (color-coded) in Weeks 1 through 4, followed by the average rank and Top-Heavy score.

Once again, the Steelers check in with the softest early Season schedule for fantasy TEs. A welcome sight for those of us rostering and drafting Pat Freiermuth and hoping to see something closer to his 2022 season, in which he earned 98 targets and accumulated 732 receiving yards. With Arthur Smith calling the offense in Pittsburgh, Freiermuth has a chance to be heavily involved early, regardless of who the Steelers end up starting at QB, especially if Pittsburgh loses out on the Brandon Aiyuk sweepstakes.

Here’s my top 5 TEs Finishers in 2024
•LaPorta
•McBride
•Kelce
•Engram
•Andrews
(Kittle and Frieirmuth at 6 and 7)👀👀#TSAFam⚡️ https://t.co/GtNj96dQCC

— JC (@JCMoneyDesign) August 18, 2024

While Pittsburgh has the easiest First 4 SOS for TEs, it is the Lions who have the best Top-Heavy SOS. Detroit faces the 13^th-ranked Seahawks in Week 4, but Weeks 1-3 include the 31^st-ranked Rams, 25^th-ranked Buccaneers, and 32^nd-ranked Cardinals. Sam LaPorta is my TE1 in both redraft and dynasty formats.

The Packers’ Luke Musgrave saw his rookie season cut short due to injury, causing him to miss Weeks 12-17. Before the injury, Musgrave was having a solid rookie campaign for a TE. Outside of Week 4 (where he saw only one target and 25% of the offensive snaps), Musgrave’s snap share was in the 70% range and he had seven games with at least four targets. He comes into 2024 healthy, and although the pass catchers’ room is crowded in Green Bay, their sixth-ranked Early Season TE schedule makes him a sneaky-good later-round TE target.

Luke Musgrave has all the tools to become this year’s breakout tight end

Are you drafting him?@a_johnsonFF pic.twitter.com/yCssGtzuFl

— Yards Per Fantasy (@YardsPer) August 19, 2024

Here are the Top 10 toughest Early Season schedules for the fantasy TE position.

This group of 10 teams includes a few top-option TEs, but also plenty of players who may go undrafted outside of TE Premium redraft leagues. The Ravens add another position group with the toughest early season schedule, but there is nothing to talk about here.

Injury cost Mark Andrews a full season’s workload in 2023, leaving a sour taste in the mouth of those who spent a high draft pick on him. But, he still averaged six targets, 54 receiving yards, and almost a TD per game, finishing in a tie with Evan Engram as the TE4 in PPR points per game (PPG). And if you choose to draft him anywhere in the vicinity of his ADP, he is an auto-start every week. Plus, the Ravens' schedule jumps to the other, much better Top 10 list for the middle season.

Mark Andrews

Only Travis Kelce and TJ Hockenson were better than Andrews last season when he was healthy Weeks 2-10.

Andrews is less risky than Kelce this year.

LaPorta and McBride are not the number one targets in their offense.

MUST draft in Round 4.pic.twitter.com/eP3dfb7bwq

— Joe Orrico (@NoExpertFF) August 5, 2024

My bigger concern here is the Cowboys’ Jake Ferguson. Ferguson turned in a solid season in 2023 with 762 yards and five TDs on 102 targets, finishing as the TE10. But the Cowboys come out of the gate with three consecutive Top 10 toughest matchups for fantasy TEs.

Hunter Henry will be the top TE option in New England again this year, and he always carries TD upside in his pocket. And the Patriots get a decent TE matchup in Week 1 against the 19^th-ranked Bengals. But their TE matchup strength goes downhill drastically after that, with the 13^th-ranked Seahawks, fifth-ranked Jets (on the road), and top-ranked 49ers (also on the road). Add in the likelihood of a rookie slinging the rock, and Henry is not even a good TE-streaming option early on if you choose to stream the position.

The following chart shows each team’s matchup rank (color-coded) for fantasy RBs in Weeks 5 through 9 (Middle Season), followed by the average rank and Top-Heavy score.

Luke Musgrave gets another nod in the middle Season, as the Packers’ TE schedule has the top SOS score (both First 4 SOS and Top-Heavy SOS) in Weeks 5-9. Weeks 5 and 6 are both NFC West matchups, but the schedule gods picked the right two NFC West teams if you are a TE (31^st-ranked Rams and 32^nd-ranked Cardinals).

Their schedule does get more difficult after that, finishing the Middle Season with a Week 9 game versus the 15^th-ranked Lions, but that is the only direction it can go after facing the top two TE matchups. Also, I know some prefer Tucker Kraft and think he is the better long-term TE in Green Bay.

They don't yet know that Tucker Kraft is the real TE1 pic.twitter.com/frGIYTtMh7

— JetPack Galileo (@JetPackGalileo) November 23, 2023

I don’t necessarily disagree with that long-term, but I am team Musgrave for 2024.

The Raiders move from the Top 10 toughest TE matchups to the fourth-easiest in Weeks 5-9. There is a game against the 3^rd-ranked Chiefs in there, but they also face the 29^th-ranked Broncos and 31^st-ranked Rams. Las Vegas as the landing spot for superstar TE prospect Brock Bowers left many scratching their heads, only a season after the Raiders traded up to draft TE Michael Mayer in the early second round only a year prior. It was not an ideal fantasy landing spot either with the QB options being Gardner Minshew or Aidan O’Connell, and Minshew recently being named the starter. I do believe in the rare talent Bowers brings to the TE table, and this middle-season schedule will set him up to potentially find his stride after the first month of his rookie year.

The look of a man who knows Brock Bowers is going to turn a metric ton of 5-yard dump-offs into 22-yard receptions pic.twitter.com/FlLILXnxoc

— Thor Nystrom (@thorku) August 18, 2024

Here is the chart showing the Top 10 toughest middle-season schedules for fantasy TEs.

Here is the difference in SOS between each team’s early and middle Season schedule for the fantasy TE position, sorted from highest (schedule gets easier) to lowest (schedule gets harder).

Before I go, I will leave you with the full-season heat map schedules for each team across each fantasy skill position. Good luck in your upcoming drafts and have a great fantasy season in 2024!

2024 Strength of Schedule vs. TE

Thank you so much for reading! I love diving deep into the fantasy strength of schedule with the hope that I can help you make the best decisions possible in the maze of fantasy football decisions. I will not be writing the weekly DST article for Rotoballer again this year, but I will still be compiling the data, and I am always available to help out. If you have any questions about this article or general questions about fantasy football, reach out to me on X (@MunderDifflinFF).

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