Other Postions: Quarterback | Running Back | Wide Receiver | Tight End
Better Than Average (BTA) was developed to show which players were truly better than their peers when the advantage of the schedule was removed. . This is a true 1:1 measurement because it only considers how well players did against all others who faced a particular defense. It counts up three occurrences:
“8” – When a TE produced one of the top 8 game performances for fantasy points allowed by a defense.
“4” – When a TE scored in the top 4 game performances for fantasy points allowed by a defense.
“1” – Who had the best fantasy game against a defense over the past year. There could only by 32 such events since each defense can only allow one “best game”.
BTA – Simply adding up the 1, 4 and 8 values for a numerical expression of how effective a tight end truly was last year against all other players in his position. The strength of schedule doesn’t matter. Only what a player produced against all other players in that position against that defense. It is a measurement of player ability against the others in his position.
>> Someone has to lose. Don’t let it be you. Click here and join The Huddle today! <<
| Multiple “Best Games” | |
|---|---|
| Rob Gronkowski | 5 |
| Jimmy Graham | 4 |
| Martellus Bennett | 3 |
| Delanie Walker | 3 |
| Antonio Gates | 2 |
| Julius Thomas | 2 |
| Owen Daniels | 2 |
The best tight ends are never hard to figure out since the position offers only marginal value outside of one to three players per season. Comparing how productive tight ends were last year really meant only one – Rob Gronkowski. And then the rest splayed out behind with marginal difference from player to player.
Other than Gronkowski, all tight ends were subject to the same phenomena – they were much more productive in the first half of the season than they were in the final eight games. Travis Kelce’s high rating at least gives more optimism what 2015 could mean.
Julius Thomas was a top three tight end after eight weeks and one of the worst from then on partially due to inury. The point differential between players was not that significant outside of the top five players so there isn’t much to glean about up-and-comers other than Kelce was a nice surprise.
| Player | BTA | 1 | 4 | 8 |
|---|
