Eric Ebron caught a bunch of balls last year, but precious few touchdowns. Specifically, 61 catches and only one score (though he did also run for a touchdown). That was weird, and it makes him harder to grade for 2017.
When a tight end is catching a healthy number of balls, should we treat the one touchdown as an outlier number? It seems like it would be easy for such a player to move up to 5-6 touchdowns with nothing much changing.
In this case, Ebron plays for the Lions. They haven’t re-signed Anquan Boldin (at least not yet). Boldin caught 8 TDs last year, and if he’s not back, somebody else will have to assume a good chunk of that workload. Ebron has the same body type as Boldin. The Lions like Ebron enough that they’re picking up the fifth-year option on his rookie contract.
But Detroit also drafted a tight end in the fourth round, Michael Roberts, and he’ll play. Roberts was a big red-zone threat at Toledo, with 16 of his 45 catches last year going for touchdowns.
For historical perspective, I have looked at tight ends from the last 25 years. On 13 occasions a tight end caught 50-plus passes in a season without catching more than one touchdown. The following season, only three of those tight ends caught more than 4 TDs. Jordan Reed and Jason Witten were monsters, with a combined 183 catches and 18 touchdowns. Brent Celek caught 32 passes and 6 TDs for the Eagles in 2013.
Ebron has been plagued by drops during his career, but I kind of like him for the 2017 season. I think he’ll wind up on some of my teams.
| LOW-SCORING TIGHT ENDS (the next year) | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Player | No | Yards | Avg | TD |
| 1994 | Steve Jordan, Min. | 3 | 23 | 7.7 | 0 |
| 1996 | Jackie Harris, T.B. | 30 | 349 | 11.6 | 1 |
| 1997 | Pete Mitchell, Jac. | 35 | 380 | 10.9 | 4 |
| 1997 | Brian Kinchen, Balt. | 11 | 95 | 8.6 | 1 |
| 2006 | Jermaine Wiggins, Min. | 46 | 386 | 8.4 | 1 |
| 2007 | • Jason Witten, Dall. | 96 | 1145 | 11.9 | 7 |
| 2009 | Zach Miller, Oak. | 66 | 805 | 12.2 | 3 |
| 2009 | Jeremy Shockey, N.O. | 48 | 569 | 11.9 | 3 |
| 2009 | Chris Cooley, Wash. | 29 | 332 | 11.4 | 2 |
| 2013 | • Brent Celek, Phil. | 32 | 502 | 15.7 | 6 |
| 2014 | Heath Miller, Pitt. | 66 | 761 | 11.5 | 3 |
| 2015 | • Jordan Reed, Wash. | 87 | 952 | 10.9 | 11 |
| 2016 | Jacob Tamme, Atl. | 22 | 210 | 9.5 | 3 |
| 2017 | Eric Ebron, Det. | ? | ? | ? | ? |
—Ian Allan