Fantasy Football: 4 Late-Round Tight Ends to Target
Zach Miller, TE, Chicago Bears
ADP: 14.02 (177th overall)
Zach Miller has a lot of things going for him, and it's pretty remarkable his ADP is this low.
With Martellus Bennett out of town, Miller is atop the Chicago Bears' depth chart and should see significant playing time. That alone makes him valuable. Luckily for us, though, we got a sneak peek at Miller in this role at the end of last season, and it was glorious.
Over the final three weeks of 2015, with Bennett inactive, Miller lit it up.
| Targets | Receptions | Yards | Touchdowns | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Week 15 | 6 | 5 | 85 | 1 |
| Week 16 | 6 | 6 | 67 | 0 |
| Week 17 | 8 | 7 | 69 | 0 |
In all, he hauled in 18-of-20 targets in that stretch for 211 yards and 1 touchdown.
That finishing kick put a bow on what was a really efficient season as Miller ranked third in Reception Net Expected Points (NEP) per target among tight ends with at least 40 looks. (You can read more about NEP in our glossary.)
If we extrapolate those final three weeks over a full 16-game season, it gives Miller roughly 144.5 points in standard formats, which would've been good enough to rank sixth among tight ends a year ago.
Of course, it's not that easy. For one, he's probably not going to keep up that pace for 16 games, and with the addition of Kevin White and departure of Matt Forte, Chicago's passing game will look different in 2016.
Still, Miller has shown he can be extremely effective on a per-target basis, and it looks like he's going to see enough volume to be productive. Our projections rank him as TE14 and peg him for 85 points.
When you factor in all of these things, his ADP as the TE19 is pretty bonkers.
