As we gear up to the start of the NFL season, Football Absurdity is going to bring you a comprehensive breakdown of every notable player that will be available in fantasy football drafts. Only three rookie tight ends had at least 50 targets last year… Noah Fant, T.J. Hockenson, and… Dawson Knox? You probably figured out that last one, given whose player profile you clicked on. Is he a deep sleeper for 2020 fantasy football leagues?
Dawson Knox ADP and AAV:
Standard: TE29, 229 overall
PPR: TE28, 240 overall
Average Auction Value: $0
Dawson Knox Statistics:
| Year | 2019 |
| G | 15 |
| GS | 11 |
| Tgt | 50 |
| Rec | 28 |
| Yards | 388 |
| TD | 2 |
| Tgt/G | 3.3 |
| Rec/G | 1.87 |
| Rec% | 25.9 |
| Yds/Tgt | 7.76 |
| Yds/Rec | 7.760 |
| Year | 2019 |
| Std Pts | 51.7 |
| HPPR Pts | 54.2 |
| PPR Pts | 79.7 |
| Pts/G | 3.4 |
| HPPR Pts/G | 3.6 |
| PPR Pts/G | 5.3 |
| Pts/Tgt | 1.03 |
| Pts/Tgt (HPPR) | 1.08 |
| Pts/Tgt (HPPR) | 1.59 |
| Year | 2019 |
| Air Yards | 455 |
| aDOT | 9.1 |
| YAC | 144 |
| YAC/Tgt | 2.88 |
| YAC/Rec | 5.14 |
| YAC% | 37.1% |
| AYMS | 10% |
| Tgt MS | 11% |
Dawson Knox Overview:
Dawson Knox quietly had an encouraging season last year, and he’s falling behind Noah Fant and T.J. Hockenson in the hype trains this season. How encouraging was his season? His 13.86 yards per reception in 2019 marked as the third-highest total among all rookie tight ends in the last five seasons. That’s higher than Hunter Henry, Evan Engram, David Njoku, George Kittle and T.J. Hockenson. All told, only four guys had a yard per reception over 13 in the last five years, and he’s one of them!
This is doubly encouraging since the rest of the Bills’ offensive production appears to be siloed away from Dawson Knox. John Brown and Stefon Diggs will be responsible for going deep, Zack Moss and Devin Singletary will fail to catch passes from Josh Allen, who will steal their rushes. That leaves the middle of the field open for Dawson Knox and… Cole Beasley. Call me crazy but I would bet on the ascendant third-round talent at tight end over the 5’8” career slot receiver who caught just 63% of his balls last season.
Dawson Knox Draft Strategy:
Dawson Knox Auction Value: $0
Draft Ranking: Find out for your league settings in a Beersheet! (coming late June)
I don’t know, get Dawson Knox? I mean, probably not. His ADP is through the floor, so you can wait on him unless you’re in a tight end premium or a deep, deep league. Still, I feel good about him as an upside pick this year. There are just a lot of guys I would rather take shots on over Knox. That puts him firmly on my waiver wire shortlist without ending up on any of my squads if I can help it. If I walk out of my draft with him as my only tight end, I’m probably going to keep walking until I hit the ocean… then keep walking. His upside is around TE10, so you can get him hoping for that upside as a fallback option if one or more of your higher-upside tight ends completely fail you and Knox starts to fulfill his destiny in Buffalo.
Best Case Scenario:
Dawson Knox ends up as a backend TE1 who occasionally flashes top-five weekly games.
Worst Case Scenario:
You never pick Dawson Knox up off the waiver wire because guys you actually drafted did well.
[Statistics are sourced from pro-football-reference.com and airyards.com]
