Irv Smith Dynasty Outlook
The tight end position in the NFL is one of the hardest positions to forecast for fantasy analyst and mangers. Outside of your top tier players like Travis Kelce, Darren Waller and George Kittle, there is few impact players. Some players have been able to make splashes on a week to week basis. This season Irv Smith Jr. became one of these players, as he came out of the shadow of Kyle Rudolph.
Bio
Irv Smith Jr. is a 22 year old who measures in at 6-2″, and weights in at 242 pounds. He has a great body size and structure to succeed as an NFL tightend. When the Vikings took him with the 50th overall pick in the 2019 NFL draft they were hoping to find a successor to Kyle Rudolph. Now in his second season Smith has began to show great promise as a receiver and blocker.
Production
Minnesota’s offense runs 12 personnel 22 precent of the time which ranks 11th in the NFL. This is a formation with two tightends for those who don’t know. This has allowed Smith to play in 29 games over his first two seasons and started 14 of them. Over this span he was targeted 90 times and produced 66 receptions for 676 yards and 7 touchdowns. This was all while splitting targets with Kyle Rudolph.
Smith finished this season as the TE22 in PPR formats with 98.5 points, 47 points away from finishing as a TE1. He averaged 7.6 points per game, in his 13 games he produced five double digit fantasy point games. In Week 16 he produced a 20 point PPR week on 9 targets, while Rudolph was out of the line up. This is were the traction starts for the argument of wether Smith can become a top tightend!
Irv Smith Dynasty Outlook
The Vikings currently roster both Rudolph and Smith, Rudolph however is 31 years old. He is currently signed through 2024, on a pretty hefty contract. There is some what of an out for the Vikings in 2021 if they choose to go that route though. If they do not is there enough volume for Smith to break into the top tier of tightends?
This past season Smith emerged as a reliable target for Cousins, however Rudolph still commanded 37 targets. Rudolph is still a much better blocker than Smith, so in one tightend sets Rudolph will most likely be on the field. If the Vikings choose to move some targets away from Rudolph and give them to Smith he will have an opportunity to produce better numbers. This could be the route the Vikings choose to take, they can get the best out of both players. This will limit Smiths production in 2021 however, so for fantasy mangers this is not the best scenario.
If the Vikings move on from Rudolph in 2021 it would open up a huge opportunity for Smith. Rudolphs 37 targets would then get dispersed through the team, most of them would land in Smiths hands though. Smith averaged 8.5 yards per reception in 2020, in PPR formats this is 1.85 points per reception. Smith would need to receive 25 of those targets to reach TE1 territory if we use his average. This is also not accounting for a possible touchdown increase. This is the route for Smith to land in the top tier of tightends, this offseason we will have to watch the Vikings to see what route they take.
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