2023 Free Agent Tight End Rankings

Projecting NFL Plus/Minus value added for the 2023 tight end free agent class

The 2023 offseason has begun, with free agency moves already happening. Officially, the window for signing unrestricted free agents begins on March 15th with the start of the new league year. But already teams have an opportunity to extend their own free agents, and released players also are available. The franchise tag window - another important tool for retaining elite players - goes from February 21st to March 7th.

Obviously you care about more than simply the next year’s value for players signed to multi-year contracts, but it’s increasing difficult to project performance beyond the next season for players switching teams, and subsequent performance is highly correlated. In reality, most free agent signing provide most of their value to their new teams in the first season, which is why even longer term contracts are primarily structured as glorified one-year deals with a little extra guaranteed money.

This analysis using ensemble modeling, or combining multiple model types to reduce noise while gaining incremental benefits in prediction accuracy. Specifically, the projections use linear and tree-based models, in roughly equal proportion. The key metric of determining value is my NFL Plus/Minus figure, which uses advanced stats, clustering and historical on-off splits to estimate player value in a universal, points-based figure.

In this analysis, I’l detail my methodology for projecting 2023 value for free agents. I began by identifying some potential values among wide receiver free agents earlier this week, then turned to offensive tackles, guards, and centers. In this article, I move on to running backs. In a macro look at free agency, I found that guards and centers are the best position to target in free agency, though tight ends are also more likely to make it to free agency than at premium offensive positions, like wide receiver and tackle. It’s really the structure of the entire tight end market that differs from most others positions: there are really only a few top options, far separated from the field. If you have one of those tight ends, you hold onto them at a great discount. Otherwise, you can plug and play at the position, at least until you hit on a draft pick.

For tight ends, the model features (or independent variables) are, in order of importance:

• Previous-year receiving NFL Plus/Minus per game

• Previous-year run blocking NFL Plus/Minus per game

• Year-before-last receiving NFL Plus/Minus per game

• Year-before-last run blocking NFL Plus/Minus per game

• Draft position

• Age

• Previous-year snap count

Age is much higher on the importance rankings for running back than other positions, presumably due to the shorter careers at the position. According to research from PFF’s Timo Riske, tight ends the mature more slowly than other speed-based positons, showing their blend in a speed and power role.

TIER 1 FREE AGENT TIGHT END

The “tier 1” table below lists ten tight ends, with their 2023 points-added projection (“Proj +/-), actual numbers for the last two seasons, games played the last two seasons, snap percentage last year, age as of Week 1 of the 2023 season, and draft position. This is a relatively big group of players, with only a couple giving outsized value.

You can find all the free agent projections on the paid subscriber Google Sheet. I’ll add the other positions as I work through the process this week.