Do the Patriots have a 'type' at tight end?

(“Today’s Crazy Fantasy Stat” is an occasional offseason offering from PFF that highlights something that catches our eye and aids in our preparation for the 2017 fantasy season.)

Some people have types. You’ll see a guy date four straight brunettes, or a girl have three boyfriends in a row over six feet tall, or a couple move from a Cape Cod-style house to a Cape Cod-style house to a Cape Cod-style house.

And some don’t. My sister’s first husband was a neurotic system-user, who didn’t want to be tied down to anything — jobs or children — preferring instead to be free to move on a moment’s notice if the urge struck him. Her second one got her pregnant in a hurry and worked 100 hours a week. (The fact that neither marriage worked out is neither here nor there, but I will say that I’m pretty intrigued what Husband No. 3 turns out to be like.)

When turning this into an analogy for teams, the team that has the most obvious history of having a “type” is the modern-era New England Patriots. When Wes Welker left, the Pats turned to Danny Amendola and Julian Edelman. BenJarvus Green-Ellis and Danny Woodhead begat Stevan Ridley and Shane Vereen, who begat LeGarrette Blount and Dion Lewis. Now it’s (maybe) Mike Gillislee and James White. Say what you will about the team, but they know what works for them.

Which brings us to the team’s tight ends. Rob Gronkowski is, of course, the mainstay, but starting in 2014, the team has cycled through one-year No. 2 tight ends like they were secretaries in Murphy Brown. (How’s that for a reference?) New England traded for Tampa Bay’s Tim Wright in 2014, then released him in 2015. They signed Scott Chandler as a free agent, then released him after he tore his ACL. They traded for Martellus Bennett from the Bears, then let him leave in free agency. And then they traded for Dwayne Allen from the Colts, who is currently slated to be the team’s No. 2 option at tight end.

Is that a “type,” though? Do the Patriots seek out the same sort of tight end, or is it just a matter of getting who is available? And is there a fantasy lesson to take away from that? Let’s look at it.

Size

• Wright is listed at 6-foot-4 and 220 pounds
• Chandler: 6-7, 263
• Bennett: 6-6, 275
• Allen: 6-3, 265

PFF grades

• New England brought in Wright before 2014 after a rookie season in Tampa Bay that included only 54 receptions on 72 targets for 571 yards and 5 touchdowns. He finished the year as the No. 14 fantasy tight end, which is extra impressive considering he had all of one reception through Week 3. By grading, though, Wright wasn’t special, finishing with a 69.0 grade that was 37th at the position.
• The next year, the team added Chandler coming off of a year in which he had 47 receptions on 70 targets for 497 yards and 3 touchdowns. He had had back-to-back six-touchdown seasons in 2011 and 2012, but the Bills’ middling quarterback situation had held Chandler in check. He graded at 53.3 in 2014, 43rd among tight ends.
• Bennett had been a productive tight end his first two years in Chicago (837.5 yards and 5.5 touchdowns per year), but his last year there was his worst. He missed five games and had only 439 yards and three touchdowns. He had a competent grade of 70.7, the No. 22 TE.
• Health has never been Allen’s strong suit, but he played 14 games in 2016, the second-most of his career. He had 406 yards and 6 touchdowns, though a huge chunk of his season numbers came in one game against the Jets in Week 13. His grade of 54.0, though, was the second-lowest of his career, 41st among tight ends.

Pass-blocking

Gronkowski is known as one of the league’s pre-eminent pass-blocking tight ends, so it stands to reason that the team would prioritize that skill. Except, not really:

• Wright’s pass-blocking grade in 2013: 53.4
• Chandler’s in 2014: 62.7
• Bennett’s in 2015: 69.9
• Allen’s in 2016: 43.2

It’s true that both Bennett and Allen have been strong pass-blockers before, but their most recent histories before joining New England didn’t back that up.

Usage in New England

Maybe it was more the way the Patriots planned to use the tight ends. With the caveat that Bennett saw more usage than he might have had Gronkowski not gotten injured, here’s how that went:

• Wright saw his targets fall off by 56 percent (72 to 32) and his yards by 55 (571 to 259), though his touchdowns actually increased, from five to six. Wright’s six touchdowns on 32 targets sit right there alongside Tyler Eifert’s 2015 (13 touchdowns on 66 targets) in “ridiculous scoring rate” land.
• Chandler had been one of the Bills’ lone weapons in 2014 before becoming just another Patriot, and his usage reflected that: His targets fell off by 39 percent (67 to 41) and his yardage by 48 (497 to 259), though he, too, saw a touchdown increase (3 up to 4).
• Bennett was coming off a light year as far as usage in Chicago, but it went down in New England anyway, with his targets falling by 13 percent (76 to 66), though his yardage climbed from 439 to 701, and his touchdowns more than doubled, from three to seven.

Is there a type?

As far as player genre is concerned, there isn’t much to go on that links these players beyond their position — Wright was a rookie, the others veterans. Bennett was a competent pass-blocker, and Allen had been, but the others hadn’t shown much. Chandler and Bennett were among the biggest options at their position, while Allen and Wright were more conventional sizes.

Here’s one interesting note, though. Wright was a rookie the season before he joined New England, so it’s not fair to cite his “best” or “worst” grades, but:

• 2014, the year before he joined New England, was Chandler’s worst-graded season. He had graded in the mid-70s the three seasons before that.
• Bennett didn’t grade out as a special tight end early in his career, but once he became fantasy-relevant, his grades never dipped below 75.1 … until 2015, the year before he joined the Patriots, when he bottomed out at 70.7.
• Allen looked like he had elite TE potential early in his career, with grades of 86.2, 72.0, and 77.3 in his first three years, respectively, before 45.6 and 2016’s 54.0.

Also, all three tight ends before Allen scored more touchdowns in their years in New England than they had the season before.

So maybe it’s that simple. Maybe the Patriots and Bill Belichick are just the buy-lowingest team out there, looking for tight ends at the nadir of their value, hoping to capitalize. If so, Allen, who had six touchdowns in 2016, could be in line for a bump in 2017, even if Gronkowski is healthy. And any tight end who reliably scores six-plus touchdowns is worth a look in fantasy, even if it’s as a bye-week fill-in or a DFS punt play.