One of the top players in the NFL and fantasy football, Kansas City Chiefs TE Travie Kelce projects to be an early pick once again as his 2022 fantasy outlook rivals the best in the game. With the NFL season and fantasy drafts closing in, what is Travis Kelce’s fantasy outlook in 2022, and could he prove to be a value at his current ADP in fantasy football drafts?
Travis Kelce’s fantasy outlook for 2022
For years, Kelce has been the gold standard against which all other tight ends are compared. He is the bar. Since 2015, Kelce has finished as a TE1 in a staggering 74% of his games while averaging 16.2 PPR/game. Last season was the first time since 2015 he did not finish as the TE1 on the season. He was the TE2 — what a slacker.
In his “down year,” Kelce was No. 2 in targets (134), receptions (92), and yards (1,125). Only Mark Andrews had a better season in all three categories (107, 153, and 1,361), but they tied for the top spot with nine touchdowns each.
They are the top two in rankings for fantasy football in 2022. Each should be a top target this season, given the changes we have seen to their teams. Kelce has the history of being one of Patrick Mahomes’ top targets. Now he heads into 2022 as not just a top target but the top target. Kelce could very well be heading into a career year in 2022.
How the Chiefs’ depth chart impacts Travis Kelce’s fantasy projection for the season
Since 2017, Kelce has averaged 137.4 targets, 96 receptions, 1,228.8 yards, and 8.6 touchdowns. 74 of his 78 active games came with Tyreek Hill on the field. You might have heard of him. He’s pretty good at football. But the NFL is an ever-changing landscape, and the 2022 offseason saw some of the largest moves we have seen in a long time.
One such move was the trade that sent Hill to the Miami Dolphins. Kansas City did bring in several receivers to compensate for the loss. They added both JuJu Smith-Schuster and Marquez Valdes-Scantling in free agency and drafted Skyy Moore, a highly productive receiver from Western Michigan.
Kelce and Hill were the 1A/1B of this offense, often going back and forth as the top target in any game. In their games together since 2017, Hill averaged 8.58 targets and 80 yards a game, with Kelce at nine targets and 78.4 yards. They were as even as it gets. Even in games without Hill (four), Kelce saw a negligible shift in his volume, averaging 8.75 targets, but he did see a slight increase in yardage at 87.75 yards a game (+9.34 yards/game or 159 on the season).
Since 2018, Kelce is No. 1 in the NFL in receiving yards (4,456 yards) and has 17 games of over 100 receiving yards. No other TE has 10. And now you are telling me the guy with more 15-yard+ receptions (126) than anyone else the last three years will spend an entire 17-game season as the uncontested No. 1 target in one of the NFL’s top offenses? His record-setting 2020 season could well and truly be in danger.
Kelce’s ADP for 2022
How valuable is a positional advantage to you? Outside of maybe Mark Andrews, Kelce will give you a leg up on your opponent every week. However, that comes at a price. As fantasy drafts continue to fire up at a historic pace, Kelce sits just outside the first round with an ADP of 14 as the TE1. For context, Andrews, the TE2, has an ADP of 23.
From a production standpoint, you can’t argue it. Kelce has the pedigree, role, talent, and opportunity to be a championship-winning pick. But he also is an outlier. At nearly 33, we haven’t seen someone do this before. Not with this same level of volume and ceiling. At some point, we are going to get burned after playing with fire.
Is it 2022 when this happens? Over the last four years, Kelce’s snap rate has continuously fallen from 95% to 92%, 86%, and 82% last year. What happens if it goes from 82% to 75% in 2022 as the Chiefs know they need Kelce for the playoffs, and while that Week 10 matchup is one you desperately need, the Chiefs don’t because a random game against the Jaguars isn’t going to make or break their season.
If the Chiefs begin to taper back Kelce’s reps and snaps to preserve his body for a playoff run sans Tyreek Hill, that will inevitably have a trickle-down effect on his fantasy upside. In the second round, I have no issues with Kelce. But that is about as early as I would go. In most cases, unless he slips, which is unlikely as others in the league will want the advantage, I’d rather target Dalton Schultz in the fifth or sixth round or Kyle Pitts in Round 3.