The Kansas City Chiefs are led by Patrick Mahomes, but Travis Kelce has been ruled out. We, as an industry, thought Tyreek Hill leaving this offense would impact the trajectory of this team just 12 short months ago … the Chiefs won the Super Bowl behind Mahomes’ league-best 5,250 passing yards. We were wrong. Very wrong. So should fantasy football managers be sliding in Noah Gray as a replacement tonight?
Should I Start Noah Gray?
I follow the train of thought that comes attached with Gray — you want to maintain Chiefs playmaker exposure and this game is projected to be a shoot out. Why not roll the dice on a player who figures to share a field with Patrick Mahomes for 40-plus snaps?
Have you picked up Noah Gray? If so, how much FAAB did you use?👀 pic.twitter.com/V2YYF7nYkd
— PlayerProfiler (@rotounderworld) September 7, 2023
The logic is sound, but the tight end position operates much more like the receiver position than the running back position. That is, we can’t just transfer usage from the missing player to the fill-in option and call it a day.
Last season, in Minnesota, we knew that Alexander Mattison would more or less get the 15-20 touch role left vacated whenever Dalvin Cook sat. We didn’t know what he’d do with the extended work, but we felt good about giving it to him.
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It’s a different ballgame when dealing with pass catchers. When Cooper Kupp went down last season, Van Jefferson was the WR2 … did he get the looks that Kupp saw as the top threat in that offense? Of course not, and that’s what is most likely to happen here.
Gray is a fine player with some athletic tools, but not nearly enough to pick up even 50% of what Kelce is leaving behind. In fact, it was his blocking that was most praised coming out of Duke in 2021.
That said, you didn’t think we’d leave you out in the cold, did you? Our PFN Consensus Rankings offer individual analysts and who they like. But for me, the trio of TE streamers starts with Juwan Johnson. Looking for insight on the rest of the Week 1 slate? Worry not, the Week 1 Fantasy Football Cheat Sheet has you more than covered!