Metrics that Matter: Doyle's chances in Indianapolis

(“Metrics that Matter” is a short feature that appears every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday, highlighting a notable fantasy lesson to be learned from PFF’s advanced stats.)

In MFL10 best-ball leagues, Indianapolis TE Jack Doyle is currently being drafted as the No. 13 tight end off the board. Last season, in his first year starting, while splitting time with Dwayne Allen, Doyle finished as fantasy’s No. 13 tight end in PPR leagues. Following Allen’s trade to New England, I think it’s safe to argue that he’s currently being drafted at his fantasy floor, but his ceiling goes much higher than that — but may hinge upon how fellow tight end Erik Swoope acclimates to his new role as the No. 2 tight end.

Last season, the Colts had at least two tight ends on the field for 30 percent of their passing plays, which ranked third-most in the league.

Swoope, a former basketball star, has just four years of experience playing organized football (at any level) and only 252 snaps to his name at the NFL level.

My theory is this: Either Swoope breaks out and performs adequately as the Allen to Doyle’s Coby Fleener (perhaps a stretch given Swoope’s lack of experience), in which case Doyle is likely still a value. Or Doyle might currently be the most undervalued tight end in fantasy football.

In 2013, Allen missed all but one game. Fleener ranked 10th among tight ends in targets and 14th in PPR fantasy points. These numbers aren’t crazy, but maybe they are for Fleener’s standards. In our last article, we went in-depth on Fleener’s historic levels of inefficiency last season and throughout his career. Fleener saw 84 targets that season, while the next-closest Colts tight end saw only eight.

Since 2013, non-Allen Indianapolis tight ends have six games of 20 or more fantasy points. Five of those six games came when Allen missed time. Allen only missed eight games over this stretch.

Here's how Fleener and Doyle performed over the past three seasons when Allen did not play:

Looking only at Fleener’s 2014-2015 and Doyle’s 2016, here are their combined splits based on whether or not Allen played:

Allen saw 48 targets in 14 games last season. Where our projections get difficult is in projecting what percentage of those missing targets Doyle sees in comparison to Swoope. Does Swoope assume the far majority, or do we see something like in 2013 when Allen played only one game and Fleener saw 80 percent of the team’s tight end targets?

Given his lack of experience, I don’t think Swoope absorbs all of these targets, and Doyle seems like a very safe bet to beat his current ADP even if that’s the case. His upside, while likely not as high as 17.3 fantasy points per game, could be as high as the mid-TE1-range if Swoope fails to emerge.

Since he entered the league, 22.8 percent of Doyle's targets have come in the red zone, which leads all tight ends over this stretch. The team seems to have plenty of faith in Doyle, signing him to a three-year, $18.9 million deal this offseason, with 40 percent of that guaranteed. Head coach Chuck Pagano has been generous in praise as well, saying, “He's a reliable, reliable guy. [Andrew Luck] has a ton of faith and trust in that guy. He's always where he's supposed to be, and that makes a huge difference.

In redraft leagues, I’m typically either targeting Rob Gronkowski and Jordan Reed in earlier rounds or Kyle Rudolph and Jack Doyle in later rounds. I won’t reach on Greg Olsen or Tyler Eifert, but I’m drafting them both fairly frequently as well. In dynasty leagues, I’m making an effort to stash Swoope on the off chance I’m wrong.