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Welcome back to the Rookie Report! We're just a few hours away from the draft when we can finally put all of the speculation behind us, but that means we still have a few hours to do more speculating! I've spent a lot of this week putting together the puzzle pieces to match the incoming fantasy rookies to the teams that would make the most sense for both them and the team. Today I turn my attention to the tight ends.  Mind you, these landing spots ARE NOT predictions for where the players will be drafted. They're merely my thoughts on what the best landing spots are for all of the tight ends to maximize scheme fit, career development, and fantasy upside. Let's jump in and see who fits where.

(Player, College - Landing spot)

Mike Gesicki, Penn State - New Orleans Saints: Gesicki won't provide much as a blocker early on, but the Saints have managed to work around that in the past with Jimmy Graham and converted tight end Marques Colston. Gesicki is a freak athlete for his size, and he'll cause huge matchup problems in the red zone. He may be able to provide what the Saints hoped they were getting in Coby Fleener.

Dallas Goedert, South Dakota State -  Seattle Seahawks: The Seahawks are in need of a starting tight end with Jimmy Graham off to Green Bay, and Goedert is the best option available to them. Goedert is a better blocker than Mike Gesicki, which will be critical with Seattle's perpetually poor o-line play, and he's a more dynamic receiver than the other top TE option Hayden Hurst. If he does end up in Seattle, Goedert would have low-end TE1 upside as a rookie.

Hayden Hurst, South Carolina - Detroit Lions: Speaking of Hayden Hurst, The Gamecocks' TE would do well to end up in the Motor City. The Lions are in need of a new tight end after letting Eric Ebron go to Indy. Hurst isn't as good an athlete as Ebron, but he's a better blocker and isn't as prone to the drops that have driven Lions' fans nuts from Ebron. Detroit did bring in Luke Willson and Levine Toilolo as free agents, an still have Michael Roberts as well, but Hurst would likely leapfrog all of them on the depth chart quickly.

Mark Andrews, Oklahoma - Carolina Panthers: Andrews could be a great fit as the heir apparent to Greg Olsen in Carolina. Olsen just re-signed with the Panthers on a 2-year deal, which is plenty of time for Andrews to work on his craft as a blocker. Andrews is a much better receiver than blocker at this point and could be a dangerous weapon in 2-tight end sets while Olsen is still around, or as the starter if Olsen were to get hurt again. The Panthers feature a fair amount of vertical passing to the tight end position in their scheme, which would give Andrews nice upside if he is eventually able to take the starting role.

Jaylen Samuels, NC State - New England Patriots: Samuels is a versatile, dynamic player and the Patriots are a team that has always been adept at finding ways to use those. Samuels was used all over the place at NC State - at tight end, as an H-back, as a regular halfback, and split out wide. He managed to post 1,000 scrimmage yards and 16 TDs in his final year with the Wolfpack as that jack-of-all-trades kind of player. Both Philly and New England stand out as good landing spots for Samuels, but I think he'll find a role more quickly with the Pats, and they're more likely than Philly to take full advantage of his versatility.

Ian Thomas, Indiana - Dallas Cowboys: Thomas is a good athlete for the tight end position, but he likely needs a year or two to fine tune his craft as both a blocker and receiver at the NFL level. Sitting behind the ageless Jason Witten would be a good place to do this from. It feels like Witten is never going to retire, but the end is coming, and the Cowboys need to be prepared for that eventuality.

Durham Smythe, Notre Dame - Baltimore Ravens: Smythe is a good blocker who is skilled in the short passing game as well. He won't have a ton of upside to be a top fantasy tight end and will likely spend most of his career as a grinding fantasy TE2 who can fill bye weeks. Think of Brent Celek or CJ Fiedorowicz. He'd be a good fit with the Ravens, whose current starting TE is Nick Boyle, but probably not a great fit with your fantasy team.

Jordan Akins, UCF - Miami Dolphins: Akins is a converted wide receiver who has the skills to be a dangerous receiving threat, which is something Adam Gase likes from his tight ends. He needs to improve as a blocker, but most rookie TEs don't produce anything in year 1 anyway and he can sit for a year and learn from veteran Anthony Fasano. As long as the Dolphins aren't awful this year and Gase is still there in 2019, Akins would have a chance to start making good on his potential in year 2.

That's all I've got for this year's rookie crop. Make sure to go back and check out the landing spot articles on the QBs, RBs and WRs as well. I also want to give a special shout out to Matt Waldman and the Rookie Scouting Portfolio. If you don't know what that is, go to mattwaldmanrsp.com and check it out. I watch a lot of football and gather info on the incoming players in a lot of different ways, but I'm far from a professional scout and the RSP consistently makes me feel more knowledgeable about the players coming into the league and the game of football in general. It's worth much more than the price Matt charges for it. If you have any qualms with any of the landing spots above, don't be a stranger. Reach out on twitter and let me know (@Shawn_Foss). Thanks for taking the time to read this and enjoy the draft!

Survivor pools, a concept so simple yet devastatingly difficult. Pick one team a week to win outright and you move on to the next week. The only catch you may only use the team once. For the fourth year in a row I'm trying to turn my 20$ into 10,000.  I've put two bullets into the chamber once again to double my chances. Will this be the year I make it at least half way through the season?

Last Season all you had to do was pick the team playing the Browns and you were moving on to the next week. This year I think that team could be the Bills, which is why I am taking the Baltimore Ravens in week one. I think Nathan Peterman has thrown more interceptions than completions in his short NFL career and the Ravens defense should have a field day in this one.

My second pick is going to be the New Orleans Saints. They are one of my top picks for teams to win the Super Bowl this season and in week one they go up against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.  The Bucs will be led by backup quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick for the first three games of the season because former first overall draft pick Jamis Winston got a little grabby with his uber driver, 0 stars.

Like Peterman, Fitz has at times shown to be an interception machine. The Saints have been building up their defense the last few seasons and are no longer reliant on Drew Brees throwing 4 TDs a game. However I think he does throw for four this game and the Saints run away with an easy one.

Cheers to you all! May your opening NFL weekend be filled with plenty of delicious beer and bottomless nachos. And if you are hung-over on Monday, as Jarvis Landry would say, “Bless em”.

Welcome to Statistically (in)Significant, the place to find great stats that probably only matter at the water cooler (or bar). Each week I'll dig through the stats of the week gone by and deliver you some choice conversation starters. All fantasy stats are standard Yahoo scoring, unless otherwise noted.

42.28 Fantasy Points, 3% Owned

The season has begun, and our first stat is a two-for one special. On Sunday, Ryan Fitzpatrick (or the Amish Rifle, wtf), dominated the Saints in his best game of his career. Fitzmagic (his real nickname, come on guys) put up a career high 417 yards and QB rating of 156.2. 158.3 is perfect, so, ya know, there's room for improvement still. Only owned in 3% of fantasy leagues, Fitz outscored all other QBs by over 10 points to put up a ridiculous 42.28 points from 417 yards, 4 passing TDs, 36 rushing yards and another TD on the ground. Now with his 7th NFL team (he has started at least 3 games for each of those teams), he has established that he and his magnificent beard are planning on sticking around way past week 3. This will not even become a QB controversy if he continues to play at this level.

8 minutes, 21 seconds

The clock still read 6:39 left in the 1st quarter when Tyreek Hill found the end zone for the second time yesterday. A 91 yard punt return, followed by a 58 yard catch and run gave the Chiefs a comfortable 14-3 lead that they held on to the entire game. Known as the king of long touchdowns, Hill added a 1 yard score in the 4th quarter, showing he isn't just a one-trick pony. Even if he was, it's a really damn good trick - constantly outrunning everyone on the field. We must also give props to Patrick Mahomes, putting up 256 yards and 4 TDs while taking only 1 sack and not turning the ball over at all. The Chiefs have really not skipped a beat, all while turning over their OC and starting QB.

36 total touches

In a very Bell-esque performance, James Conner had a massive fantasy game in his first career start. This may be a surprise to some, but the Steelers seemed to know they would be fine without Bell. Maybe it's Conner's talent or maybe it's the stud-filled offensive line, but this makes me wonder why the Steelers tagged Bell in the first place. Bell is a favorite of this column, and I'm not happy with his situation, but this space is for James Conner. Going in to this game, Conner had 32 career touches for 144 yards and 0 TDs. On Sunday, he more than doubled those numbers, putting up 192 yards from scrimmage and scoring twice. He and Alvin Kamara are the only RBs in the top 16 fantasy point scorers, so a game like this only makes the drama with the Steelers more complicated. If only they hadn't TIED the stupid Browns.

13 WRs with 100+ Yards

So far in Week 1, there are 13 WRs who have over 100 receiving yards, led by Michael Thomas's absurd 16 rec for 180 yards. By contrast, there were only 2 RBs who had over 100 rushing yards (Todd Gurley is a good candidate for 100 tonight). This quick view of the week just reinforces something we've said for a long time on drinkfive. Wide receivers start the season much faster than RBs. Traditionally, we find the first half of the seasons is dominated by WRs and the latter half gets taken over by RBs. Not only is this number way in favor of the WRs, but it's guys who are drafted/owned/started. Of the 13 over 100 yards, only 1, DeSean Jackson (26% owned), is under the 68% owned mark. This means that the guys being drafted are producing right away. For the RBs, 5 of the 12 backs who are 100% owned in Yahoo put up single digit (or 0) points.  Get those WRs early, turn them in to RBs later in the season. Win championship, rinse, repeat.

-7 Combined Points from 2 Top DSTs

I don't often venture into the DST territory in this column, but yesterday featured two ugly performances by top 8 DSTs based on ownership percentage. The Saints gave up 48 points en route to doing absolutely nothing else, ending with a -4 point score. The Chargers did manage one sack while giving up 38 points and finished with -3 points. This brings up a memory from a draft this year, where I was discussing DSTs with fellow drinkfiver Dave. He said that his favorite defense to draft was the Saints based on their week 1 matchup. I firmly disagreed, insisting that the Chargers were the team to own. Before you call us crazy, we only take DSTs at the end of the draft. This would feel like something to laugh off, but  6 of the other top 9 DSTs did find their way into double digits, and the Rams are on that list and can easily hit that mark tonight.

The first week of the NFL season is in the books and it was a real humdinger for Survivor Pools. For the pool I participate in, we saw over half of the 1275 entrants eliminated after week one. A vast majority of the L's came at the hands of Fitzmagic defeating the New Orleans Saints 48-40 in a stunning upset. If you followed my advice and went with the Ravens over the Bills, then you were raising your glass over and over again as the Ravens laid one on the Bills 47-3.

In last week's article I laid out the winning strategy to employ this year, which is to pick the team playing the Bills. This week I suggest you stick to that winning formula and choose the San Diego Chargers of Los Angeles/ Carson. The Chargers are playing their second of sixteen road games this season in Buffalo as rookie quarterback Josh Allen gets his first NFL start. The Chargers and their highly touted defense were lit up by Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs, but surely they will bounce back against a Bills team that couldn't get anything going in week 1.

Now, if anyone can screw this up it is the Chargers. After all they are the only team defeated by the Browns in the last 2 seasons. But, I think it safe to take them here as 7.5 point road favorites and not have to worry about them the rest of the year. Look for them to cover that spread as well.

Cheers!

Drink Five