NFL

The 13 Most Undervalued Players in Fantasy Football

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Eric Ebron, TE, Detroit Lions

The thing about Eric Ebron is that he's still young, and he's been a lot more productive than what the public generally thinks.


That's not bad, I guess.

Ebron enters 2017 with three years under his belt and an incredibly underrated fantasy football resume. He scored one -- one! -- touchdown last season, but Ebron still finished with as many or more top-12 performances in PPR leagues than all but seven tight ends. I get it, I get it -- it was a down year for the position. But it just goes to show how nice of a floor Ebron has.

Much of this is due to the offense he's in, as the Lions have ranked 11th, 4th, and 11th in pass attempts over the last three years, respectively. There really aren't a ton of top-notch options in Detroit, either, which allows for a decent-enough market share to grab hold of a lot of targets.

That's especially true in 2017. Gone is Anquan Boldin, who ranked seventh in the league in slot snap percentage among wideouts with 50 or more targets last year. That could free up space for Ebron, especially in the red zone, where he's admittedly struggled not just in his pro career (he's scored a touchdown on every 28.86 targets during his first three years when the league average at tight end over this timeframe is a touchdown on every 18.15 targets) but his college one as well (8 scores in three seasons at North Carolina).

Boldin actually finished last season tied for second in red zone targets among all wide receivers, and he was third in targets within the opponents' 10-yard line and tied for fifth in targets within the 5.

Those targets are now gone.

What we're looking at with Ebron is a young prospect who's continued to get better each season and, who, as a baseline, should be able to produce low-end TE1 numbers for your fantasy squad. He did that over the last two years, after all.

Imagine that baseline with actual touchdown upside...