Fantasy Football: 5 Late-Round Tight Ends With Huge Touchdown Potential

Coby Fleener, New Orleans Saints

Average Draft Position: 13.09 (TE17)

That burning smell entering your nostrils? It's your device trying to light itself on fire to prevent you from reading any more Coby Fleener propaganda. It knows what happened last year, and it doesn't need that nastiness in its life.

With full apologies to said device, we do need to have a discussion about Fleener.

The reason he was so frustrating last year was that the hype around his debut campaign with the Saints pushed his ADP into the seventh round. That's a big price to pay for a guy who was barely a starter by November.

What we have to ask ourselves, though, is why did we like Fleener last year? The answer there is pretty obvious, and it stems from the offense in which he played. It's led by Drew Brees, who has been in the top 10 in Passing NEP per drop back for each of the past 12 seasons. Add a dome into the equation, and the touchdowns will be flowing.

Fleener still has that exact same scenario this year, and it's possible things could be even better. He reportedly entered last year as a "work in progress" within the offense, which logically makes sense within a whole new system. Reports are positive this year, with head coach Sean Payton saying, "I see definitely a tick up as we go into this season ... He is a big target and will be a big part of what we do," according to Herbie Teope of The Times-Picayune. You always want to be skeptical about offseason coach speak, but at least it's trending in the right direction.

Now, instead of coming off the board in the seventh round, Fleener's a 13th-round pick. As Benjamin Watson showed with his 825-yard, 6-touchdown season in 2015, a tight end in this offense can do wonders if they carve out a role. Fleener's capable of doing that, and we'd be wise to toss our biases stemming from last year straight out the window.