Free Agency Preview: Tight Ends

March 17, 2023

By Alex Zeese

It will be very interesting to see what kind of approach the Commanders take on the tight end position in the offseason.  While publicly Ron Rivera has said things to indicate the team is loyal to Logan Thomas and the young group of backups he has behind Thomas at the position, personally I question if that’s more coach speak than not.

There are several things that would make you think Washington should be actively looking to upgrade at tight end. Thomas didn’t really look much like his old self, and hasn’t since the injury; he was targeted 61 times last season making just 39 catches for 323 yards with only 1 touchdown.  Given that he will be 32 years old, one has to question if he is nearing the end of his career. Meanwhile the rest of the tight end room, Cole Turner, John Bates and Armani Rogers combined only had 21 catches for 195 yards and a TD. The lack of production there is very concerning, especially the lack of touchdowns.  The way this team is built with a group of smaller wide receivers, the team needs its tight ends to be extremely productive in the red zone where their height and size should give them more advantages against the defense.

While we may not know what kind off offense Eric Bieniemy envisions for Washington, one thing we do know is that his mentor Andy Reid always had tight ends as a key component to his offenses, whether it was future hall of famer Travis Kelce in Kansas City, or guys like Brent Celek who was a constant thorn in the Redskins’ side for a decade, L.J. Smith or 3 time pro-bowler Chad Lewis.  Reid always relied on tight ends as a good safety valve for his quarterbacks. With Washington possibly starting Sam Howell, or maybe drafting a rookie quarterback, one would expect that having a good reliable tight end or two would be a huge asset for the quarterback – the classic safety valve player when they are under pressure.

Washington only has 1 tight end who is a free agent, backup/practice squad player Eli Wolf.

It would make a lot of sense for Washington to go after a starting caliber tight end in free agency to either replace Logan Thomas, or it could make sense to keep Thomas as the #2 guy. Because the team likely would want to look for someone younger than Logan Thomas I decided to split guys up between over 30 and under 30 like our writer No One From Tampa has done in some of his free agency previews.

Under 30 group:

When you break this group down, a few things stand out.  First, none of these guys are superstars. While Gesicki had two 700 yard seasons in 2020-2021, he had a serious drop in production last year. Austin Hooper has been averaging about 400 yards a year the last 3 seasons. And while I think Washington should be looking at free agent tight ends, I don’t see them wanting to spend big money, and both these guys had rather large contracts last season.

When you look at the game-by-game numbers of this group no one really stands out above the rest.  No one on this list is what I’d consider an elite tight end, although some are good. But if there’s one guy I would absolutely target, it would be Irv Smith in Minnesota – he’s only 24, and the Vikings seem like they are going to release him. At that age I think Smith has a ton more upside than the others here who are all older than him, and I would suspect he would be less costly than bigger names like Shultz.

Here’s the list of the over 30 crowd at tight end.

If Washington wants to look for another more veteran tight end who can help the younger players on this roster I’d assume that Bieniemy. will go for Blake Bell of the Chiefs .Similar to how he has already taken on a free agent wide receiver from his former squad, it may make sense to bring in a guy who knows your system and can be a asset in that he simply would know the play calls.