If you're a true contender this year and you don't have another startable tight end on your roster, then I understand holding on to both Evan Engram and David Njoku. They're likely to be mid-range TE1s, and have a solid floor that will almost certainly land them in the top 12. But for everyone else, I view the two as sells and don't believe their reasonable upside is as high as their 2023 production.
Engram as a sell is probably more palatable to the community because he turns 30 in September. While elite tight ends can produce into their early 30s, I'm not sure Engram is elite, even if his end-of-season ranking in 2023 looked that way. From Week 1 through Week 12, when Christian Kirk was healthy, Engram was TE7 and averaged 10.7 PPR FPPG. That's far more in line with his career production than 19.3 FPPG he averaged after Kirk went down.
Engram hasn't scored more than four touchdowns in a season since his rookie year and hasn't averaged even eight yards per target since 2018. That means he's reliant on a huge target share to be anything more than a low-end starter. That type of player, at 30 years old, isn't a top-12 tight end for me, but he currently ranks as TE10 in consensus Dynasty rankings.
Njoku is a harder sell because he ranks one spot behind Engram and he's almost two full years younger. He also had a crazy second-half split last year, but it wasn't because another target was removed. It may have been because of a quarterback change. Last year, Njoku was targeted on 15.2% of Deshaun Watson's pass attempts. With Joe Flacco under center that spiked to 22.1%. He also saw 19.8% of P.J. Walker's targets and a whopping 26.7% from Dorian Thompson-Robinson.
The year before he saw a 20.7% target rate from Watson, so it's not like Watson won't look at him, but Watson prefers to throw to his wide receivers, and the team added Jerry Jeudy this offseason. Watson also runs more than the average quarterback, which means a lower overall number of pass attempts for the team. Like Engram, I don't really see much more than top-six upside unless there's an injury or a down year at the position.
I would rather roster a younger guy like Jake Ferguson, Pat Freiermuth, or Cole Kmet. All three guys have similar upside and much longer Dynasty runways. They're also behind these veterans in consensus rankings. Even if Njoku and Engram are slightly better, I don't think it will be enough to make a difference in your season and the younger guys should be more valuable in the future. As a rule, I wouldn't value older tight ends that don't have big upside, and that's exactly how I view Engram and Njoku moving forward.
Here are my updated Dynasty tight end rankings:
