Last season, Las Vegas Raiders rookie tight end Brock Bowers had 112 receptions for 1,194 yards. Both of those marks are NFL records for a rookie tight end, and the catch total is the best mark for a rookie regardless of position, as well as the most in a single season in Raiders history.
With the Raiders expected to have more offensive weapons this season, Bowers is in line to experience some decline in production. History says that drop-off could be dramatic, but Bowers also has some positives going for him. Namely, the upgrade in quarterback to Geno Smith.
In 2024, Bowers led all tight ends with 28 uncatchable targets, according to Pro Football Focus. Bowers' red zone efficiency was also poor, with six catches and one touchdown on 14 targets. What he loses in sheer target volume this season, however, could easily be made up for with efficiency.
Raiders fans already know the folly in overreacting to what happens in the preseason, as fantasy managers were swan diving off the Ashton Jeanty bandwagon after he had -1 yard in the preseason opener.
Fantasy analysts went too far with nightmare scenario for Brock Bowers
The concern about Jeanty has faded, but one fantasy analyst seems to be transferring it to Bowers. Nathan Jahnke of Pro Football Focus recently did a deep dive into why Brock Bowers is falling down fantasy football rankings. You're excused if you didn't realize he was falling down fantasy rankings so dramatically that it deserves attention.
Jahnke rightly noted the rise of fellow tight end Michael Mayer as a factor in the Raiders' offense, while pointing to him as a potential negative for Bowers' production. But he's also a different type of tight end than Bowers, as Bowers lined up in the slot or out wide for 567 of his 956 snaps last year.
Through the first two preseason games, Jahnke also pointed out how the Raiders had three drives and a total of 19 plays with their offensive starters. Bowers was in the game for eight of those snaps, as opposed to 13 for Mayer.
Specific to the second preseason game, per PFF, the Raiders used '11' personnel (one tight end) on each of their first 13 plays. Mayer played eight of those snaps, to five for Bowers. So, Jahnke drew a ridiculous conclusion instead of acknowledging that the team's best pass-catcher was playing limited snaps to prevent the risk of injury.
"This was a clear rotation, as Bowers started, and they went to Mayer, back to Bowers, back to Mayer and back to Bowers all on the same drive. On the second drive, it went from Mayer to Bowers to Mayer to Bowers to Mayer to all three Raiders tight ends. The reason teams use this kind of rotation in the preseason is that they plan on using that rotation in the regular season."
Raiders offensive coordinator Chip Kelly has noted how there's room for multiple tight ends to contribute. This has been in light of the work Mayer has done this offseason, so he's unlikely to alter Bowers' deployment pattern all that much when the games start to count.
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After suggesting the thought of Kelly rotating Raiders tight ends more than last season, Jahnke then backtracked to state the obvious about how much concrete value to put into Bowers' preseason usage.
"Bowers played less than 50% of Las Vegas' offensive snaps with the starters in the preseason, but that won’t be the case in the season. The Raiders have not used any 12 personnel with the starters in the preseason. We should expect them to either lead the league in 12 personnel usage or be near the league lead," Jahnke wrote. "That will help the playing time of both tight ends. Bowers was also the clear leader in snaps in 11 personnel throughout the 2024 regular season and preseason this year, and there is no current reason to expect that to change."
After noting Bowers' snap shares over the course of last season, a specific mention of how Kelly used Zach Ertz when he was with the Philadelphia Eagles took things toward a doomsday scenario for Bowers.
"He played 49% of the snaps over the first three weeks last season, 72% when Mayer was gone, 79% once Mayer returned, and 27% over three drives this preseason. In Ertz’s best year under Chip Kelly, he played 61%, and in his worst, he was at 23%. Any of those is a possibility."
That 23 percent snap share for Ertz came during his rookie season in 2013, after accounting for a missed game, which was also Kelly's first year as the Eagles' head coach. In 2015, Kelly's final season in Philadelphia, Ertz played a 72 percent snap share in the 15 games he played.
While projecting fewer routes, fewer fantasy points per route and thus fewer fantasy points per game for Bowers this season, Jahnke ultimately only dropped the Raiders' tight end below Trey McBride and George Kittle in the top tier of his personal position rankings.
But to even hint at or suggest that Bowers could play less than 25 percent of the Raiders' total offensive snaps this season, without an injury that sidelines him for a big chunk of games, is a stretch of massive proportions.
Fantasy managers who are willing to make Bowers one of the first tight ends off the board in a draft this year should not be swayed from doing so. A worst-case scenario, like Jahnke suggested, would be driven by a significant injury, which is an inherent risk in fantasy football.