Oronde Gadsden fantasy football insight from Hayden Winks - PPR Rankings

Gadsden is too big to be an every-down WR, but he's too athletically gifted as a TE to not run deep routes. As a rookie, he was split out often and ran a ton of seam-based routes. His 8.9 average depth of target was 6th-highest at the position, and he only had 1% of his targets coming in the screen game. Gadsden had multiple spectacular grabs, fully capable of contorting his body at the catch point way off the ground. He's got a long build that fits great with Justin Herbert, who wants to drive the ball on a line to the middle and deep parts of the field. The Chargers were able to get him on run away routes at his mid-season peak, and on occasion, he showed breaking-route ability, too. His receiving tape is very real. From Weeks 6-11, Gadsden hovered around 75% snaps. He averaged 72 YPG during this stretch, on a solid 19% target share and TE7 expected points per game. Unfortunately, the fun game to an end after the Week 12 bye. Gadsden's snaps fell to just under 60% over the next 7 games, and his target share dropped to 12%, leading to just 27 YPG. This coincided with the Chargers OT injuries, but there were also splits with/without Quentin Johnston and Keenan Allen. The depth of the Chargers offense remains an issue. Allen is unlikely to return, but the additions of superior blockers David Njoku and Charlie Kolar put a cap on Gadsden's snap rate. New OC Mike McDaniels is a stud, but he also uses multiple RBs and a FB, too. It won't be a surprise if Gadsden has quality per-route numbers. That only matters so much in fantasy football though. We're chasing total routes. Ga...