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Trey Burton Player Spotlight (1 Viewer)

Dave Larkin

Moderator
This offseason, the Bears brass injected some much-needed speed and playmaking potential into their receiving corps, all in an effort to make life easier for Mitchell Trubisky. An offense that seemed to be in the Stone Age under John Fox now looks like a sleek, sophisticated 21st century machine with new coach Matt Nagy at the controls. 

Trey Burton was one of the jewels in the crown of the Chicago offseason, coming over from Philadelphia on a four-year contract that will see him play the 'Travis Kelce' role, or U tight end, in Nagy's offense. Spot duty in Philadelphia showed us some glimpses of his potential, but he was always playing second fiddle to Zach Ertz. 

Now, Burton will be the band leader in Chicago, but how do you see his fortunes panning out in 2018? 

Key questions include:

  • How does the presence of Adam Shaheen affect his upside, if at all?
  • Are you concerned there are too many mouths to feed in Chicago now? 
  • Is Mitchell Trubisky a quarterback you trust to squeeze TE1 value out of Burton?
Your feedback would be appreciated. 

 
I think he's going to be a nice addition to the passing game. He's a veteran on a largely inexperienced offense that doesn't have a lot of proven players. I think he will be a favorite of MT because he's versatile. Shaheen can lurk but I bet really only has value in the red zone. He can vulture TDs but not much of the total targets. 

 
I have had my eye on Burton for a while and I really like his landing spot.

Every time he had a chance to play for Ertz in the past, it seemed he put up a good game. He has a nose for the end zone and is going to be running in an offense that has been productive for a tight end in the past. Also, usually young qbs like the te to rely on.

He is a hybrid type te that can stretch the field and have a very nice YAC.

I see a big year for Burton

60/800/8

 
Great chance to be Delanie Walker part 2...the $ shows they will give him every opportunity to succeed...I am very high on him but you need to cover your butt and make sure you have another solid option at TE...

 
Not a big projection guy but was reading a piece last night from Bears beat writer who pegged him for 750 yards and that seems in ballpark to me. I was a massive Ertz investor last year and picked him up on some teams as a handcuff and really felt if Ertz went down I'd barely notice. He did not disappoint and I'll be a bit surprised if he disappoints this year either.

 
There's almost zero information to work with on this one, but what little we have is pretty good. 

We know he's slated to be the starter, and some local guys have suggested he'll be their second leading target.  

We know they paid him like that's true. 

We know he's looked decent in spot duty - in the four games ertz has missed the last two years, Burton has 23 targets for 14 receptions, 180 yards and 4 touchdowns. 

But two things I normally avoid are receivers changing teams and young, unproven tight ends. 

The thing for me is that the tight end landscape isn't that exciting right now. There's a lot of guys who will get 500 to 600 yards and a handful of touchdowns, but not many that I'm confident will exceed that.  So the uncertainty is actually a little more valuable to me. His four games as a starter give him a 56 catch, 720 yard, 16 touchdown pace which is obviously unsustainable but suggests he has the touchdown upside and overall ability to be fantasy relevant. 

With the depth of mediocre tight ends, and the number of high risk high upside guys, i see him as the bottom of the tier that includes Jordan reed and Jimmy Graham and a bunch of similar dudes who you would like if you had a decent backup, and slightly ahead of the next tier that has some upside but not quite as much, like Ricky Seals Jones. 

 
There's almost zero information to work with on this one, but what little we have is pretty good. 

We know he's slated to be the starter, and some local guys have suggested he'll be their second leading target.  

We know they paid him like that's true. 

We know he's looked decent in spot duty - in the four games ertz has missed the last two years, Burton has 23 targets for 14 receptions, 180 yards and 4 touchdowns. 

But two things I normally avoid are receivers changing teams and young, unproven tight ends. 

The thing for me is that the tight end landscape isn't that exciting right now. There's a lot of guys who will get 500 to 600 yards and a handful of touchdowns, but not many that I'm confident will exceed that.  So the uncertainty is actually a little more valuable to me. His four games as a starter give him a 56 catch, 720 yard, 16 touchdown pace which is obviously unsustainable but suggests he has the touchdown upside and overall ability to be fantasy relevant. 

With the depth of mediocre tight ends, and the number of high risk high upside guys, i see him as the bottom of the tier that includes Jordan reed and Jimmy Graham and a bunch of similar dudes who you would like if you had a decent backup, and slightly ahead of the next tier that has some upside but not quite as much, like Ricky Seals Jones. 
I pretty much agree with this take.  We don’t have a lot of information, so the unknown wild-card is more attractive than the known mediocrity.

 
There's almost zero information to work with on this one, but what little we have is pretty good. 

We know he's slated to be the starter, and some local guys have suggested he'll be their second leading target.  

We know they paid him like that's true. 

We know he's looked decent in spot duty - in the four games ertz has missed the last two years, Burton has 23 targets for 14 receptions, 180 yards and 4 touchdowns. 

But two things I normally avoid are receivers changing teams and young, unproven tight ends. 

With the depth of mediocre tight ends, and the number of high risk high upside guys, i see him as the bottom of the tier that includes Jordan reed and Jimmy Graham and a bunch of similar dudes who you would like if you had a decent backup, and slightly ahead of the next tier that has some upside but not quite as much, like Ricky Seals Jones. 
I think the bold is big. You say young and unproven TEs and while I agree Burton is unproven he has been in the league since 2014 so not quite a young new to the league guy. He's put in the work to stay in the league and has shown flashes.

 
A lot of people say to stay away from rookie TEs and what not because it usually takes a couple years for them to really start to produce. Well Burton is going on his fifth year and first one as a starter. Yeah I guess some people are tempering their expectations or just not liking the guy because he didn't really do much in philly but that's because he was behind a good, now great complete TE in Ertz.

like Boston said above, I'm treating him like the next Delanie Walker. He was stuck behind Vernon Davis and then went to a team that needed a TE and since then has been one of the most consistent TEs for awhile. Am I expecting Walker like numbers from Burton, not exactly but I do think Burton has the skill set to be able to if he's the real deal.

 
I see Burton was one of the guys in the TE10-15 range who could have a solid season but has a lot of uncertainty.

How good is Burton? We don't know. The Eagles clearly thought he was worse than Ertz, but Ertz is really good. It's a bit concerning that Philly apparently values the TE2 spot enough to draft Goedert, but barely used Burton when Ertz was active. Delanie Walker and Martellus Bennett give reason for optimism as TEs that produced after they left the shadow of a star TE, though it's interesting that both of them were significantly more productive in their 2nd & 3rd year out of town than in their 1st.

Will the Bears have a TE-friendly offense? We don't know. A big part of what makes an offense TE (and WR) friendly is just being a really good passing offense, and they most likely won't have that. Nagy used the TE heavily in KC, but his TE there was Travis Kelce so of course he did. They paid significant resources this offseason for Allen Robinson, Taylor Gabriel, and Anthony Miller, in addition to Burton (along with the guys like Cohen who they already had), so they're adding weapons all over the place and it's not clear who will be used how much.

Will Burton be an every-down TE? We don't know. They have Shaheen going into his 2nd year, and chose to keep Dion Sims for $6M in new money as a blocking TE. Burton looks like their lead guy, but probably all 3 will get some usage, and it's not obvious if the lead guy will get 90% of the snaps or 60%.

 
http://www.rotoworld.com/player/nfl/9737/trey-burton

Burton has big breakout potential.  

I got him off of waivers late last year, and I cannot accurately estimate his 2018 stats, but when you have a few roster spots for fliers, Burton qualifies. Other than Allen Robinson, I have a hard time seeing competition for a lot of targets, so I feel good about Burton as a flier.  As we all know, sometimes in fantasy football, it is the opportunity that makes a player good..

I agree with the post above, 60/800/8 is attainable, especially when opponent's defenses have to respect the Bears running game.

 
To me, Burton’s success will largely depend on the immediate growth of Miller. Presumably Robinson will garner a lot of targets considering the money they threw at him, and Cohen and Gabriel will see a fair amount as well.  That leaves Burton and Miller and there’s obviously only ball for a large pie - perhaps smaller if Nagy goes to a more ground control offense.

I don’t see a reasonable comparison to Walker given that he was the only viable option for a handful of years. 

 
Slightly overvalued for my taste. I have him projected similarly to ASJ and Watson, players going several rounds later.   But he's new and shiny so there's a premium.

52/600/6

 
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