Noah Fant's Preseason Player Analysis

Bottom Line

Fant has been a fantasy disappointment the past two seasons, stuck in a TE rotation. He’s been efficient on a per-route and per-target basis, though.

The former first-round pick is still only 26 and should see more playing time this year. The Seahawks lost TEs Colby Parkinson and Will Dissly in free agency and have a new coaching staff that might boost the team’s passing production.

Going very late in fantasy drafts, Fant looks like one of the better values at TE this year.

What We Learned Last Year

• Fant caught 32 balls for 414 yards and 0 TDs in 17 games last year.
• He ranked 39th among TEs in PPR points per game; 41st in non-PPR.
• That followed a 50-486-4 receiving line in Fant’s Seattle debut in 2022.
• He finished TE25 in PPR points per game and TE24 in non-PPR that year.
• Fant was part of a TE rotation alongside Will Dissly and Colkby Parkinson the past two seasons.
  • He registered a 54% route rate in 2022, ranking 23rd among TEs in total pass routes
  • He ran a route of 50% of pass plays and ranked 26th in total routes last year.
• Fant ranked 17th among 43 qualifying TEs in yards per route in 2022 and 22nd out of 45 last year.
• Among 52 TEs with 50+ targets over the last two seasons, Fant ranked:
  • 6th in catch rate
  • 17th in yards per catch
  • 5th in yards per target

What to Expect in 2024

• Fant re-signed with the Seahawks on a two-year, $21 million deal with $11.5 million guaranteed. He ranks 11th among TEs in average annual salary.
• Will Dissly and Colby Parkinson both departed in free agency this offseason. Seattle only added free-agent TE Pharaoh Brown, fourth-round rookie TE A.J. Barner, and undrafted rookie TE Jack Westover.
• Seattle has a brand new coaching staff led by HC Mike Macdonald and OC Ryan Grubb.
• This will be Grubb’s first NFL coaching job.
  • He’s been coaching in various offensive roles for various schools since 2003.
  • Grubb most recently served as the University of Washington’s OC. Those Huskies teams both ranked top 13 in the nation in total yards and points per game.
  • They were especially lethal through the air, ranking first and then second in passing yards per game. Washington ranked top five in pass attempts both years.
• Grubb said in early June that his Seahawks offense might not be as pass-heavy.
  • “So when you talk about some of the run-pass balance, you have backs like (Kenneth Walker III) and Zach (Charbonnet), you are pretty excited about your ability to run the ball. So I think for us we are trying to meld some things together with some things we’ve done in the past, whether it’s a long time ago or even just the last few years and get the guys to understand that we want to be a physically dominant team and at the same time have that same explosive, confusing element that people are used to.”
• Jack Westover and Devin Culp split TEs duties for Washington over the past two seasons. They combined to account for:
  • 16.3% of the team’s receptions
  • 12.5% of the receiving yards
  • 11.4% of the receiving TDs
• Those are low marks, but those Huskies teams had three NFL WRs in Rome Odunze (ninth overall pick), Ja’Lynn Polk (37th pick), and Jalen McMillan (Round 3). Culp, meanwhile, went in Round 7, while Westover signed with Seattle after going undrafted.
• Fant will turn just 27 in November. Our aging-curve data has found that TEs on average are still at 90-98% of peak production at 26 and 27 years old.
• Fant was the 20th overall pick of the 2019 NFL Draft after racking up 1,013 yards and 18 TDs across his final two seasons at Iowa, despite sharing the field with TE T.J. Hockenson.
• Fant ran a 4.50-second 40-yard dash at the Combine and posted elite marks in the vertical, broad, and 3-cone. He earned a 9.89 Relative Athletic Score.
• Fant was productive across three years in Denver to open his NFL career, totaling 170 catches for 1,905 yards and 10 TDs. He finished those seasons 14th, 11th, and 12th among TEs in PPR points.