The Dallas Cowboys have had plenty of changes to their offensive philosophy over the past five seasons and 2023 was no different. That was the year CeeDee Lamb became a true alpha number one wide receiver and dominated targets and touchdowns in the second half. It is odd that Lamb's explosion didn't change the one consistent thing about the Cowboys offense: they would produce a low-end TE1. Jake Ferguson was even better when Lamb took off than he was before.
Ferguson finished last season with 71 catches, 761 yards and five touchdowns, which was good enough to be TE9. That sounds like a very typical Cowboys tight end season. But from Week 8 on, when Lamb really took off, Ferguson was even better as well. His pace from Week 8 through Week 18 was for 77 catches, 882 yards, and six touchdowns. Then he followed that up by catching 10 passes for 93 yards and three touchdowns in their only playoff game.
While the Fantasy Football community is falling all over themselves to roster Brock Bowers, Dalton Kincaid and Kyle Pitts (again), Ferguson was better than all of them last year and is still just 25 years old. He's also much cheaper despite only being one tier below that trio in the tiers below. If Ferguson is able to start 2024 the way he finished the prior season, we may have to discuss if he should be behind those guys at all.
Here are my updated Dynasty tight end tiers:
