The 6 Riskiest Players in Fantasy Football This Season

Kyle Rudolph

1. His team needs to get to the red zone.

2. His team needs to throw him a good pass in the red zone.

And unfortunately for him, those are two things that are fairly hard to rely on in Minnesota these days.

The Vikings had a bottom-10 passing offense using our metrics last year, and even without any (planned) Josh Freeman experiments, rookie Teddy Bridgewater and veteran Matt Cassel don't figure to light the world on fire and drastically change the fortunes of the aerial attack for Minnesota.

As a result, our numbers predict that Rudolph could finish anywhere from 7th to 27th among tight ends, which for a one-starter position, means the difference in "worth spending a premium pick on" and "not worth a roster spot."

Rudolph is currently a borderline TE1 according to Fantasy Football Calculator's ADP data, so he's a bit higher than where we have him ranked. That means to take him at his current ADP, you're relying on the Minnesota offense to not only score points, but to score them on non-Adrian Peterson plays.

Charles Clay and Delanie Walker are both going later than Rudolph, and are safer (and better, according to our projections) options for your tight end needs. You're not going to find a lot of difference in the mid-round options, and you can wait to snag undervalued guys like the aforementioned duo or Martellus Bennett instead.