I guess it's because we had Jimmy Graham but some people around here don't have realistic expectations when it comes to TE production. The truth is that there are only a handful of elite TEs in the NFL. There's a tier of elite TEs like Gronk, Kelce, Ertz, and now Kittle. After that you have the regular old, good TEs like Jared Cook. Just look at the TE leaders in yards last season:
So in a year where offense was up, three TEs finished with over a thousand yards. That's only happened 4 times in the past 20 years. You'll see that after those top three guys there's a pretty dramatic drop in yards. 600 yards for a TE is a really good season and Cook has reached that mark 5 times in the 9 years he's been a starter. He's been able to reach that mark despite some sketchy offenses and some sketchy QBs throwing him the ball.
- George Kittle - 88 rec, 1,377 yards
- Travis Kelce - 103 rec, 1,336 yards
- Zach Ertz - 116 rec, 1,163 yards
- Jared Cook - 68 rec, 896 yards
- Eric Ebron - 66 rec, 750 yards
- Gronk - 47 rec, 682 yards
- Austin Hooper - 71 rec, 660 yards
- David Njoku - 56 rec, 639 yards
- Jimmy Graham - 55 rec, 636 yards
- Kyle Rudolph - 64 rec, 634 yards