Vance McDonald is “Never Going to Play the Full Game,” Fantasy Stock Trends Downward

The Steelers' OC made it clear the Vance McDonald will not be an every-down tight end in 2019.

Steelers TE Vance McDonald is one of the more popular later round tight ends being targeted once the top elite TE players have been taken. Despite sharing TE reps with Jesse James last year, McDonald still saw 72 targets for 50 catches and 610 yards. Now James is gone, along with Antonio Brown and the 104 receptions as well. Normally, rational people would expect McDonald to inherit a good amount of target share and assume majority of the TE snap responsibilities after a small late season breakout. Unfortunately that’s not the case.

Jesus Randy, a simple no would have been just fine. I get McDonald has never played through a full season due to injury and the Steelers demand a lot of snaps from their tight ends. Now that he’s the No. 1, Pittsburgh doesn’t want to risk losing McDonald to injury I suppose, but the hope is that he’s out there more in 2019 than he was in 2018. He’s only caught one ball for five yards through two preseason games so he’s not exactly making a big splash. It’s an electric offense that’s looking to fill the void of a deserted superstar. It would be great for McDonald to make the jump into the upper TE tier levels of guys like Evan Engram, OJ Howard or Hunter Henry. However, it looks like we may need to pump the breaks on McDonald hype for the time being as Pittsburgh looks to keep him on a leash.

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  • THE Inaugural 2016 RSJ Fantasy Football League Champion. Owner of a #bigbrain, and lover of football, baseball and college hoops. When not grinding for the RSJ, can be found captaining his beer league softball team.

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