Jack Endries

Jack Endries — TE, CIN — 2026

Team correction (load-bearing). This eval was tasked as "Jack Endries (TE, IND)." That is wrong. Endries is a Cincinnati Bengal: drafted R7, pick 221, 2026 NFL Draft (bengals.com draft announcement, 4/2026; Wikipedia, fetched 2026-07-08; Sleeper players dump team: CIN, 2026-07-07; data/adp/adp_ffc_2026-07-07.csv row lists CIN). The IND team profile (2026-07-07) independently confirms the Colts drafted no TE in 2026 and their room is Warren/Alie-Cox/Ogletree — no Endries. Evaluated on his actual team, CIN.

Scoring note. The tasking instruction said to assume full PPR because league-settings was unconfirmed, but methodology/league-settings.md now carries confirmed values (2026-07-08): half PPR (0.5/rec), no TE reception premium, 6-pt pass TD. Projections below are in Half-PPR per the file (the authority). Full-PPR equivalents: floor 0 / median ~11 / ceiling ~47 — immaterial at this volume. No TE premium + 1 TE slot = punt-is-default scarcity math (te.md §7), which makes zero-path TEs like this strictly unrosterable.

Verdict

AVOID (high confidence) at mock-undrafted / waiver-tier price. Endries is a 22-year-old seventh-round rookie (pick 221) sitting fifth-or-worse in a seven-deep Bengals TE room — behind Mike Gesicki (the move/receiving TE1, signed through 2027), Drew Sample (blocking Y), Tanner Hudson, and Erick All Jr. (returning from ACL, praised by Zac Taylor) — in the NFL's most TE-hostile target structure: the entire CIN TE room combined for 129 targets split five ways in 2025, with no TE above a 6.9% target share (data/stats/2025/receiving.csv). There is no live contingent path: even a Gesicki injury routes work to Hudson/All, and the prize at the end of that chain is a ~42–83 target committee role. The rookie-TE fade rule (te.md §9, ~5% top-12 hit rate) applies on top of the depth chart. The residual market case — RAS 8.87, "hard to keep off the 53" buzz (Cincy Jungle, 6/2026) — confuses a real *NFL roster* path with a *fantasy* path; making the 53 as a developmental TE4/5 produces zero fantasy points. Do not roster in 2026 redraft; he is a dynasty/watch-list name only.

Projection & comps

Season totals, Half-PPR (league-settings.md confirmed 2026-07-08):

Bottom-up basis: CIN projects ~37 pass att/g (CIN team profile, 2026-07-07), but the top three claims (Chase 30.4% TS, Higgins 16.1%, Brown 14.5% — receiving.csv 2025) plus Iosivas and Gesicki leave a rookie TE5 with scraps; his projected route participation is <20% of dropbacks even on the 53. Games-played risk: high — the risk is the roster spot and healthy scratches, not injury.

Comps (grounded in cached tables):

• Erick All Jr., CIN 2024 (R4 rookie, same team, *higher* capital): 22 targets, 20-158-0 in 8 games (data/stats/2024/receiving.csv) — the realistic *ceiling shape* of a rookie TE Zac Taylor actually likes.
• Tanner Hudson, CIN 2024–25: 23 and 24 targets (data/stats/2024,2025/receiving.csv) — the veteran incumbent version of the best role Endries could steal.
• Cam Grandy, CIN 2024–25: 5-28-0 / 2-7-0 (receiving.csv) — the floor, and the guy directly beside him on the depth chart.

Usage profile (te.md §2 table)

RP gate: fails by construction — zero NFL routes; as a rookie TE4/5 his projected RP is far below the 55% part-time line, which per te.md §2 ends the eval at streamer/AVOID territory. Table filled for the contract; with <200 career routes, pedigree carries the weight (te.md §2 reading rules).

Pedigree layer (prospect-pedigree.md, carries the weight here):

• Draft capital: R7 #221 (bengals.com, 4/2026; pick acquired from DAL in the Logan Wilson trade — Wikipedia, fetched 2026-07-08). Per pedigree §1, R4–7 TE capital = "punt-price darts only" — and darts still need a role bet.
• College production: Cal walk-on, redshirted 2022; 2023: 35-407-2; 2024: team-leading 56-623-2 at Cal (meets the "top-2 in team receiving" TE dominance bar, te.md §9); transferred to Texas, 2025: 33-346-3 in 13 games — production regressed in a loaded offense; Texas target share UNVERIFIED (all: Wikipedia, fetched 2026-07-08).
• Early declare: yes — declared 2026-01-02, forgoing a final year (Wikipedia) — a genuine TE-specific green signal (pedigree §2).
• Athletic testing: RAS 8.87 (166th of 1,456 TEs since 1987 — ras.football via @MathBomb on X, 2–3/2026); combine 4.62 forty / 36" vert / 9'11" broad / 19 bench at 6'5", 245 (Wikipedia, fetched 2026-07-08). Clears the RAS ≥8.0 pay-up-tier prerequisite (te.md §9).
• Net: a real developmental profile (tester + early declare + one dominant college season) attached to dead-end capital and a blocked depth chart. The pedigree makes him a *dynasty taxi* name, not a 2026 asset.

Alignment & role (te.md §3)

At 245 lbs he is a move/F-TE build, and the Bengals themselves slot him as a developmental receiving option (bengals.com position primer, 2026-07-02) — i.e., he competes for the *Gesicki* role, not the Sample/All inline Y roles. That is the worst possible lane: Gesicki is signed through 2027 and Hudson is the incumbent backup in it. Inline/blocking snaps (the other route onto the field) are the part of his game scouting treated as developmental. NFL alignment/blocking split data: N/A (rookie) — first hard evidence will be August preseason RP and alignment.

Context (CIN team profile, 2026-07-07)

• Play-caller: Zac Taylor (8th year) — the most pass-tilted caller in football with Burrow healthy, but a WR-funnel: Chase/Higgins/Brown ate ~61% of 2025 targets; the TE room's combined 129 targets were split five ways. Play-action <19.5% and cut year-over-year (PFF via profile) — removes the TE position's easiest yards (te.md §5); 92% shotgun 11-personnel spread keeps 12-personnel routes scarce.
• QB: Burrow (elite, signed through 2029) — irrelevant to a TE5; a rising tide doesn't reach the fifth TE.
• Room: Gesicki (TE1, through 2027; 28-307-2 in 12 games 2025, 65-665-2 in 2024 — receiving.csv), Sample (blocking Y, 12 starts 2025), Hudson, Erick All Jr. back from ACL ("best I've felt" — bengals.com, 7/2026; Taylor publicly praising him), Grandy, Endries, Kattus. Sleeper lists Endries depth_chart_order: 5 (2026-07-07). Vacated TE work: only Noah Fant's 41 targets, and four veterans stand ahead of Endries for them.
• Scarcity picture (te.md §7): below the punt tier — punt-tier darts require "one elite trait or a role bet"; Endries has the trait (RAS) but no role bet. PPG edge vs the streamer baseline: ≤0. With no TE premium and one TE slot, he is not among the ~40 TEs worth a roster spot in this format in 2026.

Tripwires (re-run on any)

• Gesicki traded, released, or suffers a multi-week injury and camp/preseason reports show Endries — not Hudson — running the detached/move routes with the top offense.
• Erick All Jr. ACL setback or PUP start to the season (thins the room by one rung).
• Preseason usage signal: Endries RP ≥60% with starters in any August game, or beat reports of a defined package role.
• Cut or waived at 53-man cutdown (late Aug 2026) → remove from watch list entirely.
• Sleeper/FFC ADP appears inside the top-30 TEs (would mean news this eval hasn't seen).