What You Need to Know:

• Playing under the franchise tag in 2020, Henry set career highs in targets (87) and catches (60). He added 613 yards and 4 scores.
• Henry’s now scored 4 or 5 TDs in 3 straight healthy seasons. (He missed all of 2018 with an ACL tear.)
• Henry posted only 4 top-10 fantasy weeks, with the first not arriving until Week 10. Overall, he ranked as the PPR TE12.
• Henry missed the final 2 games of the season on the COVID-19 list.
• Henry earned his worst career Pro Football Focus receiving grade (69.3) —16th among 26 TEs with 50+ targets.
• One day after the Pats signed Jonnu Smith, they inked Henry to a 3-year deal worth $37.4 million. Both deals are worth an average of ~$12.5 million per season.
• Jonnu’s presence certainly caps the upside of Henry, who’s the superior blocker and should have a bigger role in that area.
• The Pats retained Cam Newton on a 1-year deal and added Mac Jones in Round 1 of the 2021 draft. Newton looked like a shell of himself in 2020, but we expect him to at least enter Week 1 as the starter.
• Jones started only 1 season at Alabama, but he showed pro-level accuracy on tape.
• Only 6% of Newton’s targets went to TEs in 2020 — lowest in the NFL. There’s no doubt that’ll change massively in ’21. While the Pats added WRs Nelson Agholor and Kendrick Bourne to pair with Jakobi Meyers, the strength of this offense now lies at TE.
• What figures to remain is the Pats’ run-heavy game plan. With a restocked defense and a well-built O-line, look for another low-volume pass attack.

Draft Sharks Bottom Line:

Coming off a pedestrian season alongside Justin Herbert, Henry heads to New England to form a 1-2 punch with Jonnu Smith.

Only 26, Henry will likely need to pop as a scorer to pay off in fantasy. Smith’s superior playmaking ability figures to put him ahead for targets. Mix in QB and volume concerns and Henry quickly fades as a TE1 priority.