What You Need to Know:

• Alie-Cox signed with the Colts as an undrafted free agent back in 2017 -- despite having not played football since he was a high school freshman. He played basketball at VCU.
• Alie-Cox easily set career highs across the board last year with 39 targets, 31 catches and 394 yards. His 2 scores matched a personal best.
• He still barely registered on the fantasy radar, though, finishing 29th among TEs in PPR points and 27th in non-PPR. He scored as a TE1 in only 2 weeks.
• Alie-Cox was efficient. Among 44 TEs who saw 30+ targets last year, he ranked 2nd in yards per target and 4th in yards per route run. Pro Football Focus graded him 9th in receiving. He easily beat teammates Jack Doyle and Trey Burton in all 3 metrics.
• Doyle is back for 2021, but the Colts did not re-sign Burton. He saw 47 targets last year, which led the TEs and ranked 5th on the team.
• Indianapolis did add rookie TE Kylen Granson, who they seem super excited about. But we rarely see TEs make year-1 impacts -- especially 4th round TEs out of Southern Methodist.
• Alie-Cox, meanwhile, got a 2nd-round restricted free-agent tender from the Colts. It was a relatively aggressive move that showed that the team didn’t want to let him get away.
• The WR corps will be similar to last year. Michael Pittman is back for his 2nd season, and the Colts re-signed T.Y. Hilton to a 1-year, $8 million deal. The Colts will hope to get a healthier season from WR Parris Campbell, who made it through just 1 healthy game last year.
• The big change comes at QB, where Carson Wentz replaces Philip Rivers. That’ll be an upgrade if we get 2017-2019 Wentz; a downgrade if it’s 2020 Wentz.
• In 3 seasons under HC Frank Reich, Colts TEs have accounted for 25.8%, 26.3% and 21.6% of the team’s targets. League-wide average over that span is 19.9%.

Draft Sharks Bottom Line:

Alie-Cox posted a career-best 31-394-2 line last year and fared extremely well in efficiency metrics. It was a promising season from a guy who didn’t even play football in college.

Alie-Cox should still be on the rise and has a chance to claim a bigger role in the passing game in 2021 with the departure of TE Trey Burton, who was targeted 47 times last year. 31-year-old Jack Doyle and 4th-round rookie Kylen Granson are Alie-Cox’s competition for snaps and targets in HC Frank Reich’s TE-friendly offense.

There’s sleeper potential here. Keep an eye on Alie-Cox’s usage this summer.