This article is part of our Training Camp Notes series.
Here are some of the top fantasy football headlines from Tuesday.
-Green Bay coach Matt LaFleur offered praise and said Robert Tonyan is a candidate to start at tight end for Green Bay, the competition otherwise being 2019 third-round pick Jace Sternberger and rookie third-round pick Josiah Deguara. Sternberger in particular was a favorite to win the starting job, because Deguara is more like a fullback tweener than a proper tight end.
Sternberger (6-4, 251) tested a bit below average as an athlete at the combine, his 4.75-second 40, 31.5-inch vertical, 113-inch broad jump and 11.5 agility score unimpressive for a smallish tight end. Sternberger did have excellent production to his credit in his one year at Texas A&M, but even that aspect of his profile is cheapened by the fact that he was more than 22 at the time, which is kind of like getting an 'A' grade in a class where you got held back a year. Tonyan (6-5, 236) is a former wide receiver with more speed to work with than Sternberger. Running at his pro day out of Indiana State, Tonyan posted a 4.58-second 40, 35-inch vertical, 125-inch broad jump, and 11.46 agility score. Tonyan played about 20 snaps per game in 2019 when healthy.
-The Athletic beat writer Nick Baumgardner reported that rookies D'Andre Swift and Quintez Cephus have shown well for the Lions to this point. Swift, the 35th overall selection, has evidently done quick damage as a route runner in camp, lighting up the Lions linebackers and showing ability split out wide. Cephus, a fifth-round pick out of Wisconsin, has shown well for himself at receiver, beating third overall draft pick Jeff Okudah at multiple points in practice. Cephus ran an awful 4.73-second 40-yard dash time at the combine, but Okudah called Cephus the best receiver he faced in his Ohio State career.
-Recent free agent signing Dontrelle Inman ran at the starting outside receiver spot opposite Terry McLaurin in Washington's early practices, with Steven Sims the lead man in the slot. The journeyman Inman is evidently ahead of rookie fourth-round pick Antonio Gandy-Golden, who has the bigger build (6-4, 223) and probably better athleticism between the two, but also might need more development time after making the jump from Liberty, a low-level school. It's also possible that Gandy-Golden catches up to or overtakes Inman before Week 1 – Gandy-Golden was a uniquely productive player in college.
-NBC Sports Boston's Tom Curran reports that early on it's Damiere Byrd who's stood out most among New England's wide receivers, describing N'Keal Harry, Mohamed Sanu and Jakobi Meyers as "fine." Part of Byrd's distinction was presumably owed to the absence of Julian Edelman, who left early in practice for an unspecified reason.
Byrd in any case is unique among the Patriots pass catchers because he's one of the most explosive players in the league. His pro day numbers out of South Carolina are pretty legendary – in addition to a 4.28-second 40 he posted a 42-inch vertical, 131-inch broad jump, and 10.68 agility score at 5-9, 173. He went undrafted due to poor production, but South Carolina's quarterback play probably didn't suit him, especially with Pharoh Cooper hogging most of the low-difficulty targets in Byrd's final season. His playing time was abbreviated last year in Arizona all the same, playing only 461 snaps in 11 games and seeing a couple healthy scratches late in the year. It's generally not the greatest sign that the WR-needy Cardinals were quick to give Byrd the hook, but to his credit he was fairly productive with 46 targets on 461 snaps, catching 32 for 359 yards and one touchdown (69.6 percent catch rate, 7.8 YPT).
-Mark Kaboly of The Athletic reports that Ben Roethlisberger has seen some fluctuation in his throwing motion, which someone could easily read as connected to Roethlisberger's recovery from last year's season-ending elbow injury. Kaboly made himself clear that Roethlisberger's velocity remains intact, but also mentioned that late in practice his throwing motion would sometimes begin to resemble that of Philip Rivers, potentially indicating compensation for decline in some other point in his throw. Kaboly further suggests that if this tendency continues, it could conceivably affect Roethlisberger's accuracy on deeper throws. If Roethlisberger loses something on his deep ball it would probably hurt James Washington most among Steelers receivers, because his ADOT at 15.2 yards was much farther downfield than those of JuJu Smith-Schuster (9.2) and Diontae Johnson (9.1) last year.
