With Labor Day weekend upon us, and the biggest fantasy football drafting weekend of the year underway, it’s time to finish our look at the last positional tiers: the tight ends. This group has elite talent at the top, a whole mess of guys mushed together, and then a steep drop-off.
Tier One: The Elite of the Elite
- Sam LaPorta, Detroit (TE2, Pick 30)
- Mark Andrews, Baltimore (TE4, Pick 45)
These two can’t go wrong; they will be the top of the pops this year, with guys like Travis Kelce finally taking a step back (more on him in a second). LaPorta had the best rookie tight end season of all time last year and is in line to repeat his performance this year. He had 889 receiving yards (fifth in the league) but still had the third-most unrealized air yards. The Lions also haven’t changed anything about their offensive makeup (shuffling Tim Patrick in for the myriad of other receivers doesn’t wow me). He is ascendant, and my favorite tight end this season.
Mark Andrews was third in fantasy points per game in the span that he played last season, behind Travis Kelce and T.J. Hockenson, if you strip out the game he left with an injury. He’s also the best player in the Ravens’ passing game by a decent margin, fully recovered from his broken leg, and in line to be Lamar Jackson’s number-one target yet again. He’s running an elite 27-30 routes per game in each of the last three seasons. You can’t go wrong with Andrews, though you can’t go wrong with these guys, either.
Tier Two: Studs
- Travis Kelce, Kansas City (TE1, Pick 27)
- Trey McBride, Arizona (TE3, Pick 44)
- Evan Engram, Jacksonville (TE8, Pick 69)
- Kyle Pitts, Atlanta (TE6, Pick 57)
- George Kittle, San Francisco (TE7, Pick 58)
How the mighty have fallen, all the way from TE1 to TE3. Travis Kelce and the Chiefs have changed tactics, getting a diverse group of wide receivers in to move targets away from Kelce. With the Hollywood Brown and Xavier Worthy additions and Rashee Rice breaking out last year, the target pie is getting awfully crowded. This has nothing to do with Kelce’s skill level or anything along the lines of a “Taylor Swift Curse,” either. He’s just getting up there in age (he turns 35 in October), and last year, the year that everyone worried about, was the best tight end season of all time for anyone aged 34 or older. It’s called the downslope of a career for a reason, folks. I still think he’s elite, I just don’t want him over guys without question marks like Andrews and LaPorta.
Trey McBride showed the world why he was the TE1 off the board in the 2022 draft class, breaking out the moment Zach Ertz shuffled aside. He finished the season with 106 targets, 81 receptions, 825 yards, and 3 touchdowns. That’s a fine season from any tight end, but that’s the kicker: he did most of that in half a season. McBride took off in week eight, averaging 6.6 receptions for 65.5 yards from that point on after averaging just 2 catches for 24 yards before that point. The only thing that changed was an injury to Zach Ertz. There are questions about his target volume this year with Marvin Harrison Jr. in tow. They concern me some, but not enough to panic.
Evan Engram is going to be as rock-solid as they come, and he gets a bit of a lift here for one thing, which the two guys below him in this tier won’t offer: consistency. The highs are high with George Kittle, but the lows are low. Engram had 143 targets last year and is a key part of that roster. He finished as TE4 thanks to unabashed consistency: he finished as a TE1 in 13 of his 17 games last season and was inside the top ten in 12 of those. He’s metronomic production, and will not blow up your spot. If you subscribe to my draft strategy of getting a boom-bust WR3, then a tight end like Engram will make it easier to swallow the bust weeks. Personally, I would take him a smidge later, but I wanted to highlight him here, for you folks who stress about tight end production.
Kyle Pitts definitely will turn the corner this season and justify his draft price. He won’t break our hearts again. This definitely isn’t projection. With Pitts finally getting his first non-braindead OC of his career (read: not Arthur Smith), and getting his best quarterback since Cooked Matt Ryan, I am hoping that his talent finally takes over and he doesn’t get mired in running fruitless routes: he was first in air yards, target distance, deep targets, third in slot snaps… and first in unrealized air yards, sixteenth in receptions, and eleventh in receiving yards. The opportunity was there last year, the quarterbacks just sucked out loud. We hope and dream that Kirk Cousins won’t suck out loud, at least for Kyle Pitts’ sake.
Ah, George Kittle. One of my favorite players of all time, and the person whose Iowa jersey shields me from the elements at every 49ers home game. He’s the best all-around tight end in the NFL, and that creates problems for his fantasy managers. It also creates hammer weeks that can have you laughing at your opponent around the water cooler on Monday morning. But, he’s such a strong blocker that the 49ers use him to spring Christian McCaffrey, or protect Brock Purdy. To whit: he had seven games with 25 or fewer routes run last year, and he finished outside the top-20 at the position in five of them. He had 12 games last year with 26 or more routes, and he finished top-seven in in ten of them, including seven top-three finishes. If you have stability everywhere else, then Kittle can be your boom-bust WR3.
Tier Three: The Pre-Blob
- Dalton Kincaid, Buffalo (TE5, Pick 50)
- Jake Ferguson, Dallas (TE9, Pick 81)
These two guys are the last chance to get a tight end before we enter The Blob territory. In the past, The Blob was a place where we would dive in to get some tight ends, but given how big the group of starting-caliber tight ends have gotten, The Blob is a place where you start to get desperate, instead of secure in your ability to get a top-ten tight end on the cheap.
Kincaid is top-five for a lot of people, and I get that, but I am a bit more cautious than most folks on him. Dawson Knox and the bevy of receivers there are likely to pull enough targets away from him to keep him from being elite, volume-wise. That, alongside Josh Allen and James Cook vulturing goal-line touchdowns, gives me just enough pause that Kincaid will not work out if you take him fifth.
Jake Ferguson is budget Evan Engram, as there isn’t much else in the passing game outside of CeeDee Lamb. He finished last year with 102 targets (seventh) and that came alongside the passing game struggles of early last season in Dallas. Once they got it all together in week eight, he was TE7 until the end of the year. He’s a solid value here at TE9 and frequently falls past Pick 81.
Tier Four: The Top of the Blob
- Brock Bowers, Las Vegas (TE11, Pick 99)
- Dallas Goedert, Philadelphia (TE12, Pick 110)
These two players end up here, to be honest, because I don’t know where else to put them. Brock Bowers is a stud tight end drafted to the Raiders because they couldn’t get a quarterback, but he joins a messy passing game (hence why they wanted a quarterback) that will end up wildly inconsistent overall, which makes me fear that Bowers will be more rookie Trey McBride than rookie Sam LaPorta. He’s a pick that could get thrown away, but he’s the best of the non-blob options out there.
Poor Dallas Goedert. He sat behind Zach Ertz, waiting for his chance to be a stud tight end. Then, the Eagles snagged two top-20 receivers and a run-first quarterback. Dallas Goedert is Just Fine, finishing as TE12 in points per game last year. With Kellen Moore in as OC, and Jason Kelce out as Designated Tush Push Road Grader, they should get the ball in the air a tad bit more, but I fear that Goedert won’t get much of that. He had only four top twelve games last season, and that’s a big problem.
Tier Five: The Blob (If You Get One, Get Two)
- Dalton Schultz, Houston (TE13, Pick 124)
- Isaiah Likely, Baltimore (TE21, Pick 167)
- Taysom Hill, New Orleans (TE18, Pick 159)
- David Njoku, Cleveland (TE10, Pick 86)
- Hunter Henry, New England (TE19, Pick 161)
This is the 2024 Blob. But, unlike blobs of the past, this group is going to likely have you barely hanging onto a decent tight end, rather than getting you a set-and-forget starter on the cheap. Thanks to this change, if you get one of these guys, you need to get two. It’s also very likely that this group will fall apart and you have a mess on your hands at tight end: I no longer recommend diving into The Blob as a strategy, but it remains a decent fallback option.
Dalton Schultz finished last season as TE11, with the seventh-most air yards and the twelfth-most targets at the position. The Texans’ offense has another strong weapon in Stefon Diggs, which will grow their pie. But, it’s also likely that the pie tilts towards their strong receiving corps. In games where both Tank Dell and Nico Collins played, Schultz averaged just 3.6 catches for 36 yards per game, with most of that buoyed by an 11-target, 10-catch, 130-yard effort in week eight. Strip that out, and Schultz is chilling at 2.75 catches for 24 yards per game.
Isaiah Likely is probably my craziest take of the season, but he showed last season that the Ravens need to switch to 12 personnel, a change that the Ravens agree should happen. The Ravens ran 12 personnel (one running back, two tight ends) at the 28th-lowest rate last year, but every drumbeat this offseason shows them moving more to two TE sets. That makes Likely, who broke out to the tune of 3.5 catches for 54 yards (and 0.8 touchdowns) per game without Mark Andrews a good value pick in The Blob.
Love him or hate him, Taysom Hill is going to be productive enough to matter in fantasy football. I’m done getting annoyed about it, and it’s time to lean in. The Pocatello, Idaho, 34-year-old tight end/running back/fullback/quarterback finished with 692 yards and 6 touchdowns last season, which ranked tenth in tight end yards, and second in tight end touchdowns. If you’re in a non-PPR league, there’s a case to be made that Taysom Hill could be top-ten, given that his value is rushing (and not receiving). He’s obnoxious, but he’s going to be productive.
David Njoku finished last year on a tear, finishing his last five games averaging 9 targets, 6 catches, and 78 yards per game, scoring four touchdowns in five games and averaging 18.2 PPR points per game… all with Joe Flacco. With Deshaun Watson, he was a Blob Tight End: 4.2 catches, 38.3 yards per game; that’s thanks to his average depth of target with Watson hitting a robust 1.4 yards downfield. If Njoku laid down at the line of scrimmage, and Watson dropped the ball into his hand, then his aDOT would have increased.
Hunter Henry is a rock-solid tight end option, or at least he has been in recent years. He’s a player, who, unfortunately, had a rough preseason thanks to injuries keeping him sidelined. That, combined with the Patriots potentially having the worst roster in the NFL, and either Jacoby Brissett or a rookie under center (depending on the time of year), I fear that Henry won’t be a solid back-end blob option this year.
Tier Six: Sub-Blob (Now You’re in Trouble)
- J. Hockenson, Minnesota (TE14, Pick 125)
- Tyler Conklin, N.Y. Jets (TE20, Pick 164)
- Pat Freiermuth, Pittsburgh (TE15, Pick 126)
- Chig Okonkwo, Tennessee (TE24, Pick 187
If you’re diving into this group, you better have a wild hair about one of these guys. Hockenson is a draft-and-stash candidate as his ACL tear recovery has him starting the year on the PUP. At one point this offseason, he was a top-twelve TE pick, which makes no sense. If he’s your second tight end, then sure, why not? I just fear what the roster construction will do to you if your other upside-tight end doesn’t break out. Do you roster three? Do you kick Hock or the other tight end to the curb? Do you eat 2 catch, 30-yard efforts? What’s your plan? Because of that, I’m not sticking Hock onto my rosters at the draft.
Tyler Conklin had 87 targets in each of the last three seasons, and last year was the best of his career from a yardage standpoint, as he finished with 61 catches for 621 yards. If we get him some dang touchdowns (he had zero last year), then he could finish inside the top ten at the position. With a healthy Rodgers and a healthy Breece Hall together, I am unsure what Conklin will get this year. But, I am keeping one eye on him, just to make sure that I don’t miss anything.
Pat Freiermuth is going to get Arthur Smithed, there’s no two ways about it. He rotated in the preseason, playing on eleven drives. In those eleven drives, he played 31-of-53 snaps, according to Pro Football Focus. That stinks out loud and makes Freiermuth a touchdown-or-bust tight end with a hideous offense around him. No thanks.
Chig Okonkwo has a shot to be this year’s Tyler Conklin… which isn’t saying much. He’s the last tight end I’d draft, which also isn’t saying much.
