Let’s dive into tight end fantasy football draft strategy. We’ll take a look at my strategy and advice for how to approach the tight end position as well as my rankings, tiers and targets as you prepare for your fantasy football drafts.
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Tight End Fantasy Football Draft Strategy
For years, fantasy managers spent the offseason convincing themselves that the TE position was on the verge of a renaissance — that we’d soon be awash in high-quality tight ends.
And every year, we would be proven wrong. The wave of TE talent that was supposed to uplift the position turned into a mere ripple before reaching the shore. I am one of the gullible souls who kept believing that genuine depth at tight end was just around the corner.
Well, the tight end renaissance is finally upon us, and it’s real this time. It’s happening.
There were six tight ends who scored more than 200 PPR fantasy points last season. It was the first time in the last 10 seasons that more than five tight ends surpassed the 200-point threshold. It was also the first time in the last 10 seasons that more than eight tight ends scored at least 175 PPR points. Nine TEs cleared 175 points last year.
More good news: Of the nine tight ends who scored more than 175 PPR points last season, five will be 25 or younger this season. And the NFL is also welcoming one of the most celebrated TE prospects in recent memory, Brock Bowers, into the league.
In recent years, the dearth of high-quality production at tight end presented a dilemma for fantasy managers: They could aggressively address the position by paying a steep cost in draft capital with Travis Kelce in the first round or Mark Andrews in the early third round, or they could wait on a tight end and run the risk of getting inconsistent weekly production at the position.
Kelce might not be a sure thing any longer. He finished with 93 catches for 984 yards and five touchdowns last season. It marked the first time Kelce had fallen short of the 1,000-yard mark since 2015. Kelce turns 35 in October. He had a 77% snap share last year — his lowest since 2014. The Chiefs have the luxury of managing Kelce’s snaps to keep him fresh since their likelihood of making the playoffs is so high.
But that’s OK, because we have a buyer’s market at tight end in 2024, with good value at a variety of price points. (And Kelce might not be a bad value himself, since he now has a mid-third-round ADP.)
There are 12 tight ends I would be satisfied to have as my starter going into the season. There are at least three good-quality No. 2 tight ends behind the top 12. And in a different category entirely is T.J. Hockenson, who would normally be an upper-tier tight end but is expected to miss a good chunk of the regular season after tearing his ACL and MCL late last year. There’s hope that Hockenson will be back to help fantasy teams with their championship drives late in the season.
I’m not locking myself into a rigid TE strategy for 2024, but there are two primary pockets of value where grabbing a tight end makes a lot of sense: in the fifth round, which is where Dalton Kincaid and Mark Andrews typically come off the board, or in the eighth round, where Jake Ferguson is typically available. More on those guys in a minute.
TE Premium Formats
Tight end premium has become a popular variation of fantasy football. In TE premium, tight ends are awarded more points per reception than wide receivers or running backs. In most TE-premium leagues, WRs and RBs get 1 point per reception, and TEs get 1.5. In some leagues, tight ends get 1.75 or 2 points per reception.
The format seemingly requires you to spend up at tight end. With the greater rewards for TE receptions, there is incentive to aggressively draft a top tight end in the early rounds.
But drafting a tight end early in a TE-premium league isn’t always optimal strategy.
Since tight ends come off the board earlier in TE-premium drafts, good players at other positions are available later in the draft than they would be otherwise. If you decide not to draft a tight end early, you can scoop up value at other positions. If you can figure out a way to get adequate TE production later in the draft, you’ll be ahead of the game.
Targets & Avoids
Here are some of the tight ends I’m targeting and avoiding this year:
Target: Dalton Kincaid
Kincaid had a promising rookie season, finishing with 73 catches for 673 yards and two touchdowns. But now the Bills need their young tight end to take on a bigger role, as they’ve parted ways with WRs Stefon Diggs and Gabe Davis. Over Buffalo’s final four games, playoffs included, Kincaid stepped up and had 19 catches for 275 yards. That’s better than a 1,000-yard pace projected over a full season. It’s not inconceivable that Kincaid could lead the Bills in targets this season, and those targets will be coming from one of the best QBs in the game, Josh Allen.
Avoid: Trey McBride
I like McBride, but I’m not crazy about his mid-fourth-round ADP. McBride caught fire down the stretch last year, averaging 6.6 catches and 65.5 receiving yards per game from Week 8 through the end of the regular season. But Arizona spent the fourth overall pick of this year’s NFL Draft on Ohio State WR Marvin Harrison Jr., who seems destined to be a target hog from the get-go. I worry that McBride won’t match last year’s target volume. It’s also slightly concerning that McBride has only scored five touchdowns over his last three seasons dating back to his final college season at Colorado State.
Target: Mark Andrews
Over the last five seasons, Andrews has averaged 4.9 catches, 60.6 receiving yards and 0.52 TDs per game. The Ravens aren’t exactly loaded at wide receiver, so Andrews should continue to be one of QB Lamar Jackson‘s primary targets.
Avoid: Dallas Goedert
Goedert will turn 30 before the end of the season. He’s no better than No. 3 in the Eagles’ pecking order for targets behind the formidable WR duo of A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith. And the passing efficiency of Eagles QB Jalen Hurts declined last year without his mentor, Shane Steichen, who left his post as Philadelphia’s offensive coordinator after the 2022 season to become the Colts’ head coach.
Target: Jake Ferguson
Ferguson finished TE8 last season in half-point PPR scoring, finishing with 71 catches for 761 yards and five touchdowns. His 102 targets were second on the Cowboys behind only WR CeeDee Lamb. Dallas didn’t add any pass catchers of note during the offseason. The Cowboys were the 11th pass-heaviest team in the league last year and could be even more pass-heavy this year since they don’t have a lot of firepower at running back.
Tight Ends Rankings & Tiers
Here are the top 25 tight ends in my redraft rankings, sorted into tiers, with thoughts on some of the players from each tier.
Tier 1
- Sam LaPorta
- Travis Kelce
Sam LaPorta led all tight ends in fantasy scoring as a rookie, finishing with 86 catches for 889 yards and 10 touchdowns despite sharing targets with WR Amon-Ra St. Brown, who had 119 catches last year. It will be fun to see what LaPorta can do for an encore.
As noted earlier, Travis Kelce came off the field more last season than he had throughout his long run as fantasy football’s top tight end. The Chiefs have also added firepower at wide receiver with the signing of Hollywood Brown and the drafting of Xavier Worthy. We can no longer take huge weekly target totals for granted with Kelce.
Tier 2
- Mark Andrews
- Dalton Kincaid
- Trey McBride
- George Kittle
- Kyle Pitts
- Evan Engram
George Kittle managed to clear the 1,000-yard mark last season despite drawing only 90 targets over 16 games. We certainly can’t count on Kittle averaging 11.3 yards per target again, but San Francisco’s flamboyant tight end always provides a smattering of smash games.
Two possible reasons Kyle Pitts has disappointed the last two years: (1) the curious playcalling of Arthur Smith, and (2) Pitts hasn’t been fully healthy. He tore his MCL midway through the 2022 season, and then then we found out that he had also damaged his PCL, which wasn’t reported at the time. It’s possible Pitts’ knee wasn’t completely right in 2023. Don’t be too quick to give up on the player who gave us the first 1,000-yard season by a rookie tight end since Mike Ditka 60 years earlier.
Tier 3
- Jake Ferguson
- David Njoku
- Dallas Goedert
- Brock Bowers
David Njoku is coming off the finest season of his seven-year career, but his numbers were far better with Joe Flacco at QB than with Deshaun Watson. We can’t assume Njoku will be able to replicate last year’s success with Watson back at the helm of the Cleveland offense.
The fantasy community was dismayed that Brock Bowers landed with the Raiders, who have one of the shakier QB situations in the league and already have a highly drafted young TE in Michael Mayer. But Bowers is such an extraordinary prospect that he could make all of that fretting about his landing spot seem silly in hindsight.
Tier 4
- Pat Freiermuth
- Dalton Schultz
- Cole Kmet
- T.J. Hockenson
The Steelers don’t have a lot of firepower at wide receiver. Pittsburgh’s new offensive coordinator, Arthur Smith, is a former tight ends coach. It’s a sneaky-good setup for Freiermuth.
Dalton Schultz has averaged 64 catches and 659 receiving yards over the last four years, but it’s hard to be optimistic about Schultz’s 2024 outlook when the Texans can roll out a WR trio of Stefon Diggs, Nico Collins and Tank Dell.
Tier 5
- Luke Musgrave
- Hunter Henry
- Juwan Johnson
- Tucker Kraft
- Cade Otton
- Noah Fant
- Ben Sinnott
- Isaiah Likely
- Darren Waller
The Packers have a good young pair of tight ends in Luke Musgrave and Tucker Kraft, but it’s hard to tell which one will be the more useful fantasy asset. Musgrave won the starting job in training camp last year, but he lacerated his kidney midway through the season, which gave Kraft a heavy dose of playing time. When Musgrave returned for the regular-season finale and the playoffs, Kraft continued to run as Green Bay’s No. 1 tight end. Both had splashy moments as rookies, so monitor the situation closely in training camp and the preseason.
Juwan Johnson has flashed intriguing potential over the past two seasons but hasn’t been able to earn consistent targets. With the Saints shaky at wide receiver beyond Chris Olave, perhaps Johnson can start drawing targets more consistently.
Darren Waller‘s status for 2024 was up in the air as of this writing, with Waller reportedly contemplating retirement. He hasn’t been impactful since 2021, so even if he comes back, you probably won’t be drafting him to be your starting tight end.
Fantasy Football Draft Rankings: Tight Ends
Here are my updated tight end fantasy football draft rankings. And here are our Expert Consensus running back fantasy football draft rankings.
2024 Fantasy Football Rankings powered by FantasyProsECR (TM) – Expert Consensus Rankings
ADP – Average Draft Position
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