2026 Fantasy Football TE Tiers: Rich Hribar’s Draft Guide

Welcome to my 2026 fantasy football tight end tiers, the deepest dive into the TE position you will find this draft season.

If you are unfamiliar with my tiers pieces, then let me lay out some groundwork.

These positional-tier posts are designed to serve as a top-down almanac for you to come back to all summer long.

If long-form content is not your thing, no worries.

I also have abbreviated player blurbs on the rankings page for each position, and we have linear tables for those who are here just for a ranked list of players.

How My Fantasy Football TE Tiers Work

While there is a structure to the order here, these are not rankings.

They are meant to serve as more complete player profiles grouped around player archetypes.

An underappreciated element we still face in the fantasy community, for content providers and consumers alike, is that rankings, projections, tiers, and average draft position are fundamentally different.

They all serve different purposes and are not interchangeable, even though they may share overlap.

Projections give us a median range of season-long production and have implications for listing players in a linear format (rankings).

Even when those full-season numbers are accurate, they fail to capture the overall weekly impact and the pockets of production relevant to our weekly fantasy football game.

There is a finite number of players at each position who smash weekly throughout the fantasy season at the highest level.

If you do not land one of those weekly juggernauts, you are hoping to counter them with players when they are at their hottest.

Many player tiers are simply rankings divided into sections.

While the rankings are more focused on a probable tally of season-long output for a week-to-week game, I prefer to structure my tiers based on how similarly players accrue fantasy points and on the archetypes they represent.

By doing this, we can identify actionable gaps in player pricing per tier, which in turn allows for arbitrage in fantasy drafts.

This approach also highlights some longer-odds players who have more potential than initially perceived.

Arbitrage in fantasy football is strongly driven by how production is accrued, and the order of players (rankings) reflects the opportunities (at the player and team levels) each player receives.

Our projections are often wrong about those projected opportunities.

A multitude of factors influence team situations: game script, injuries to a player or his teammates, ineffective play, player breakouts, and so on.

Understanding how a player is used enables us to buy into the variance in his performance across opportunities.

If we are wrong about the opportunity projection, a lower-tier player could present an arbitrage opportunity.

While there is no direct overlap with the individual player rankings, the order of these tiers reflects how I prioritize drafting positions from an archetypal stance.

While that may be confusing for a player ranked highly on a linear list versus the specific tier he is in, I will do my best to incorporate detailed thoughts regarding draft capital in those events throughout the player breakdowns.

One final note: I will be updating and adding analysis to these tiers throughout the summer.

With that introduction to the methodology used, let's proceed to the actual player analysis.

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Tier 1 Fantasy Football TEs:

• Brock Bowers
• Trey McBride
• Colston Loveland

The tight end position is top-heavy again this season, with three tight ends holding down the top tier and a significant gap over the field in current ADP.

Brock Bowers

Bye: Week 13

Bowers caught 64 passes for 680 yards and 7 touchdowns in his second season.

Opening the season with 5 receptions for 103 yards in Week 1, Bowers suffered a PCL injury.

He attempted to play through the injury.

Over the next three games, Bowers was the TE14 (5-38-0), TE13 (4-38-0), and TE20 (5-46-0).

He then missed the next three games.

Playing from Week 9 to Week 16 (he was shut down for the final two games), Bowers was the TE2 in scoring behind McBride.

Over that span, Bowers accounted for 24.5% of the team’s targets (TE4), 27.4% of the air yards (TE2), and was on the field for a league-high 93.1% of the dropbacks.

Bowers led all tight ends with 41.9% of the team’s targets that went into the end zone.

There was a dip in efficiency from his rookie season to last year, as he played with an injury and struggled with offensive attachment, but Bowers is an elite young talent (the most decorated college tight end) and a foundational piece in the passing game.

Even with last year's injury, Bowers has averaged 64.6 receiving yards per game to open his career.

That is fourth all-time at the position through two seasons and the most since Kellen Winslow Sr. in 1979 and 1980.

This is a player you are comfortable betting on from a talent perspective.

The Raiders may not make a jump to the front of the league in offensive production, but this offense is in a much stronger position than it was a year ago.

Klint Kubiak was brought in as head coach.

Kubiak had a significant efficiency spike with the New Orleans offense in 2024 before it was decimated by injuries and then revamped the Seattle offense last year.

Neither of those offenses was littered with immense individual talent, especially at quarterback.

Kubiak’s calling card is creating explosives in the passing game.

The Seahawks were fifth in the NFL in pass success rate (48%) and second in the rate of pass plays that gained 10 or more yards (32.5%) last year.

When Derek Carr played in 2024, the Saints ranked 18th in pass success rate (42.8%) and 12th in the rate of pass plays that gained 10 or more yards (27.2%).

Last season, the Raiders ranked 28th in pass success rate (39%) and 29th in the rate of pass plays that gained 10 or more yards (22.1%).

While Bowers is an elite talent in an upgraded offense, the prospect of playing with a rookie quarterback does put the brakes on him just a touch.

Still, we are talking about perhaps not going wild in 2026 to the point where the field cannot compete with him, and you had to have him at his current cost to win everything.

You can make the argument that Fernando Mendoza is an upgrade on the quarterback play Bowers has had thus far (and I would not push back given that bar), but it is just another layer of variance here to factor in, leaving the door open for him to end up priced near his ceiling for the second straight season.

Since 2000, only three tight ends have finished as the TE3 or higher attached to a rookie quarterback making eight or more starts.

No tight end attached to a rookie quarterback over that span has led the position in scoring, with Delanie Walker (TE3) in 2015 and Zach Ertz (TE3) in 2016 as the highest-scoring players from that group in fantasy points per game.

When Bowers led the position in scoring in 2025, he led the position in routes run.

The Raiders are expected to play a slower pace and run at a higher rate under Kubiak, and they have the potential to be more competitive than that season, which means not as many jailbreak scripts.

Trey McBride

Bye: Week 14

McBride was one of the bright spots for Arizona in a lost year.

He collected 126 receptions (2nd in the league) for 1,239 yards (6th), and 11 touchdowns (tied for 2nd).

He led all tight ends with 27.4% of his team’s targets and 25.3% of the air yards.

With back-to-back seasons of over 1,000 yards, McBride has established himself as one of the top tight ends in the NFL, if not the best right now.

As a full-time player these past three seasons, McBride has finished as the TE7, TE2, and TE1 in overall scoring.

After failing to catch more than 3 touchdown passes in any of his first three seasons, McBride caught 11 last season.

After catching 3 of 15 career end-zone targets over three seasons, he collected 7 of 18 in 2025 (38.9%).

Funny enough, that conversion rate was still below the base rate for tight ends last year, which was 49%. He just outpaced his career end-zone target rate.

Only Davante Adams had more targets in the end zone last season than McBride.

It is easy to say that McBride’s fantasy takeoff was due to Jacoby Brissett‘s insertion into the lineup.

Over five weeks with Kyler Murray, McBride had 29 receptions for 275 yards and 1 touchdown, ranking TE4 in overall scoring.

He then was the TE1 overall in scoring for the rest of the season, catching 29 more passes than the next-closest tight end, logging 241 more yards than the next-closest, and grabbing 6 more touchdowns.

While Brissett certainly helped the cause, McBride ran into a perfect storm, creating a top-down opportunity that no one in the league challenged at his position.

Arizona completely fell apart over the course of the season.

Not only was Murray injured, but the backfield was a complete mash unit in 2025.

No Arizona running back carried the ball 100 times during the season.

The offensive line was ravaged.

Arizona’s most frequently used offensive line combination was on the field for 23.7% of their snaps, 26th in the league.

The defense was obliterated at every level with injuries.

Over the final nine games of the 2025 season, the Cardinals led for just 47 offensive snaps, ahead of only the Raiders (36) and Jets (30).

This intersection of events propelled McBride into a usage tier that was unrivaled at the position.

By the end of the year, McBride had run 694 routes.

That is the most for a tight end since that data has been tracked.

The next closest season we have is 623 routes run by Mark Andrews in 2021.

McBride ran 121 more pass routes than the next-closest tight end.

To add some context, a high-usage tight end runs 30-35 routes per game.

So, McBride accrued nearly four extra games' worth of routes compared with the next-closest player at his position last year.

When you are running a record number of routes while leading your position in share of team targets, it creates a player who is light-years ahead of the field.

Arizona is not favored in any game this season.

They will still be expected to face a wealth of negative game scripts, but their passing volume is going to come down.

Every move Arizona has made this offseason has signaled that they will be slower and run the football more, even though they are expected to have a poor win-loss record.

They hired Mike LaFleur as head coach and Nathaniel Hackett as offensive coordinator.

When free agency opened, they signed four offensive linemen: Isaac Seumalo, Elijah Wilkinson, Matt Pryor, and Oli Udoh.

They also signed Tyler Allgeier.

They then used their first two picks in the NFL Draft on Jeremiyah Love and guard Chase Bisontis.

On top of that, the tight end position was weak last year.

The TE2 overall (Kyle Pitts) produced only 66.7% of McBride’s total scoring output.

That is the largest disparity of TE2 scoring compared to the TE1 in any season ever.

It was only the third time since 1990 that the TE2 failed to produce 75% of the TE1 output, and just the 10th time over those 35 seasons that the TE2 was below 80%.

Needless to say, we can bet that the field of the position will be tighter this season, regardless of who finishes as the top scorer in 2026.

Gamers are certainly prepared for regression here.

Arizona is still expected to trail often this season, but the offensive line and backfield are greatly improved from where we left off in 2025.

Brissett remains the starter as an added positive, but how much runway will he get if Arizona is losing games to the degree expected?

I am entering the season expecting to see Carson Beck start games in 2026, and we could even see Gardner Minshew for a spell as a bridge to Beck.

Arizona got hammered by scheduling this season.

They open the season against the Chargers, Seahawks, 49ers, Giants, Lions, Rams, Broncos, Cowboys, Seahawks, Rams, Chiefs, Commanders, and Eagles before their Week 14 bye.

To compound matters, the Cardinals play only four home games through the opening 11 weeks, and they are against the Seahawks, Lions, Broncos, and Rams.

Those are all factors that could prevent McBride from repeating as the TE1, and they are why I would suggest he is not someone I would pull the trigger on in the second round of non-TE Premium drafts.

That said, he still absolutely belongs in the conversation to compete for the TE1 overall title.

His talent and role are still at the front end.

This is more about how last year was a perfect runout in terms of overall opportunities versus the field at the position.

Even anticipating the gap in routes over the field to come down, I would still lean toward McBride leading this tier in route opportunities.

That is relevant because fantasy points at tight end are more strongly correlated with routes run than at wide receiver.

The past five TE1 overall scorers have also led the position in routes.

Even with McBride having the best odds to run the most routes again, I am not drafting him at his current cost, and I am also below ADP on taking the TE1 regardless of who you have in that spot.

Colston Loveland

Bye: Week 10

It took a bit for Loveland to get going as a rookie as he worked his way into the lineup and recovered from an offseason shoulder injury, but the wait was worth it.

Through Week 7, Loveland ran only 79 pass routes, securing 8 of 13 targets for 78 yards and no touchdowns.

He then got going and started to draw regular playing time, even playing with Cole Kmet.

Loveland ended the season with at least 15% of the team’s targets in each of the final nine games, drawing a target on 24.7% of his routes for 1.97 yards per route run over that span.

Over the final five games of the season, Loveland was on the field for 80.9% of the team's dropbacks, receiving a target on 30.5% of his routes with 2.34 yards per route run.

He caught 31 passes for 408 yards and 2 touchdowns over that span.

Even in a split season of work as a rookie, Loveland showcased his weekly upside.

He logged four weeks as a top-three scorer at the position.

The only player to match that was Trey McBride, who led the position with eight of those weeks.

As Loveland came on to close the season, the Bears and Ben Johnson took a page from Sean McVay’s 2025 game plan.

From Week 10 onward, the Bears played 12 personnel on 35.4% of their snaps (6th) and 13 personnel on 13.4% of their snaps (2nd).

They averaged 5.8 yards per play on offense with two or more tight ends on the field over that stretch, compared to 5.1 yards per play with one or fewer.

Chicago is elevating Luther Burden after trading D.J. Moore, but they did not make a significant addition at wide receiver, suggesting that the way they closed last year in terms of personnel deployment will be a starting block in 2026.

That allows Loveland to remain a featured target in this offense, and Kmet’s presence lets Loveland move around the formation and arguably be the de facto slot receiver while Burden and Rome Odunze work the perimeter.

As a rookie, Loveland played 57.2% of his snaps in-line, 21.7% from the slot, and 17.2% out wide.

He was far more effective in that slot role.

From the slot, Loveland was targeted on 25.3% of his routes with 2.32 yards per route run.

Out wide, he was targeted on 24.6% of his routes with 1.82 yards per route run.

In line, he was targeted on 21.6% of his routes with 1.84 yards per route run.

Tier 2 Fantasy Football TEs: