One remaining obstacle we still face in the fantasy community as content providers and consumers is understanding that rankings, projections, tiers, and average draft positions are all different and serve different purposes.
My season-long rankings and projections focus on the probable outcomes for a player based on top-down team production and projected game script.
Then player opportunity production is based on that team volume.
We can tweak volume and efficiency for a range of outcomes per player, but that is the simplest explanation of how the projection sauce is made.
While those projections give us a range of season-long numbers and have implications for listing players in a linear format (rankings), the one thing that is missing is that even when those full-season numbers are accurate, they fail to capture the overall weekly impact and the pockets of production that are relevant to our weekly game of fantasy football.
Projecting Davante Adams for 103 receptions, 1,144 yards, and 8 touchdowns (his 2023 totals) paints a nice picture of his season-long outlook, but any gamer that rostered Adams last season will also tell you that there was a lot of weekly variance.
That is an anecdotal example to make a larger point, but there is a litany of other examples we can lay out that fit into the top-down point I am making.
There are very few players at each position that just smash weekly throughout the fantasy season at the highest level, and we are hopeful to be in on the remainder of players when they strike the hottest.
That is where player tiers come in.
2024 Fantasy Football Tiers
A lot of fantasy football tiers that you will find out there are just rankings chopped up 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 their fantasy points and by their archetypes.
By doing this, it allows me to notice actionable gaps in player pricing per tier which in turn allows for arbitrage in fantasy drafts while also highlighting some longer-odds players who have more potential than originally perceived.
Arbitrage in fantasy football is driven strongest by how production is accrued, and the order of those players (rankings) is driven by the opportunities (on a player and team level) that each player receives.
Our projections are inherently going to be wrong on those projected opportunities often.
Team situations are influenced by a plethora of things.
The game script, injuries to the player himself, injuries to surrounding teammates, ineffective play, player breakouts, and so on. That is just the game through injuries, performance variance, and fluctuation.
Understanding how a player is used allows us to find prospects who target that variance in performance and opportunities. If we are wrong on the opportunity projection, then a lower-tiered player could be an arbitrage opportunity.
While there is not a direct overlap to the individual player rankings, the order of these tiers is how I prioritize drafting the positions from an archetypical stance.
While that may be confusing for a player ranked highly on a linear list versus a 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 bit of housekeeping, I will be updating and adding analysis to these tiers all summer long,
With that intro to the methodology used with tiers in place, let us roll into the actual player analysis.
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Tier 1 Fantasy Football TEs:
- Sam LaPorta
- Travis Kelce
- Mark Andrews
- Trey McBride
Kicking things off with the front-end options at the position.
All of these tight ends are either the first or second target in their passing game, something vital for churning out high-caliber fantasy seasons at the position.
There has not been a TE1 in overall scoring in the past 30 years that was not at worst second on his team in targets.
22 of those 30 TE1 scorers were the top target earners in their offense.
The bottom line is that if you are spending premium capital on a tight end or have visions of grandeur for a later-round player threatening to be the TE1 scorer, he needs to be the first or second target in his passing tree.
Sam LaPorta
Bye: Week 5
Sam LaPorta turned in one the most prescient seasons for a rookie tight end in NFL history.
He caught 86 passes, the most ever by a rookie tight end.
His 889 yards were fourth all-time for a first-year tight end while his 10 touchdowns as a rookie were tied for second all-time.
From a 2023 season context, LaPorta was fourth among all tight ends in receptions, fifth in yards, and first in touchdowns.
LaPorta ran a route on 79.3% of the Detroit dropbacks, which was fourth among all tight ends in the league.
He outright led all tight ends in weekly scoring three different times as a rookie, tied for the league lead at the position.
What we saw from LaPorta as a prospect immediately translated to the NFL.
Coming out of Iowa, LaPorta led last year’s draft class in routes run as an isolation receiver (35.5% of his routes) while he ran a class-high 20.2% of his routes lined up out wide.
As a rookie, he led the position with four touchdowns lined up outside while his 1.39 yards per route run out wide were third behind the ghost of Darren Waller and Travis Kelce.
LaPorta was targeted on 22.5% of his routes out wide (third behind those same two players).
I have LaPorta as TE1 overall based on where he is in terms of career arc paired with Detroit’s favorable schedule of indoor games, something we discussed with Jared Goff in the QB Tiers.
LaPorta and the Lions have the best passing schedule of any tight end I have ranked inside of the top 12.
That said, paying top dollar for LaPorta is not something I am outright recommending this summer.
In auctions, I will be nibbling since that format allows avenues to mitigate the opportunity cost, but the price and format need to be right in snake drafts.
While LaPorta was the TE1 in overall scoring, he was the lowest-scoring overall TE1 in PPR formats since 2017.
He did not provide massive positional leverage despite scoring the most points. All of Evan Engram, Travis Kelce, and T.J. Hockenson matched at least 90% of the production that LaPorta had.
LaPorta was also the only TE1 overall scorer in PPR formats over the past 30 years to not even be first or second in points per game. Both Kelce and Hockenson scored more points per game than him a year ago.
In half-PPR, Kelce matched LaPorta’s points per game.
He also leaned on touchdowns.
25.1% of LaPorta's fantasy points came via touchdowns, third among all tight ends in the top-24.
Only Hunter Henry (30.0%) and Mark Andrews (26.6%) needed touchdowns more last season.
LaPorta scored 4.4 touchdowns over expectations last season, the most of any tight end.
No tight end scored more points over expectations in the red zone than LaPorta did in 2023.
He led all tight ends in red zone scoring and was fourth in expected points.
53.3% (8-of-15) of LaPorta’s red zone targets went for touchdowns, the highest percentage among all players with double-digit red zone targets.
50% (4-of-8) of his end zone targets resulted in touchdowns. The average conversion rate for tight ends was 43.2%.
LaPorta was third at the position in target share (23.1%) inside of the red zone and led all tight ends with 33.3% of his team’s end zone targets. Volume should still be here for him in 2024, but there should be an expected regression in his conversion rates.
Now, that career arc still carries weight for LaPorta. He could still get better and build on an already historic start to his career.
We know he is at worst second behind Amon-Ra St. Brown on the target tree in Detroit. This is a team counting on Jameson Williams making a jump in his third season since they let Josh Reynolds (who was fourth on the team in targets last year) walk in free agency while failing to add a viable rookie in the draft.
Williams has been far from a sure thing, meaning the door is wide open for LaPorta to build on the 120 targets he had as a rookie.
Travis Kelce
Bye: Week 6
Gamers have been asking when Travis Kelce would finally start to show signs of slowing down.
Last season may have been the early signs.
After a superb run of staying healthy, Kelce started the 2023 season dealing with a knee injury and then suffered a low-ankle sprain in Week 5.
He battled through 15 regular season games but had career lows in yards per catch (10.6) and yards per target (8.1).
He had never averaged fewer than 12.0 yards per catch in any season of his career.
His 65.6 per game average for receiving yards was his fewest in a season since 2015.
He was only on the field for 71.7% of the team dropbacks, his lowest rate since his first season on the field in 2014.
Kelce played 77% of the team snaps in total.
His overall snap rate has now dropped from the season prior in five consecutive seasons.
That said, while the Chiefs have been more cognizant of getting Kelce snaps off, they are doing so by removing his involvement in the run game.
With Kelce on the field last season, the Chiefs had a 70.7% dropback rate, which would have led the NFL.
With Kelce off the field last season, the Chiefs had only a 51.4% dropback rate, which would have been last in the NFL.
Kelce may be conceding some snaps, but many of those missed snaps were not going to result in fantasy points for him to begin with.
Despite playing through injuries and producing a down season for his career standards, Kelce still was the TE1 in points per game in PPR formats (14.6) and matched LaPorta’s 11.5 points per game in half-PPR formats.
Once we got into the postseason, Kelce turned up the dial and showed the upside he still has.
In four playoff games, he caught 32 passes for 355 yards and three touchdowns, posting games of 7-71-0, 5-75-2, 11-116-1, and 9-93-0.
He will turn 35 in October while LaPorta just turned 23 this past January.
If betting on career arcs, it makes sense to split hairs up top with LaPorta as TE1, but anyone taking Kelce as the top tight end is still getting a strong fantasy option in the context of the position with the possibility of landing the overall TE1.
Mark Andrews
Bye: Week 14
Mark Andrews was still an alpha option when on the field last season.
He was third among all tight ends in yards per route run (1.96) and ranked ninth in target rate per route (22.0%).
When on the field in Weeks 2-11, Andrews was third among all tight ends in fantasy points and expected fantasy points.
Despite the addition and success of Zay Flowers, Andrews remained the top target in Baltimore.
When on the field, Andrews commanded a team-high 27.4% of the team targets.
When he was available, Andrews received 43.8% of the Baltimore targets in the red zone and 40.0% of their throws into the end zone.
Like LaPorta, that type of volume should keep Andrews afloat even if we are anticipating a decrease in success rate per target.
42.9% of his red zone targets resulted in a touchdown after he entered the season with a career rate of 36.9%.
50% of his end zone targets went for touchdowns, a slight bump from his career rate of 45.6%.
Andrews has the perfect usage we look from a tight end.
He played in-line on just 12.3% of his snaps, the lowest rate of any tight end that is currently in the top 36 in ADP.
He was also first among that group in rate of snaps from the slot.
Andrews was also targeted on 46.5% of his routes when he was in the slot, the highest rate at the position.
Despite missing a chink of the season, Andrews led the position with five touchdowns from the slot. Isaiah Likely was second with four.
Andrews is still one of the league’s best tight ends, but he has now missed multiple games in each of the past two seasons and in three of the past four.
Andrews only appeared in 10 games in 2023.
He missed the season opener with a quad injury and then was knocked out for the rest of the regular season with a fractured ankle in November.
Andrews did return for the AFC Championship but was only able to play 31% of the snaps.
He did have tightrope surgery but has a much longer window to get back to full speed for the start of this season as opposed to what we saw from Tony Pollard last offseason.
Trey McBride
Bye: Week 13
After a disappointing rookie season, McBride once again started slowly in 2023, buried on the depth chart behind veteran Zach Ertz.
McBride played fewer snaps than Ertz in each of the opening five games of the season, catching only 8 passes over that span and running 48 pass routes while Ertz had 22 receptions and 140 routes.
He then trickled up in playing time in Week 6 before Ertz suffered an injury that unlocked the full runway for McBride, and he took advantage, showcasing the ability and production that got him selected in the second round and earned him the Mackey Award in his final season in college.
Over the final 11 games of the season, McBride was second among all tight ends in receptions (69), and third in receiving yards (684) with 3 touchdowns.
He led the position in team target share (25.9%) over that period while ranking second in target rate per route run (27.2%).
When Kyler Murray returned in Week 10, McBride led the team with 538 yards receiving while the next closest player on the team had only 278 yards.
McBride will enter 2024 as a core component of this passing game, but he does now have added target competition with the selection of Marvin Harrison Jr.
McBride accounted for a team-high 25.2% of the targets with Murray on the field while the next closest player was at only 14.9%.
Harrison is surely going to chip away and tighten that gap if not outright jump McBride on the target tree.
Tier 2 Fantasy Football TEs:
- George Kittle
- Kyle Pitts
- Dalton Kincaid
- Evan Engram
- David Njoku
The opening tier of tight ends carries the best TE1 overall potential.
The bull case for these tier two tight ends is easy to make, but there is more inherent volatility here.
Most of these options carry a wart or two that keeps them from the previous tier.
We also start to have a few players who have a flimsy case as a top-two target earner in their offense.
George Kittle
Bye: Week 9
George Kittle remains one of the best at his position.
He set career highs with 15.7 yards per reception and 11.3 yards per target in 2023.
He went over 1,000 yards receiving for the first time since 2019 while tacking on 6 touchdowns.
He led all NFL tight ends in yards per route run (2.26).
Since he entered the league in 2017, Kittle has averaged the most yards per route run (2.33) among all NFL tight ends.
Thought of as a player limited by his excellent blocking ability, Kittle was on a pass route for 83.4% of the San Francisco dropbacks, which was third among all tight ends.
Kittle will be over 30 this season, but he is still capable of huge weeks.
That matters at a position that comes with a lower bar than the other fantasy positions. In short, Kittle’s ceiling impacts more winning weeks than his low-scoring weeks.
In 2023, he matched Sam LaPorta with three weeks leading the position in scoring.
For fantasy, Kittle still comes with more volatility than the elite options, but the closing numbers have made him the TE6 or better in six consecutive seasons.
What keeps Kittle from the previous tier is that he is not locked in as a top-two target in his offense.
That is not going to change unless we see either Brandon Aiyuk or Deebo Samuel traded before the season starts.
The 49ers also are inherently a passing offense predicated on efficiency over volume, which does impact our game of fantasy since it forces the core San Francisco pass catchers to cannibalize each other to a degree.
San Francisco was 32nd in the NFL in dropbacks per game in 2023 (33.0). They ranked 28th in 2022 (32.1) and 32nd in 2021 (32.1).
Despite leading the position in yards per route run in 2023, Kittle ranked 13th in target rate per route run (20.0%).
Over the past two seasons, Kittle has run 557 pass routes with both Samuel and Aiyuk on the field.
On those plays, Kittle has been targeted on 17.2% of his routes and has just 15.7% of the team targets (1.64 yards per route run).
Kittle has run 336 routes with either one of those wide receivers off the field, receiving a target on 23.8% of those routes run with 21.9% of the team targets (2.59 yards per route run).
Samuel, Aiyuk, and Kittle all carry high weekly upside, but carry more volatility than their ADP peers because of each other in this offense.
Kyle Pitts
Bye: Week 12
We are now entering the fourth season for Kyle Pitts and are still waiting for him to completely tap into the upside that had him selected at No. 4 overall in the 2021 draft.
After posting 1,026 yards as a rookie, Pitts has totaled 1,023 receiving yards across 27 games over the past two seasons.
Before even making any excuses for Pitts based on playing 2023 after surgery we did not know the extent of or his attachment to Arthur Smith, Desmond Ridder, and this anemic offense overall, Pitts still comes with an elite profile.
Let’s take a step back for a moment.
Pitts still will not even turn 24 until October of this upcoming season.
Travis Kelce caught his first pass in the NFL one month before turning 25 years old.
Kelce had his first 1,000-yard season at age 27. Pitts did that at age 21.
Pitts is only three months older than Sam LaPorta.
He may never match the run that Kelce went on afterward, but we have a lot of meat on the bone here for the career of Pitts, who I still would suggest has the largest individual upside as a player at the position.
We also have a strong sense that Pitts can be a top-two target in his offense, something we will keep harping on throughout this post.
The transition to Kirk Cousins and Zac Robinson cannot be understated here.
Over the past three seasons under Smith, the Falcons ranked 30th in the NFL in dropback rate (55.1%).
During that period, Pitts averaged only 26.9 routes run per game. That ranked 20th among all tight ends over that span.
Even Kittle, who we just discussed had opportunity-based limitations that impacted his consistency, averaged 28.5 routes per game over that period.
Since entering the league, 16.2% of the targets Pitts has had come his way have been inaccurate via the quarterback.
The only tight end with a higher rate over that period is Darren Waller (17.1%).
Cousins had the second-lowest inaccuracy rate in 2023 at 7.1%.
He ranks sixth in the NFL in that department over the past five seasons at 6.6%.
He has the fourth-lowest inaccuracy rate throwing to tight ends over that period at 4.6%.
Even if you still want to consider Pitts as more of a vertical pass catcher, Cousins also has the sixth-lowest inaccurate rate on throws 10 or more yards downfield (10.9%) over that span.
While excited about the potential offensive changes finally unlocking Pitts, we still do need Robinson’s offense to find a correct home for him.
Outside of system and quarterback play, Pitts’ greatest gifts have also been his greatest curse early in his career.
Because he is a unique physical specimen for the position, it has led to Pitts failing to get fantasy-smoothing opportunities and having to rely on opportunities that come with a depressed success rate compared to his peers.
22.4% of Pitts routes last season were go routes, the highest rates for any tight end with 300 or more routes
Since entering the NFL, 15.8% of Pitts targets are 20 or more yards downfield. Only Waller has a higher rate with as many overall targets over that span.
Just 47.8% of his career targets have been below 10 yards downfield, the lowest rate for all tight ends with 100 or more targets over that span.
This offense will have easy buttons and will be more focused on winning over the middle of the field, but this system has also never had a player like Pitts in it.
How does Robinson calibrate his system and marry Pitts’ unique potential?
This system among its many iterations has featured inline tight ends, even when they have popped for fantasy.
To this point of his career, Pitts has only played 29.6% of his snaps inline compared to 40.2% in the slot and 29.3% out wide.
When lined up wide, Pitts has been a depreciating asset.
After averaging 2.95 yards per route run out wide as a rookie, that dipped to 1.85 YRR in 2022 and then cratered to 1.02 YRR last season.
When lined up wide, 19.8% of his career targets have been inaccurate compared to 18.4% when lined up tight and 12.4% in the slot.
Cousins will improve the quality of targets for Pitts, but we need Robinson to give Pitts more of a natural path in the offense to the fantasy-smoothing targets other tight ends get.
Dalton Kincaid
Bye: Week 12
Buffalo used a first-round pick on Dalton Kincaid last spring, and he caught 73 of 91 targets for 673 yards and 2 touchdowns as a rookie.
The Bills did not find a great role for him until the close of the season, using him solely near the line of scrimmage for the crux of his rookie season.
Through Week 16, Kincaid averaged only 4.6 air yards per target with three total targets on throws 20 or more yards downfield.
That was the same amount as Dawson Knox.
During that period, Kincaid was only the TE12 in expected points scored and the TE13 in actual points scored.
Over the final four games of the season, Kincaid averaged 12.5 air yards per target with four downfield targets, one more than he had through 16 weeks.
Over that span, Kincaid had games of 87, 84, 59, and 45 yards receiving.
Through 16 weeks, he had cleared 51 yards in just three games.
Over those final four games, Kincaid was the TE7 in expected points per game.
Kincaid was -2.9 touchdowns below expectations last season.
He did not score a touchdown in the red zone last season.
Including his touchdown in the postseason, Kincaid’s three touchdowns last season were from 22, 22, and 29 yards out.
We need more usage near the end zone for Kincaid for him to pay off his high draft capital this offseason.
Kincaid was only 14th in expected points in the red zone, right on par with Knox.
Kincaid had nine targets in the red zone while Knox had eight.
Knox edged Kincaid in targets in the end zone 4-to-3.
Kincaid’s 14.5% target share in the red zone was 17th among all tight ends.
His 7.7% share of the Buffalo end zone targets ranked 34th among tight ends.
While Knox still presents a hurdle for Kincaid to topple in the red zone, the Bills have a ton of moving parts to open up more opportunities.
Gabe Davis (15) and Stefon Diggs (10) combined for 25 end zone targets, who are no longer on the roster.
Kincaid needs to soak up a significant share of those available targets in year two.
Given the losses that Buffalo suffered at wide receiver this offseason, Kincaid should be tasked with a larger role in the passing game entering his second season.
He should be the betting favorite to lead the team in targets.
In 2023, Buffalo had five different wide receivers receive 20 or more targets on the season. Four of them are no longer with the team.
The only returning Buffalo wide receiver to catch a pass from Josh Allen is Khalil Shakir.
While intrigued by Kincaid’s potential, gamers have already priced in his expected opportunity and growth in year two.
The Bills are sort of a wild card in offensive expectations this season, as we discussed with Josh Allen in the QB Tiers.
Paired with the worst passing schedule of any tight end ranked as a TE1, I have found it harder to pay the iron price for Kincaid but want to mix in exposure in the scenarios where his ADP sags.
Evan Engram
Bye: Week 12
Evan Engram has turned his career around in Jacksonville, leading all tight ends with 114 receptions last season.
He set career highs in catches, targets (143) and receiving yards (963) to go along with 4 touchdowns.
His 8.4 yards per catch ranked 58th while his 5.0 air yards per attempt ranked 54th.
His target volume and heavy usage near the line of scrimmage share some signals with the amount of injuries that the Jaguars had at wide receiver and the issues that they had on the offensive line.
Engram ran 329 routes with Christian Kirk on the field last season.
On those routes, he was targeted on 20.7% of them with 1.41 yards per route run.
Engram ran 283 routes with Kirk off the field.
On those routes, he was targeted on 26.5% of them with 1.76 yards per route run.
Engram was targeted on 18.8% of his routes with Kirk on the field in 2022.
He scored all 4 of his touchdowns with Kirk off the field last season.
He has not had more than 4 touchdowns in a season since his rookie season in 2017.
While that may signal Engram being more of a floor-based asset, he does have two of the top-10 scoring weeks by a tight end over the past two seasons.
Jacksonville has a lot of moving parts at wide receiver this offseason, which could keep Engram as a top target in this offense.
The team also has not done a lot to address their issues upfront. If both Gabe Davis and Brian Thomas end up as wide receivers that come with a high depth of targets, this offense may still end up as a shorter passing game due to the state of the offensive line.
The return of Kirk does compromise Engram’s target in the middle of the field, however.
David Njoku
Bye: Week 10
David Njoku finished fifth among all tight ends last season in receptions (81), sixth in receiving yards (882), and tied for second with 6 touchdowns.
Njoku will turn 28 this summer, revitalizing his career the past two seasons in a way that Evan Engram has.
While Njoku has found stable ground in his career the past two seasons, he does have wonky splits on his sample playing with Deshaun Watson compared to other Cleveland quarterbacks.
On 311 routes run with Watson the past two seasons, Njoku has averaged 1.09 yards per route run with a target on 17.4% of his routes.
On 649 routes run with Watson off the field, Njoku has averaged 1.95 yards per route run with a target on 24.7% of his routes.
Njoku has caught 10 touchdown passes in the past two seasons, but only 3 were from Watson.
Njoku was behind only Jake Ferguson and Travis Kelce in expected red zone points, but he finished 11th in actual points scored.
Njoku led all tight ends with 10 targets in the end zone last season, but only three were touchdowns.
This has been an ongoing issue for Njoku.
For his career, he has now turned 34.0% of his end zone targets into touchdowns. No tight end in the NFL, since he entered the league, has more end zone targets than Njoku and a lower touchdown rate.
While I would still be willing to bet the base rate at the position leading to a potential breakout for Njoku in terms of cashing in his opportunities for scores, we do have a few other elements in play here that can compromise his volume in that area of the field.
Njoku has caught 10 touchdown passes in the past two seasons, but only three are from Watson.
Njoku has 16 targets in the end zone over the past two seasons (third at the position) but just two of them are from Watson.
Watson has thrown 21 passes into the end zone with the Browns and Amari Cooper is the only player with more than two of those targets (he has 10 of them).
He only has a 9.5% target share on Watson’s throws into the end zone compared to a 23.7% target share from all of the other Cleveland quarterbacks to throw the football into the end zone.
The weird part is that Watson has targeted Njoku on a team-high 35.7% of his red zone passes, just not in the end zone.
That can all be happenstance based on the sample size paired with the struggles that Watson has had overall, but there is no guarantee that Watson will ever regain his early-career form.
Njoku also has added target competition with the trade for Jerry Jeudy joining Cooper and Elijah Moore.
While Jeudy still has plenty to prove as a target earner after a disappointing tenure with Denver, his arrival does at least question Njoku’s grip as the second target in this offense.
Watson already had targeted Moore (20.1% of routes) at a higher rate than Njoku (16.8%) last season.
Tier 3 Fantasy Football TEs:
- Jake Ferguson
- Brock Bowers
- Dallas Goedert
- Pat Freiermuth
- Cole Kmet
- Dalton Schultz
- T. J. Hockenson
- Taysom Hill
While we have moved away from many of the exciting options at the position, this tier offers plenty of viable players at the position paired with extremely palatable costs.
We even have a few players here who project to be one of the top target earners in their offense, which gives them added appeal when you are frozen out of the opening two tiers in fantasy drafts.
Jake Ferguson
Bye: Week 7
After catching 19 passes for 174 yards and 2 touchdowns as a rookie, Jake Ferguson took a significant step forward in year two, catching 71 passes for 761 yards and 5 touchdowns.
He then caught 10 passes for 93 yards and 3 touchdowns in the team’s playoff loss.
He also showed a strong red zone presence, accounting for 23.5% of the Dallas red zone targets, which was good for TE4 in 2023.
As a byproduct, Ferguson was tied with Travis Kelce for the position lead in expected touchdowns (7.0).
Ferguson was the only tight end in the top 10 in red zone fantasy points scored last season who also finished below expectations.
Only three tight ends had more points below their expected output.
Ferguson was first in expected red zone points by a wide margin over the tight end in second place.
He was fourth among all tight ends in share his team’s red zone targets in the regular season but ranked 43rd in the NFL in touchdown rate in the red zone (21.7%) among all players with double-digit targets.
He had nine targets in the actual end zone (tied for second among tight ends), but only three were touchdowns.
The average conversion rate for tight ends was 43.2%.
We did see regression find Ferguson in the postseason when he caught three touchdowns on four red zone targets.
I have penned a good amount on how Dallas should be expected to have fewer end zone targets this season, but Ferguson could fight off a drop in overall target opportunities with an increase in conversion rates.
While Ferguson may not have the talent and pedigree of some of his peers here, he does still have a pipeline to quality targets in a passing game that we still believe will be strong.
Ferguson was already second on the team with 114 targets last season (including the postseason), which was 25 more than Brandin Cooks had as the third option in the offense.
Ferguson did not even become a full-time player until Week 6.
From that point on, he ran a route on 80.6% of the team dropbacks, getting targeted on 18.6% of his routes. Cooks was at 14.6% over that span.
Dallas has done nothing this offseason to upgrade at wide receiver.
If Ferguson already was second on the team in targets in his second season, there is no reason we should hide from him doing the same thing in year three, and he has some extra contingency value should CeeDee Lamb miss any time.
Brock Bowers
Bye: Week 10
Brock Bowers was the top tight end in this class by a wide chasm.
As the only two-time John Mackey Award winner since the title was awarded in 2000, Bowers led this draft class in career receptions (4.4) and receiving yards (63.5) per game while catching a class-high 26 touchdown passes over three seasons at Georgia.
For good measure, Bowers also rushed 19 times for 193 yards and another five touchdowns.
He is also the second-youngest tight end that was invited to the Combine. Bowers will not turn 22 until December of his rookie season.
From an age-adjusted production stance, only Kyle Pitts had a higher career production score than Bowers in my prospect model for all tight ends going back to 2000.
Perhaps the largest feather in the cap for Bowers is that he led Georgia in receiving yards in each of the past three seasons.
For added context, as a freshman, Bowers posted 882 receiving yards and 13 touchdowns while Adonai Mitchell and Ladd McConkey combined for 873 yards and 9 touchdowns.
There were some early whispers that Bowers was perhaps too much of a tweener to find a full-time home at the NFL level.
He played in-line for just 38.8% of his snaps in 2023 per Pro Football Focus.
But checking in at 6-foot-3 and 243 pounds, Bowers is right in line with someone such as Sam LaPorta (6-foot-3 and 245 pounds) a year ago at the Combine.
Bowers may not be George Kittle in the run game, but his ability to move with the football is unmatched in this draft class.
In 2023, Bowers accumulated 486 yards after the catch, which led all tight ends in this draft class.
That mark also ranks 10th in this draft class among wide receivers.
67.8% of the receiving yards that Bowers posted in 2023 came after the catch, which was third in this draft class among all tight ends and wide receivers.
Bowers forced 18 missed tackles last season per Sports Info Solutions, which led all tight ends in this draft class and ranked fifth among wide receivers.
This past season, 40.9% of Bowers’ targets were screen passes, which led all tight ends in this class by a significant margin.
29 of his 56 total receptions (51.8%) came on screen passes. He totaled 27 targets behind the line of scrimmage (38.0%) while the next closest tight end in this draft class had 14.
That said, the current NFL has seen an increase in the use of zone coverage from the season prior in each of the past four seasons.
In 2023, NFL defenses ran zone coverage on 71.6% of all passing plays, the highest rate that TruMedia has recorded in a season.
With his current game already showcasing spades that are best equipped for what he will face at the NFL level out of the packaging, any concern that he was not tested in route nuance in beating NFL defenders is reduced.
There will be a level of anticipation of rational coaching with Bowers.
We have already seen some of those issues shroud Kyle Pitts in his early career.
My initial thoughts are to be hesitant that will be the case attached to Antonio Pierce in this offensive environment in Las Vegas.
In the half-season sample with what we saw from Pierce, we know what he is out to do.
Over their games under Pierce, the Raiders posted a 47.9% dropback rate when leading on the scoreboard, which was 29th in the league.
When trailing, that rate spiked up to 64.6%, which was 18th in the league.
Aidan O’Connell ended his rookie experience completing 62.1% of his passes (27th among qualifying passers) for 6.5 yards per pass attempt (25th).
Gardner Minshew completed 62.2% of his passes (26th) for 6.7 Y/A (23rd) with the Colts.
O’Connell had an 8.9% inaccurate target rate throwing to tight ends last season (18th in the league) while Minshew sported a 13.8% rate (29th).
When you are selecting a “onesie” position with premier rookie capital, your margin for missing is razor thin, but in redraft leagues, any hesitation for Bowers is largely priced in.
The good news is that the target tree in Vegas is still relatively thin behind Davante Adams, who will turn 32 this December.
Jakobi Meyers is an underrated player who can siphon targets at the intermediate levels himself, but we would not blink if Bowers ended up second on the Raiders in overall targets.
If I do not have a tight end by the time that Bowers is regularly available, he does carry more intrigue for me than most of the names here because it is solely a bet on talent level.
My thoughts at that juncture are that if Bowers fails and I am forced to go into waivers at the position, the margin is already closer to that for most of the remaining players as well with less overall upside for those options in their range of outcomes.
Dallas Goedert
Bye: Week 5
Dallas Goedert was impacted the most by the dip in passing production the Eagles had last season compared to 2022.
He averaged just 42.3 receiving yards per game, his fewest in a season since 2019.
His 10.0 yards per reception average was the lowest of his career.
Part of his lull in output could have come from playing through several injuries again, missing three games.
He now has not played a full season since his rookie year in 2018.
Goedert just turned 29 this January with no true fantasy breakout on his resume.
Over the past two seasons, he has just five games as a top-six fantasy scorer with only two weeks as a top-three scorer.
He has never scored more than 5 touchdowns in any season, which has capped his upside.
Playing alongside A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith has made earning targets tough and suppressed any true breakout for fantasy points.
Goedert has been targeted on 17.6% of his routes run the past two seasons with both Brown and Smith on the field.
He has run only 126 routes with either Brown or Smith off the field but has been targeted on 26.2% of those routes.
With both on the field, Goedert has just five targets in the end zone compared to 26 for Brown and 14 for Smith.
Goedert is a fine safety net at the position, but his ceiling is reliant on contingency value stemming from either Brown or Smith missing time.
Pat Freiermuth
Bye: Week 9
2023 was all but a complete loss for Pat Freiermuth.
He battled multiple injuries throughout the season, catching only 32 passes for 308 yards and 2 touchdowns.
He missed five games outright and only ran a pass route on 48.6% of the team dropbacks last season after a 68.1% rate in 2022.
Freiermuth now enters the final season of his rookie contract with a pedestrian track record to this point of his career.
He has averaged just 10.0 yards per reception for his career.
Despite failing to break out to this point, Freiermuth has still been targeted on 20.6% of his career routes, which is TE12 over that stretch.
Pittsburgh does not have much of anything behind George Pickens at wide receiver, which opens the door for Freiermuth to be the secondary in this offense.
As much as we take jabs at Arthur Smith, he does feature his tight ends in the passing game.
Freiermuth does not come with the usage that Kyle Pitts faced playing out wide and downfield, so we don’t have to use the fantasy failures of Pitts as an overlap here.
Over the past three seasons with Atlanta, Smith’s teams were second in the NFL with a 29.9% target rate to the tight end position.
With the Titans 2019-2020, those teams were fifth in the NFL with a 27.3% target rate to tight ends.
There is a total volume cap here for routes run and overall dropbacks, but Freiermuth has a solid top-down opportunity to bounce back healthy in 2024 as a value pick at the position before even accounting for a potential quarterback upgrade with the team moving on from Kenny Pickett.
Cole Kmet
Bye: Week 7
Cole Kmet has increased his fantasy points per game every year of his career, closing last season as the TE9.
He is coming off career-highs in receptions (73) and receiving yards (719) to go along with six touchdowns.
Kmet just turned 25 and is getting a quarterback upgrade in Caleb Williams, but his fantasy appeal is stunted by the additions of Keenan Allen and Rome Odunze.
Kmet was the TE7 last season with 18.9% of the Chicago targets.
Kmet led all NFL tight ends with 26.8% of his team's red zone targets.
The arrival of Allen and Odunze compromises that total, which could make Kmet more of a touchdown-driven fantasy option than he already was.
He goes from second on the team in targets down to third or fourth on the roster.
Last season, Kmet averaged 19.9 PPR points per game in his weeks with a touchdown compared to 7.8 per game without.
Dalton Schultz
Bye: Week 14
Houston brought back Dalton Schultz on a three-year deal after he caught 59 passes for 635 yards and 5 touchdowns.
Schultz ranked 13th among tight ends in target rate per route (20.4%), but that dipped to 18.8% when both Nico Collins and Tank Dell were on the field.
He could see his targets dip further with the addition of Stefon Diggs.
Like Kmet, improved health for Collins and Dell paired with Diggs should lower Schultz’s team target share and make him more touchdown-dependent for fantasy.
Schultz had 19.1% of the team targets in the red zone (TE9) and 22.0% of the team targets thrown into the end zone (TE6).
But in his weeks without a touchdown, Schultz only averaged 6.4 points per game.
T.J. Hockenson
Bye: Week 6
T.J. Hockenson would be pushing for the opening tier if not for the unknown status of his return this season.
Hockenson racked up another solid season of counting stats in 2023, catching 95-of-127 targets for 960 yards and 5 touchdowns over his 15 games played.
The only question with Hockenson this season is when he is fully able to be 100%.
Hockenson suffered an ACL and MCL injury on Christmas Eve in Week 16.
Forced to wait for the MCL injury to heal first, Hockenson did not have his surgery until January 29th.
That puts the start of the 2024 season right around the eighth-month mark from that surgery.
We should expect Hockenson to be a candidate for the PUP list early in the season.
Even when Hockenson is ready, we have no idea if he will ever be truly 100% in 2024.
We also must layer in the potential quarterback changes in Minnesota with Kirk Cousins leaving.
The last element to layer in is that Hockenson was far better of a fantasy asset with Justin Jefferson off the field last season.
Hockenson ran 289 routes with Jefferson off the field, receiving a target on 27.3% of those routes with 2.06 yards per route run.
On 219 routes with Jefferson on the field, Hockenson was targeted on 21.9% with 1.67 yards per route run.
While Hockenson will surely be drafted at an ADP that will be tempting for gamers to take a swing on him for late-season production, there are far too many concerns and moving parts in this offense for me entering this season to take on that gamble.
I believe the odds where Hockenson is a true difference-maker are extremely thin while the floor is low paired with missed games.
We are going to have to see extremely encouraging news on his status over the remainder of the summer.
If your league does not have IR spots, Hockenson is not on my draft board.
Even in leagues with IR spots, you could end up forced into a spot where that roster spot becomes more valuable for another player in the season.
Taysom Hill
Bye: Week 12
Taysom Hill is not available as a tight end everywhere, but for those where he is, this is the area where he fits in. Especially in leagues that are touchdown-driven.
Hill has been the TE12 and TE15 in points per game in full-PPR formats in each of the past two seasons while he has been the TE7 and TE12 in per-game output in half-PPR leagues.
Hill will turn 34 this August, which makes him even more of a puzzle as having much upside overall.
In 2023, Hill played 115 snaps at quarterback (largely as a runner), 29 snaps in the backfield, 80 snaps inline at tight end, 130 snaps in the slot, and 71 snaps out wide.
Hill ended the season by setting career-highs with 114 touches and 692 total yards, tacking on 6 touchdowns. He also had 83 yards passing with another score through the air as a passer.
Juwan Johnson has already suffered an injury this summer that required surgery and put the start of the season up in the air.
Johnson missed four games last season.
In those weeks, Hill ran a pass route on 56.8% of the team dropbacks, running 105 routes compared to 42 for Jimmy Graham and 37 for Foster Moreau.
Tier 4 Fantasy Football TEs:
- Chigoziem Okonkwo
- Ben Sinnott
- Luke Musgrave
- Tucker Kraft
- Isaiah Likely
- Jelani Woods
- Greg Dulcich
Taking another skip down the line, this tier is built on hope and potential upside.
Nobody in this group has had established runs as TE1 options to this point, but all are younger players who have either already flashed in a small sample or entered the league with some pedigree of production.
The benefit of taking bites on their potential now is scoring a TE1 option at a supreme value.
Rarely is that the case with this type of swing, but in the events where it does work out, it is a seasonal advantage paired with what you can do with your roster beforehand.
Most often when selecting a player from this tier, you will be going with a 2TE build in your draft, potentially taking two swings from this group or pairing one with a player from the following tier for early-season insurance.
Chigoziem Okonkwo
Bye: Week 5
Chigoziem Okonkwo did not make the jump in his second season as many had hoped, especially given the lack of surrounding pass catchers on this roster.
Okonkwo caught 54 passes (15th among tight ends) for 528 yards (18th) and 1 touchdown.
After averaging 14.1 yards per catch as a rookie, Okonkwo dropped down to 9.8 yards per catch last season.
That drop off was largely explained by unsustainable production after the catch as a rookie.
Okonkwo averaged 4.8 yards after the catch per reception last season (33rd at the position) after 7.9 yards after the catch per reception as a rookie (second).
We have two mixed seasons from Okonkwo where the truth likely lies in the middle of his unsustainable efficiency as a rookie versus that immediate correction in year two.
His job is safe entering 2024, but Okonkwo could fall much further down the target tree after being second on the Titans in targets last season.
He was 12th at the position in team target share (16.1%) but ranked 22nd at the position in target rate per route run (19.1%).
Both of those rates dipped a touch with Will Levis on the field.
With Levis on the field, he was second on the team with a 15.0% target share while drawing a target on 18.9% of his routes.
To compound matters, Tennessee has added Calvin Ridley, Tyler Boyd, and Tony Pollard, three players who should push for tangible opportunities in the passing game.
Ben Sinnott
Bye: Week 14
Ben Sinnott is perhaps the most interesting tight end paired with cost this summer.
To lead things off, he was among the best of this draft class in terms of production and measured athleticism.
Sinnott was second in this class with 18.8% of the Kansas State targets.
He led the team with 676 receiving yards while his 56.3 receiving yards per game was third. With 21.4% of the team receiving yards, Sinnott led the class.
Sinnott matched Brock Bowers with a class-high 1.57 yards per team pass attempt.
After the catch, Sinnott forced a missed tackle on 29.2% of his receptions, which was third in this class behind Bowers (32.1%) and Jaheim Bell (30.7%) despite having just 9 targets on screen passes while Bowers totaled 29 and Bell totaled 19.
Sinnott also led this class in targets (12) and was tied with the most receptions (5) on throws over 20 yards downfield.
From an athletic stance, Sinnott registered a 93rd percentile athlete score in my prospect model for the position.
At 6-foot-3 and 250 pounds, Sinnott registered a 4.68 time in the forty (65th percentile adjusted for size), but where he broke the bank in overall physical profile was logging the highest explosion score (vertical plus broad jumps) and the best weight-adjusted agility scores.
The only tight ends in this class that were younger were Ja’Tavion Sanders and Bowers.
Going to Washington, Sinnott lands in a spot where the target tree could end up wide open behind Terry McLaurin, but he will have to fend off Zach Ertz.
Before you dismiss that because Ertz is turning 34 this November and has missed 17 games over the past two seasons, Ertz has familiarity with Kliff Kingsbury and even last season was preventing Trey McBride from getting snaps until his injury.
Luke Musgrave and Tucker Kraft
Bye: Week 10
In the battle of the year two tight ends in Green Bay, I am still leaning on Luke Musgrave having an edge over Tucker Kraft.
In their rookie seasons, Musgrave ran 295 pass routes and averaged 1.42 yards per route run.
Kraft ran 336 pass routes and averaged 1.13 yards per route run.
Musgrave was targeted on 18.0% of his routes compared to a 14.6% rate for Kraft.
Despite Musgrave having an edge in efficiency over Kraft as a rookie, Kraft accounted for the highest-scoring fantasy game between the two while posting five of the top seven scoring weeks between this duo.
While favoring Musgrave over Kraft heads up, it is hard to find a clear path where either of these tight ends can compete with being the third or better option in this passing game.
Jordan Love targeted tight ends on 19.1% of his throws last season, which was 22nd in the league.
Love was ninth in the NFL with a 64.4% throw rate to his wide receivers.
Both Musgrave and Kraft each had just one game all season in which they broke a 20% target share.
Two rookie tight ends paired with Musgrave’s injury played a role in that split, but from a talent perspective, Green Bay’s wideouts are just better bets drawing targets in the offense.
Isaiah Likely
Bye: Week 14
Isaiah Likely would be a back-end fantasy option on any other roster in the league, but he unfortunately is stuck behind Mark Andrews.
Likely has been solid in relief of Andrews over his first two NFL seasons but has been forgotten in the offense when Andrews has been available.
Over his two years in the league, Likely has averaged 1.72 yards per route run with a target on 17.8% of his routes with Andrews on the sideline. He also has 7 touchdowns on those snaps.
From Weeks 12-18 with Andrews sidelined last season, Likely caught 21 passes for 322 yards and 5 touchdowns.
With Andrews available the past two seasons, Likely has only been on the field for 30.4% of the team dropbacks, averaging 0.88 yards per route run with only 6.5% of the team targets and 1 touchdown.
Baltimore has a sketchy WR2 situation, which could open more 12 personnel from this offense, but Likely’s fantasy upside is still tethered to contingency value firsthand.
Andrews has missed multiple games now in three of the past four seasons.
Jelani Woods
Bye: Week 14
Still keeping the lights on for Jelani Woods entering his third season.
We can bet that the Colts had larger plans for developing Woods last season, but he missed the entire season due to separate hamstring issues on each leg.
Woods only played more than 60% of the snaps in two games as a rookie and more than 38% of the snaps just four times.
He flashed for 8-98-0 on nine targets in the game he played the most snaps of the season in Week 12 against the Steelers.
The competition that Woods has at his position is a group that was a sum of parts in 2023, so the runway is there for Woods to get ahead of the pack.
The Colts had four tight ends run over 100 pass routes last season with none reaching 300 routes run.
While Woods still carries intrigue entering his third season, we should expect the top-down passing volume for the Colts to be a question mark with Anthony Richardson under center after he showed no signs of turning around his collegiate accuracy issues over his small sample size as a rookie.
Even if he does take over as the true TE1 for the Colts, Woods projects to have a hard time leapfrogging Josh Downs in target opportunity behind Michael Pittman while also having to fight through the arrival of Adonai Mitchell.
Greg Dulcich
Bye: Week 14
After a solid rookie season, 2023 was a complete loss for Greg Dulcich.
It was already ominous for Dulcich’s year two snaps when the Broncos added Adam Trautman.
Dulcich then started the season off with a hamstring issue that was an ongoing ailment all season.
By the end of the season, he only appeared in two games, playing 32 total offensive snaps.
Trautman received a two-year extension this offseason.
Trautman only caught 22 passes for 204 yards and 3 touchdowns in 2023. He ran 346 pass routes while used as a run blocker on 320 snaps.
No tight end in the NFL last season ran as many pass routes as Trautman and averaged fewer yards per route run (0.59).
That keeps the door open for Dulcich in a pass-catching role at the position, and Denver has a wide-open target tree.
Courtland Sutton should be the favorite once again to pace the team in targets, but he has never been a high target earner in his own right, and the wide receiver room behind him is full of question marks.
Of course, it remains to be seen if Dulcich is a part of this offense at a viable level, and we still have attachment to a rookie quarterback in what could be an inherently low-scoring outfit.
Tier 5 Fantasy Football TEs:
- Jonnu Smith
- Tyler Conklin
- Hunter Henry
- Noah Fant
- Cade Otton
- Juwan Johnson
- Hayden Hurst
- Will Dissly
- Mike Gesicki
- Zach Ertz
We are in our veteran tier of fantasy options.
All these players are projected to earn viable snaps but have shown marginal fantasy upside as weekly starters over their careers.
These are options best served as TE2 options and streamers, bumping into usable fantasy weeks more so than having strong appeal outright.
Jonnu Smith
Bye: Week 6
So far through two seasons under Mike McDaniel, the Miami tight ends have been tasked to contribute more in the run game than through the air.
After ranking dead last in the NFL in target rate to tight ends in 2022 (12.8%), Miami was last again in 2023 with only 9.5% of the team targets going to the position.
To see that target rate rise in 2024, the team added Jonnu Smith in free agency this year.
Smith is coming off career highs of 50 receptions and 582 yards with Atlanta last season.
Smith has never been a high-target earner in the NFL, but he does fit what the Dolphins want to do in the passing game, which is create yards after the catch.
Since entering the NFL in 2017, Smith has only been targeted on 19.6% of his routes run, 26th among tight ends over that span.
But he has averaged 7.0 yards after the catch per reception for his career, trailing only George Kittle (7.2 yards) over that span among active tight ends.
64.3% of Smith’s career receiving yards have come after the catch. No tight end with as many receiving yards as Smith has a higher rate.
Miami tight ends averaged 4.1 yards after the catch in 2023, 27th in the league.
Tyler Conklin
Bye: Week 12
Tyler Conklin was third on the Jets last season in targets (87) and receptions (61) while finishing second on the team in receiving yards (621).
He enters the final season of his current contract with some steady production.
Over the past three seasons, Conklin is tied for eighth among all tight ends in receptions and is 11th in receiving yards.
No tight end scored more points below expectations in the red zone last season than Conklin.
He was 12th among tight ends in expected points but finished 29th in points scored.
22.2% of Conklin’s red zone targets were inaccurate throws while the base rate for tight ends last season was 12.1%.
He was the only tight end with three or more end zone targets last season that did not have a touchdown.
Conklin scored 3.9 touchdowns below expectations last season, the most of any tight end.
Now, his overall expectations were 3.9 touchdowns, so we do not need to go wild here, but the Jets are a team we have covered heavily the past two weeks in having more overall scoring opportunities in 2024 paired with Conklin receiving a significant upgrade at quarterback.
While Conklin is a reliable player, he has not shown a high ceiling.
Through six NFL seasons, he has yet to catch more than 3 touchdowns in a year while his 621 yards last season were the most of his career.
He has had two career weeks finishing as a top-three scorer at the position.
The hope for him is that the return of Aaron Rodgers could give him a Robert Tonyan-esque touchdown season in his range of outcomes, but we also still could see Jeremy Ruckert or Zack Kuntz push Conklin for snaps.
Hunter Henry
Bye: Week 14
The Patriots inked Hunter Henry to a three-year extension this offseason.
Henry has been the definition of “fine” since joining the Patriots in 2021.
Over his three years in New England, he has caught 50, 41, and 42 passes for 603, 509, and 419 yards.
He leads the team with 17 total touchdown grabs over that span while no other player on the team has more than 10.
Henry is coming off averaging a career-low 10.0 yards per reception and 6.9 yards per target.
He will turn 30 this December, failing to average more than 35.5 yards receiving per game during his tenure in New England.
With Henry locked into the starting role here at a high salary, he has a pipeline to playing time but also attachment to an offense we expect to be low-scoring and inevitably turn things over to a rookie passer.
Noah Fant
Bye: Week 10
Seattle brought back Noah Fant on a two-year contract this offseason while both Colby Parkinson and Will Dissly joined new rosters.
Fant’s receiving yardage has gone down from the year prior in each of his past three NFL seasons, but with the new offense under Ryan Grubb and the departure of the other tight ends, the team is looking for new life on the former first-rounder.
Fant’s passing routes run have plummeted in Seattle since the team has steadily used three tight ends.
In his two seasons with the Seahawks, Fant has only run a pass route on 53.6% and 50.3% of the team dropbacks after having rates of 65.1%, 67.0%, and 73.4% over his first three seasons in the NFL in Denver.
With both Parkinson and Dissly gone, that hopefully frees up Fant to play a lot more of the snaps.
The rub with Fant is that it is still hard to see him clearing any of DK Metcalf, Tyler Lockett, or Jaxon Smith-Njigba on the target tree.
Cade Otton
Bye: Week 11
Through two seasons, Cade Otton may not have shown the highest ceiling, but he has been a reliable snap-earner for the Bucs.
Otton played the most snaps in the league at tight end last season, playing 96.5% of the plays.
As a byproduct, Otton ended up second among all tight ends in the regular season in pass routes run (564), but it did not result in true receiving opportunities.
Otton only made mild contributions as a pass catcher, however, catching 47 passes for 455 yards and 4 touchdowns.
The Buccaneers were 29th in the NFL in target rate to their tight end last season at 14.7%.
28 tight ends ran 300 or more pass routes last season.
Otton ranked 26th among that group in target rate per route (11.9%) and 26th in yards per route run (0.81).
Juwan Johnson
Bye: Week 12
After a breakout season in 2022, Juwan Johnson took a step back last season.
He caught 37 passes for 368 yards and 4 touchdowns over 13 games played, seeing his yards per catch go from 12.1 yards in 2022 down to 9.9 yards per grab last season.
Johnson caught more than four passes in just two of his 13 games, topping 50 yards receiving just once.
What makes Johnson an ever tougher bet in drafts this summer is that he suffered a foot injury in June workouts that required surgery and has him out indefinitely.
If we do not get an update on Johnson’s status for a return before the season, he will be someone to avoid.
Hayden Hurst and Will Dissly
Bye: Week 5
The Chargers are not hiding their intentions of running the rock under this new regime.
One of their early signings this offseason was getting Will Dissly to come over from Seattle on a three-year contract.
Dissly ranked third among all tight ends in run blocking grade at Pro Football Focus in 2023.
Over the past four years in Seattle, Dissly has been in on 951 run-blocking snaps but has only run 809 total pass routes over that stretch.
He has yet to have more than 349 receiving yards in a season.
The team also added veteran Hayden Hurst to add a pass-catching element to the position after losing Gerald Everett this offseason.
Hurst also has familiarity with this scheme and Greg Roman after being drafted by Baltimore in the first round in 2018.
Hurst has never lived up to that investment, averaging just 24.1 receiving yards per game for his career.
His 9.8 yards per reception for his career rank 37th out of 46 tight ends to catch 100 or more passes since he entered the NFL.
In nine games with Carolina last season, Hurst caught 18 passes for 184 yards.
Mike Gesicki
Bye: Week 12
The Bengals only targeted their tight ends 19.4% of the time, which was 21st in the league.
Despite the low target rate, Cincinnati tight ends did combine to catch 88 passes (tied for 10th), but only managed 686 yards (22nd) and 4 touchdowns (tied for 19th).
With a lack of dynamism at the position, Cincinnati tight ends averaged a league-low 7.8 yards per catch.
The team did add an athlete in Mike Gesicki, but we have not seen Gesicki do anything outside of when an offense was forced to throw him the football for one season in Miami.
After seeing 112 targets come his way in 2021, Gesicki has 61 catches on 97 targets over the past two seasons.
Gesicki is also more of a glorified slot receiver.
He has only played 19.4% of his career snaps inline with 55.3% in the slot.
This will be the best offense that Gesicki has played on while he comes with a low-leverage contract, but the Bengals still do not have a strong tight end on the roster.
Zach Ertz
Bye: Week 14
Zach Ertz spent some time with new offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury in Arizona.
Ertz will turn 34 this November and has missed 17 games over the past two seasons with an ACL and a quad injury.
He has averaged only 8.6 and 6.9 yards per reception over the past two seasons, hampered by those issues.
Ertz has not caught more than five touchdowns in a season since 2019.
But he was averaging 6.1 targets per game and standing in the way of unlocking Trey McBride before suffering an injury last season.
With Kingsbury in Arizona, Ertz saw 7.1 targets per game.
Tier 6 Fantasy Football TEs:
- Colby Parkinson
- Davis Allen
- Ja’Tavion Sanders
- Daniel Bellinger
- Theo Johnson
We are bringing things home with the dart throws at the position.
Colby Parkinson and Davis Allen
Bye: Week 6
The Rams have an opening at tight end with Tyler Higbee having ACL surgery in February.
While Higbee himself was never a consistent fantasy point generator, the team signed Colby Parkinson in free agency while they have Davis Allen as a potential replacement after taking him in the fifth round last season.
When Higbee missed Week 14 last season, Allen played 71% of the snaps, catching 4 of 5 targets for 50 yards and a touchdown against the Ravens.
Through four seasons with the Seahawks, Parkinson caught 57 passes for 618 yards and 4 touchdowns.
Ja’Tavion Sanders
Bye: Week 11
Ja’Tavion Sanders was the youngest tight end in this draft class, turning 21 just this past March.
Sanders played with heavy competition in the Texas passing tree with Xavier Worthy and Adonai Mitchell, which did depress his production compared to his peers entering the draft.
His 2 touchdowns on 45 receptions (4.5%) ranked the lowest in this draft class at the position.
But even with the depressed 2023 touchdown totals, Sanders still ranked fourth in this draft class among tight ends in career receptions per game (2.5) and fourth in career yards per reception (13.1).
He led this draft class in yards per reception (15.2 yards) in 2023.
Sanders played a more traditional tight end role, which could get him on the field more snaps as a rookie.
He lined up in line on 63.9% of his snaps per Pro Football Focus while tying for a class-low rate of slot usage (20.8%).
He was one the best tight ends a year ago in contested catch situations, converting 7 of 13 (53.9%).
Sanders was not credited with a single dropped pass on 67 targets last season, the most targets without a drop in this class.
His 346 yards after the catch were third in this class a year ago while his 7.7 yards after the catch per reception ranked fourth.
The Carolina tight ends were an afterthought in 2023.
They ranked 28th as a team in receptions (59) and 27th in receiving yards (561) with 4 touchdowns throwing to the position.
Carolina targeted their tight ends 18.4% of the time, 23rd in the league.
Tommy Tremble led the group in receptions (23) and yards (194) with 3 touchdowns.
Through three seasons in the league, Tremble has yet to reach 200 yards receiving in a season.
Ian Thomas has been used more as a blocker than a receiver to this point in his career.
Neither of those tight ends are signed beyond this season.
Daniel Bellinger and Theo Johnson
Bye: Week 11
With the retirement of Darren Waller, the Giants have a pair of recent draft picks to compete for opportunities in his absence.
I would bet on Daniel Bellinger playing more than Theo Johnson, but it is hard to be excited about his upside.
Through two NFL seasons, Bellinger has 55 receptions for 523 yards and 2 touchdowns.
He has been targeted on just 11.2% of 564 early-career routes.
The only tight end to run 300 or more routes with a lower target rate per route run than Bellinger over the past two seasons is Jack Stoll.
Bellinger may roadblock Johnson in his rookie season, but Johnson could have a specific role in the passing game near the end zone.
His 7 touchdown receptions in 2023 were second in this draft class while 15.6% of his career receptions at Penn State were touchdowns (also second in the class).
28.9% of his targets came inside of the red zone, the highest rate of any pass catcher in the draft this season.
The question for Johnson will be what are we getting outside of a projectable red zone presence?
His 16.7% target rate per route run ranked 13th among the 16 tight ends invited to the combine.
Despite being fast for his size as a straight-line runner, Johnson did next to nothing after the reception in college.
He had the lowest missed tackle rate per reception (5.9%) of any tight end in this class.