Fantasy Football Tight End Draft Rankings: Projections, tiers, and sleepers

The tight end scene this year is as top-heavy as it gets, with Trey McBride, Brock Bowers, and George Kittle forming a clear-cut elite trio.

For the Raiders, Bowers looks set to remain the go-to man in the passing game. His rookie season was nothing short of electric, delivering top-10 fantasy numbers among tight ends in 11 different weeks.

In that debut campaign, Bowers didn’t just turn heads—he rewrote the stat sheet, leading all TEs in targets (153), catches (112), and receiving yards (1,194), while adding 5 scores. Ranked third in fantasy points per game, he was fed on 25.9% of his routes (fourth-best) and churned out 2.02 yards per route run (also fourth).

While Pete Carroll and Chip Kelly’s shift toward a heavier ground game could trim his raw volume, an upgrade under center should mean sharper, more dangerous targets coming his way.

Off the back of his breakout 2023 campaign, Trey McBride kept the momentum rolling in 2024, hauling in 111 catches for 1,146 yards and a pair of scores.

He was a usage monster, leading all tight ends in target rate per route (27.5%) and expected fantasy points per game. Whenever he was on the field, McBride was practically a quarterback’s magnet, commanding a staggering 31.7% of Arizona's targets. That wasn’t just the highest share among tight ends—it ranked ninth across the entire NFL.

On early downs, his role was just as dominant, owning 29.2% of the team’s looks—the best mark at his position. He also paced all tight ends with 2.11 yards per team pass attempt. And with Arizona keeping their receiving hierarchy intact this offseason—and facing a friendlier passing schedule, as noted in the Kyler Murray QB tiers—his workload shouldn’t be in jeopardy.

Since stepping in as Arizona’s starting tight end, McBride has delivered TE1 fantasy numbers in 20 of his last 26 games. The one glaring hole in his résumé? Touchdowns. In three NFL seasons, he’s found the end zone just six times. Last year alone, he scored 5.4 fewer touchdowns than expected—the biggest shortfall among all tight ends and wideouts. Despite owning a massive 32.8% share of his team's red-zone targets, he only converted two into scores. Over the past two seasons, he’s seen 15 end-zone looks but caught just three (a 20% rate) compared to the 44% league-average conversion for tight ends.

The worrying part is this isn't just bad NFL luck—it’s been a theme throughout his career. At Colorado State, he never scored more than four touchdowns in a season, and in his final year he managed just one TD despite racking up 90 receptions.

If he’s going to justify a premium fantasy price tag, McBride will have to turn that trend around. In full-PPR and TE Premium leagues, the volume still gives him an edge, but in formats that don’t heavily reward receptions, it might make more sense to slide Brock Bowers ahead of him.

George Kittle showed no signs of slowing down in 2024, reeling in 78 catches for 1,106 yards and 8 touchdowns in just 15 games.

He once again set the standard for efficiency, leading all tight ends with 2.65 yards per route run. In fact, since his 2017 debut, Kittle has been the king of that metric, averaging 2.37 yards per route over his career. After the catch, he remained a nightmare for defenders, averaging 6.7 yards—fourth-best among tight ends, and none of the players above him came close to matching his reception total.

Kittle’s big-play ability was unmatched at the position, with 21 catches of 20-plus yards—six more than the next closest tight end. When the ball came his way, San Francisco’s offense thrived, posting a 73.4% success rate, the best mark in the league for any tight end or wide receiver. He also dominated near the goal line, accounting for 30.3% of the 49ers’ end-zone targets—more than any other tight end in football.

Turning 32 in October, Kittle has only managed two fully healthy seasons, but he’s still been a model of high-end consistency—finishing top six in points per game for seven straight years. While Trey McBride and Brock Bowers are rising stars, Kittle actually outpaced both in PPG last season.

He did benefit from a shuffling receiver corps and the absence of Christian McCaffrey at times, but with Deebo Samuel traded and Brandon Aiyuk’s return date still uncertain, the target landscape remains in flux. That makes his previous “with/without” splits alongside McCaffrey less predictive than usual.

Kittle may not match the sky-high target share potential of McBride or Bowers, but he’s more than capable of surpassing them in touchdowns again. Last year, he ran just 57 routes in McCaffrey’s limited action, drawing 13.3% of team targets and being targeted on 19.3% of those routes. Without McCaffrey, those numbers climbed to 19.3% and 23.1%, respectively.

After topping the fantasy tight end charts as a rookie in 2023, Sam LaPorta slipped to eighth place in 2024. His production took a step back across the stat sheet—dropping from 86 catches, 889 yards, and 10 touchdowns on 121 targets to 60 grabs for 726 yards and 7 scores on 84 looks.

The good news? He found his rhythm again after a sluggish opening stretch. Over his first six games, LaPorta averaged just 2.8 targets (11% share) and 7.1 fantasy points. From that point on, he flipped the script—posting 6.7 targets (21% share) and 13.6 fantasy points per outing over his final 11 appearances, playoffs included.

That late-season surge mirrors his rookie-year pace and is a better reflection of what we can expect going forward. Operating within Detroit’s high-powered offense, LaPorta remains a dependable TE1 with a strong weekly ceiling.

Mark Andrews is one of the tougher tight ends to project heading into 2025 after a strange 2024 campaign that, on the surface, still saw him finish eighth in fantasy points per game—but only thanks to some unusual circumstances.

From 2019 to 2023, Andrews was a model of high-volume reliability, commanding a target share between 22% and 28% every year—each season ranking top four at the position. Last year, that number plummeted to just 15%, dropping him to 20th among tight ends in targets. He finished 14th in receptions, ninth in receiving yards, but first in touchdowns.

Efficiency has always been his calling card—he’s never ranked lower than fifth in yards per route run—but 2024 saw him lean on scoring more than ever. His 11 touchdowns set a new career high, and his 16.2% TD rate was more than double his previous career average of 7.1%.

In other words, touchdowns masked what was otherwise a significant dip in usage. Without a rebound in target volume, it’ll be tough for Andrews to rejoin the elite TE1 tier—especially if that sky-high touchdown rate comes back down to earth.

It feels like David Njoku is flying under the radar this season. The veteran tight end quietly averaged 13.5 fantasy points per game in 2024—his best mark yet.

Now entering his ninth NFL season, Njoku missed six contests last year but was highly effective when on the field, cracking the top 10 in weekly scoring in seven of his 11 outings. He also finished top five at the position in targets for the second straight year. While he’s never been a consistent touchdown machine (his career best is six), he still found the end zone five times in 2024 and has now led all tight ends in end-zone targets in back-to-back seasons.

Even with Cleveland's constant quarterback carousel, Njoku has delivered three straight top-11 fantasy finishes, including top-8 production in points per game. At 29, he’s firmly in the mix as a reliable mid-tier TE1 who could surprise if the Browns' passing attack takes a step forward.

T.J. Hockenson is aiming to get back on track after a frustrating 2024 campaign that never quite hit full stride. Still working his way back from the torn ACL he suffered in 2023, Hockenson sat out the first seven weeks before returning to action.

He managed to suit up for 10 regular-season games, but his workload was capped at around 60% of the snaps, limiting his impact. Even so, he averaged 6.1 targets and 8.7 fantasy points per game—numbers he’ll be eager to build on now that he’s another offseason removed from injury.

Travis Kelce is destined for Hall of Fame, but his reign as fantasy football's top tight end may finally be winding down. While his targets and receptions actually ticked upward from 2023 to 2024, the efficiency just wasn’t there—finishing with 823 yards, only three touchdowns, and career-low marks in yards per target (6.1) and yards after catch (3.5).

After an incredible run of eight straight seasons finishing no worse than third in total fantasy points (and second in points per game), Kelce slid to fifth overall and seventh in PPG last year. He’ll still benefit from the golden arm of Patrick Mahomes and Kansas City’s pass-heavy scheme, but with the Chiefs adding more firepower at wide receiver, the 35-year-old now profiles as more of a steady mid-tier TE1 than the unstoppable force he once was.