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After diving deep into all 32 NFL teams, our fantasy football analysts are ready to answer an important question:
Who is the best fantasy football tight end value pick in 2023?
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Best Tight End Value for Fantasy Football: Pat Freiermuth
I have thrown a lot at the wall this offseason in approaching the tight end position, but the player I have drafted the most has been Pat Freiermuth. By default, I have to represent him here.
Despite his lack of receiving scores (a common theme for the Steelers in 2022), Freiermuth jumped up from 8.3 yards per catch and 6.3 yards per target as a rookie up to 11.6 yards per catch and 7.5 yards per target this past season.
Freiermuth established himself as a target earner in his second season.
He was targeted on 22.6% of his routes (seventh among tight ends) while averaging 1.69 yards per route run (seventh).
When both he and Diontae Johnson were on the field at the same time with Kenny Pickett, Freiermuth had 25% of the team targets, the same amount as Johnson.
The Steelers are a team we not only have pegged for positive touchdown regression but also more passing scores as part of that spike.
I believe Freiermuth could outright be in the mix with guys like T.J. Hockenson and Dallas Goedert if he runs hot while at worst he is a floor-based option at the position.
Best Tight End Value for Fantasy Football: Kyle Pitts
My favorite tight end for most of the offseason was Darren Waller, but with his ADP rise over the last month, we have seen Kyle Pitts' ADP drop into the early 70s.
This is despite him looking pretty good in camp videos over the last week.
I like Pitts as another post-hype sleeper a good bit at his later ADP.
Later in drafts, Jake Ferguson is a free square replacing Dalton Schultz in Dallas for as long as the discount holds.
Best Tight End Value for Fantasy Football: Hayden Hurst
Hayden Hurst is one of the best examples of waiting on the tight end position in your fantasy football drafts.
Entering his sixth season in the NFL, Hurst is now a member of the Carolina Panthers and has potential for a significant increase in targets.
The reason behind this optimism is head coach Frank Reich. In the four seasons and nine games in 2022 that Reich was the Colts head coach, the tight room averaged 7.6 targets per game.
Last season with the Bengals, Hurst averaged 5.2 targets.
Digging deeper into tight end targets under Reich, 2018 and 2019 were years in which the former Colts coach had noteworthy tight ends, Eric Ebron and Jack Doyle.
In 2018, out of 158 tight end targets for the team, Ebron saw 69.6% of them. As for 2019, out of 140 targets at the position for the team, Doyle had a 51.4% share.
While opportunity knocks, Hurst has shown glimpses of what he can do with opportunity.
During the 2020 season with the Falcons, Hurst saw a career-high 88 targets. Those targets turned into 571 yards and six touchdowns, landing him 10th in tight end half-PPR scoring.
Along with that season, Hurst is reliable when targeted. In the four seasons where he saw 30 or more targets, he posted a catch percentage of 75.2%.
Taking all of this into account, FFPC average draft position has Hurst as the 24th tight end going off the board.
Look for Reich to have Bryce Young lean on his tight end and running back, thrusting Hurst back into fantasy football relevancy.
Best Tight End Value for Fantasy Football: Cole Kmet
Cole Kmet is currently being drafted at approximately TE 15 depending on league settings.
From Week 9 onward last season, Kmet had a 20.4% target rate per route and averaged 5.4 receptions and 0.67 TDs per game over the final nine games.
It is obvious the Bears will increase the passing volume this season, and Kmet provided a stable target for Fields in the second half of the season.
That should allow him to beat his current ADP.
Kmet remains a viable weekly option for those unwilling to pay up for tight ends.
Best Tight End Value for Fantasy Football: Darren Waller
Given what receiver looks like for the Giants, Darren Waller should end up being the focal point of this passing attack if he can stay on the field – he has played 20 total games over the last two seasons.
Simply being the primary target in a passing game makes Waller an easy pick at a position where targets are an expensive commodity, but it will also be interesting to see how he is used.
Waller was behind just Kyle Pitts in air yards per target (13.4) last season. His career average was 8.1 air yards per target heading into 2022.
He was able to maintain his efficiency on that usage (65.1% catch rate, 1.58 yards per route run), and New York’s receiving corps is full of players who like to operate close to the line of scrimmage.
Jones ranked 29th out of 33 qualifying quarterbacks in the percentage of his passes that traveled at least 10 yards down the field (27.3%) last season, however, and his career average is right at that number.
That suggests Waller will revert back to near his career averages, but the possibility of downfield usage for a team that needs it creates interesting upside at a position that lacks it, especially given Waller’s likely volume.
Even with his price rising in August, he looks like a great upside pick.
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