Everything this offseason has built up to this point.
From our player tiers, positional rankings, and all of the 2024 off-season content you can find in one place on the site in the full Draft Kit we have fully prepared for fantasy drafts.
With that content in place as a North Star in how to play the game of fantasy football, I also know some of you are here because you want to know how I am playing drafts out myself this summer.
I want to dive into how I approach drafts this year at each position this week, starting with the quarterback position.
I will also update this throughout the remaining time in the offseason if we get any significant news that impacts draft approaches.
Even those with the draft kit may not have read every word written this offseason.
At this stage of the offseason, I am operating under the assumption you have at minimum checked out the player rankings page and the individual player writeups in the positional tiers posts.
With that in mind, these pieces will not be as statistically centric and fully into the pros or cons of each player and focus on the approach to drafting the positions.
If you want further analysis on each player, I encourage you to read the player writeups in the Tiers post.
Tight End Fantasy Related Articles:
- Tight End Tiers
- Tight End Rankings
- Tight End Trends
- Red Zone Points vs Expectations: Tight End
- Stats That Matter: Tight Ends
- What We Can Learn From ADP: Tight End
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How to Draft Tight Ends in Fantasy Football Leagues
Tight End is a unique fantasy position because it can carry positional leverage rivaling front-end running back production versus the field.
While there is the leverage you can gain at the position by selecting an early-round tight end, it also comes from a lower scorer than a front-end running back or wideout.
Pairing that with a significant opportunity cost by not getting in on those running back and wide receiver positions since the baseline at tight end is so much lower than those two positions that require the most roster allocation on your teams.
This is especially true this season paired with wide receivers being drafted higher than ever while we appear to have one of the shallower pools of front-end running backs in recent years.
Fantasy tight ends are in a unique place this offseason.
I believe you can make the case that this is the best blend of proven veterans and young talent we may have ever had at the position.
Tight ends have been trending up in league-wide usage not only due to the increased talent level at the position across the league, but the current defensive meta is funneling more targets to the middle of the field than ever before.
When balling this all up, the tight end position appears deeper for fantasy than ever before.
We have been here before and have had Lucy pull the football on us.
If you have not taken a back-end TE1 only to have that player flatline, you haven’t been playing fantasy long.
That said, we can only take things at face value.
With that in mind, the one thing I keep circling back to in drafts this summer is how hard it is to take the TE1 overall.
Similar to the quarterback position, I have a hard time seeing how any solo tight end truly destroys the field from a leverage stance.
I have Sam LaPorta as my TE1 based on age, rookie performance, and team environment.
But do I believe that he is going to run away from the rest of the position in a manner like Travis Kelce was during the apex of his output?
I do not.
Everything went right for LaPorta as a rookie and he didn’t do that.
LaPorta had the most touchdowns over expectations for any tight end in the NFL last season.
Kelce and Mark Andrews were injured.
Darren Waller ghosted.
Kyle Pitts was injured and Arthur Smith’ed.
While LaPorta was the TE1 in overall scoring, he was the lowest-scoring TE1 in PPR formats since 2017.
He did not provide massive positional leverage despite scoring the most points.
All of Evan Engram, Kelce, and T.J. Hockenson matched at least 90% of the production that LaPorta had in fantasy.
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.
Kelce and Hockenson scored more points per game than LaPorta a year ago.
In half-PPR, Kelce matched LaPorta’s points per game.
I love LaPorta as a player and want to have him on my fantasy teams in a perfect world, but I cannot find many reasons to be the gamer to rush into drafting the TE1 overall this season.
As noted earlier, there is also an increased opportunity cost this season when selecting LaPorta (or your favorite TE1) in drafts.
Just by looking at draft cost, we have a limited number of running backs that we have faith in delivering apex outcomes this season.
You still want a running back with a path to an elite outcome.
We then have the increase in the cost of not only wide receivers as a whole, but as a byproduct pushing the elite tiers of wide receiver up the draft board.
You still want an elite wide receiver.
The selection of the TE1 at premium draft cost forces you to play catch-up at one of those spots.
This is why this is one of the toughest draft terrains for going early-round tight end.
When it comes to paying up for the “onesie” positions of a tight end or quarterback, I prefer to play the position just like I am playing quarterback.
At quarterback, I have a clear plan moving down the line based on cost where I am targeting players throughout but am looking for the best pocket of the draft to grab one.
If my draft room wants to let all of the tight ends fall, then we can calibrate, but here is largely how I am playing things:
- Monitor how low the TE1 is being drafted to determine if TE2 (typically Sam LaPorta or Travis Kelce) is a value.
- If TE2 is not valued, where can I land Mark Andrews?
- If Andrews is too expensive, where can I land Dalton Kincaid (in full PPR) or Kyle Pitts?
- Then George Kittle if he is still available.
- If I miss out on all of those players, then I am looking towards the back end at David Njoku and Jake Ferguson.
- Brock Bowers is my upside play.
- Pat Freiermuth is my cut-off for TE1 upside.
- If somehow I still do not have a tight end after all of those players are gone, I am looking at running a platoon.
- Tyler Conklin is the top TE2 I am trying to grab under that scenario (I also prefer to grab Conklin on rosters where I take Bowers in case of an early-season ramp-up).
Remember, we want to target a tight end who is either the first or second pass catcher on his team.
Kittle is the one exception (but also why I look at Kincaid and Pitts over him) because his weekly ceiling has been one of the best at the position while the field inherently has a low floor to begin with.
While my preferred approach has been letting the room dictate how aggressively I am selecting a tight end this summer, there are league-to-league factors that increase the viability of taking one of the power players at the tight end position early.
- TE Premium Scoring (base FFPC scoring)
- Auctions
- Leagues that require only two starting wide receivers (base FFPC requirement)
- Leagues without FLEX positions
If you are in these formats, you should play things more aggressively within the context of that top-down plan.
If you are drafting in TE-Premium leagues, Kelce and LaPorta usually are selected when the draft opens up at RB-WR, right at the 1-2 turn.
Those are the best leagues for Kincaid, in my opinion.
It is hard to see this Buffalo season play out without Kincaid having a major target share.
But he does still come with some concern that we do not have an elite touchdown campaign.
Buffalo has a lot in motion this offseason to free up a new red zone role for Kincaid, but what if that never materializes?
Then we drafted expensive Evan Engram.
Kincaid did not score a single red zone touchdown as a rookie.
Josh Allen is a factor in the red zone while there also is an outcome where this passing game lets down overall given the potential that this wide receiver room is just not good enough.
All of that is why I prefer to play Kincaid aggressively in full-PPR and TE-Premium formats, maxing out what I believe is the floor/median outcome of him just having a lot of targets and catches.
Just touching on some players in the back half of the TE1 group.
Dallas is a team I am expecting to have scoring regression this season, but Ferguson was already second on the Cowboys in targets in his second season and the team did not add any pass catchers of relevance this offseason.
After those players clear, it is easy to force that next wave since the draft position of those players often synchs up with drop-offs in the excitement surrounding the backs and wideouts. But stay strong and keep waiting to hit your targets at the right price.
Bowers is one of the best tight-end prospects to enter the NFL ever.
From an age-adjusted production stance, only Kyle Pitts has a higher career production score than Bowers has in my prospect model for all tight ends going back to 2000.
He has a good path to finishing behind Davante Adams on the target tree in Las Vegas but does come with the worst quarterback play of all of our draft targets paired with Michael Mayer still a potential thorn for limiting snaps in some capacity.
When I take Bowers, I usually throw another pick at the position as a potential bridge early in the year should Bowers need a runway to get going.
Usually, that player is Freiermuth.
Freiermuth was a letdown last season, but he is still a young player who projects to heavily involved since the only other established pass catcher on the roster right now is George Pickens.
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.
In an average fantasy draft, I am only selecting one tight end or the Bowers + Freiermuth combo.
When all hell breaks loose or you are in a deeper format that is pushing you to roster more tight ends, there are some later options to target.
Conklin is the first player who jumps out.
Over the past three seasons, Conklin is tied for eighth among all tight ends in receptions and is 11th in receiving yards.
He is a reliable player and the one core player on the Jets who does not have much Aaron Rodgers impact priced in.
The hope for him is that the return of Rodgers could give him a Robert Tonyan-esque touchdown season in his range of outcomes.
In leagues where Taysom Hill is available at tight end (Yahoo and Sleeper), he should also be on your radar.
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 0.5-PPR leagues.
The Saints have continuously talked up Hill all offseason being involved in this new offense.
Hill ended last season by setting career-highs with 114 touches.
A few players with TE1 ADP that I did not touch on here are Evan Engram and Dallas Goedert.
The bull case for each exists (there is a reason their ADP is where it is) but I have trepidations.
Goedert is because he is the third option in the passing game, and he plays with an elite wide receiver, something that has limited front-end scoring seasons for anyone not named Travis Kelce.
Engram could lead the Jaguars in targets.
But there is a lot in motion in Jacksonville this year with the selection of Brian Thomas Jr. and the addition of Gabe Davis versus how we ended last season.
We are also expecting Christian Kirk to be back in his slot role when available.
Engram ran 329 routes with Kirk on the field last season.
On those routes, he was targeted on 20.7% of them.
Engram ran 283 routes with Kirk off the field.
On those routes, he was targeted at 26.5%.
In 2022, Engram was targeted on 18.8% of his routes with Kirk on the field.
With limited touchdown upside (he has never scored more than six times in a season), Engram is a safety net in full-PPR and TE-Premium formats.