Transcription
I've done drafts on ESPN, Sleeper, Yahoo, and honestly, I see the same mistakes being made at tight end on every platform, but first, let's get into the rankings, then we'll talk about the strategy.
Tier one, Bowers is by himself. I understand I'm seeing some people put McBride and K.D. in the same tier. You cannot possibly tell me that you would take any tight end over Brock Bowers in fantasy football this season. Yes, I understand Sam LaPorta regressed from year one to year two, but realistically, that is not always going to be the case. You are not always going to see regression from the league's top tight end as a rookie down to their second season.
If we go through and we look at the closest comparable 22-year-old seasons at tight end using the range of outcomes tool on flockfantasy.com, the closest comparable seasons were Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez in 2011, and then obviously Sam LaPorta last year. And LaPorta's regression is what has a lot of people worrying. But Brock Bowers dominated every single metric you could possibly look at. Brock Bowers was sitting at 15.5 fantasy points per game. That was third in the NFL at tight end as a rookie, and honestly, it was just right in line with the other guys.
Here is snap rate: top five in the league. Targets per game: number two. Target share in his offense: number two. Receptions: number two. Receiving yards: number three. Yeah, the receiving touchdowns weren't great. The Raiders offense wasn't... Yards per target: 10. Yards per route run: 14. And he ran more routes at tight end last year than any other tight end in the entire league.
And what my issue with this Brock Bowers assessment from the fantasy football community is, I am seeing people take wide receivers ahead of Brock Bowers that Bowers is going to outscore. Like, let's just go ahead and look at the wide receivers getting drafted right ahead of him. You have Jahan Dotson. You know, Jahan Dotson was also a rookie last year. Jahan Dotson averaged fewer points per game, and Dotson was 23 years old, where Brock Bowers is only 22. You have A.J. Brown and Drake London, who both had better seasons than Brock Bowers this past year. But if we go back to what A.J. Brown did at 22 years old, using the range of outcomes tool, you'll see, oh, um, A.J. Brown 13.57 points per game. The following year, he jumps up to 17.25. Um, Drake London at 22 years old averaged 10.9 fantasy points per game. The following year, he jumped up to 16.5. So, if I'm looking at this, the base expectation should be that the 22-year-old player gets better going into their age 23 season. And I would expect Bowers to outscore the wide receivers he's getting drafted alongside. So, if you are in a two wide receiver, one flex format, Brock Bowers in the middle to the end of the second round is a phenomenal selection. Whether you're drafting on ESPN, Sleeper, Yahoo, NFL Fantasy, CBS, I don't care.
Now, obviously, there will be minor adjustments. If you're in a double flex league, if you're in a league where you have to start three wide receivers, we have you covered on flockfantasy.com. I've already posted 50 draft sheets. Go look at the directory, find your exact platform, find your exact league settings, use that draft sheet, and use those rankings for your draft.
Now, if you're not already a member of flockfantasy.com, you can find a link in the description and comment section. Also, on the site, we have all the tools that you're going to see in this entire video: the range of outcomes tool, the player comparison. This is where all my rankings are going to be updated throughout the entire season, both weekly and rest of season. And if you use promo code FLOCK, I will actually be answering your start questions and your trade questions for free during the year. Right now, we are offering a 2025 season pass for only $34 on flockfantasy.com. That's a one-time payment for the best product you're possibly going to find in the space at the cheapest cost. Links in the description and comment section.
Now going over to tier two, there is no argument I can see to have George Kittle ahead of Trey McBride. Now, there may be an expert or two on flockfantasy.com that is ranking it that way. They are crazy. If we're looking at McBride, the dude played 91% of the snaps for Arizona this past year. 9.2 targets per game, 6.9 receptions per game, 71 receiving yards per game, 2.42 yards per route run. He is top 10 in every single category at the position. Well, let's go. He's top three in snap percentage, targets, target share, receptions, receiving yards. The only thing McBride didn't have last year was receiving touchdowns. He averaged 0.13 receiving touchdowns per game. If that jumps up to half a touchdown per game, Trey McBride will outscore round two wide receivers, and you're drafting this dude in round three. So, if you're not able to get Brock Bowers in the middle to the end of the second round in two wide receiver, one flex formats, get Trey McBride at the beginning of the third, and you're going to crush your league mates.
Now, if you're not able to get McBride at the beginning of the third, you could look at George Kittle in the fourth. George Kittle was technically the tight end one last year in points per game at 15.8. Now, the difference between Kittle versus the other two guys will be if we're going to go ahead and if we're going to look at where this production came from, because George Kittle had 11.68 yards per target and 3.14 yards per route. So, he was highly efficient. He also was second in the NFL among all tight ends with 0.53 receiving touchdowns per game. So, Kittle dominated the touchdowns in a much better offense. And honestly, I'd expect the Niners to have a very good offense this year. And if we're going to look at the wide receivers currently with this team, frankly, you can't rely on Ricky Pearsall. You can't rely on Jauan Jennings. You can't rely on Brandon Aiyuk for this next year for 100% certainty. So Kittle may be the absolute dominant alpha in an offense that projects to score, I mean, top five in the NFL in total points according to sports books. They have a great schedule. So Kittle in round four is a great pick.
Now, even though Kittle's in a better situation than Bowers and McBride this next year, even though Kittle scored more points than this past season, let me just explain to you quickly why we're actually going to have it this way where Kittle is down here in tier three. We're looking at Trey McBride going into his age 26 season. Age 25 years that were comparable to Trey McBride since 2008, using the range of outcomes tool. Rob Gronkowski 2014, George Kittle 2018, Jimmy Graham 2011, Jalin Hyatt 2015, Julius Thomas 2013, Vernon Davis 2009, um Evan Engram and Austin Hooper did it as well. But realistically, the median projection here for those tight ends at 26 years old in the prime of their career is about 16 points per game. George Kittle, on the other hand, he just played his age 31 season. Now, it's phenomenal. We can go back since 2008 and look at the closest comps that we have for these 31-year-old tight ends. You have Hall of Fame level talents here: Travis Kelce, Antonio Gates, also, um, Jason Witten, some other players that weren't as good as Kittle, like Delanie Walker and Jared Cook. But what's interesting is every single one of these tight ends decreased their fantasy points per game from 31 to 32 years old. So, it may be a hot take. I know a lot of people act like age doesn't matter, but the natural progression should be the tight end's going from 22 to 23, 25 to 26, they are getting better, they are stepping into the primes of their career, whereas the tight end that's going from age 31 to 32, he is going to be on the decline. Now, I still think Kittle's a great pick in the fourth. If you can't get Bowers at the end of the second or McBride at the beginning of the third, get Kittle at the end of the fourth, that's perfect.
Because the trap that you need to avoid is taking the tight ends in the middle rounds. Now, don't get me wrong, I think Sam LaPorta and T.J. Hockenson both have very compelling cases for this next season. Now, obviously, if we're just looking at their 2024 years in the whole, not that compelling. Um, Sam LaPorta 10.9 fantasy points per game, T.J. Hockenson 8.7. I drafted Sam LaPorta in round four of the Flock League last year, and I 100% regretted that decision. But we can go back to 2023. Sam LaPorta's rookie season. He was the tight end three in fantasy points per game with 14.1. We can look at T.J. Hockenson in 2023 before his injury and see that T.J. Hockenson was the tight end two with 14.6 points. So, we've seen both tight ends actually give you top-level production. They're both relatively young as well. And if we look at the efficiency that you had, it wasn't a massive drop-off for either tight end this past year.
And the extra bullish case that you're going to have for Sam LaPorta specifically is, we know LaPorta was dealing with an injury in training camp that maybe I should have given more attention to. Maybe I should have been worried about it because again, I really like Sam LaPorta in the fourth last year. I drafted him on my own team. But if we actually look at the first 10 weeks of Sam LaPorta's season, he missed week 11, but then afterwards, when he was fully healthy, weeks 12 through 17, the switch flipped. You had 8.8 fantasy points per game in the first 10 weeks, 13.6 in the weeks 12 through 17. His snap rate jumped from 78% to 94%. His routes run per game in the first 10 weeks of the season were 20 and a half. That marked 20th according to flockfantasy.com during that time period. However, if we're looking at weeks 12 through 17, those routes were 32 per game, which actually marked fifth in the NFL at tight end according to flockfantasy.com. So really, maybe LaPorta's down year two was given the injury that he had at the beginning of the year, and now if he is fully healthy going into his third season, we could be seeing a strong bounceback.
Now, the reason I don't think you should be drafting a lot of Sam LaPorta, the reason I don't think you should be drafting a lot of T.J. Hockenson, is when you're looking at those draft sheets on flockfantasy.com, you'll see that Sam LaPorta and T.J. Hockenson are going like three rounds after Trey McBride. They're going like one to two rounds after George Kittle. And realistically, the expected fantasy points per game drop could be five points from the top three tight ends to the tight end four and the tight end five. So, the trap that a lot of people are falling into is thinking that it's a linear fall when it comes to the points per game with the tight end position this year. But no, it is going to be logarithmic. You are going to have a dramatic falloff as you go down the tight end rankings where it flattens out, and you may be better taking tight ends at the end of your draft.
Like going over, looking at Travis Kelce and Mark Andrews, um, they're both rising in my rankings right now for two different reasons. One, with the Kansas City Chiefs side of things, you have both Hollywood Brown injured and Rashee Rice with the suspension. And on the case of Mark Andrews in Baltimore, you are looking at Isaiah Likely needing foot surgery and Likely most likely missing the beginning of the year as well. So, I think this sets up for Travis Kelce as well as Mark Andrews to see a considerable amount of volume at the beginning of the season, especially.
Now, a big concern that you need to have with Kelce specifically is if we're going to go through and if we're going to look at the fall-off that we've had over the past three years, because you pull this up on flockfantasy.com, every single statistic that matters has gotten worse. 18.6 points per game down to 14.6, down to 12.2. His receptions per game from 6.5 to 6.2 to 6.1. His receiving yards per game from 78 to 65 to 51. His receiving touchdowns per game from 0.7 to 0.3 to 0.2. His yards per route run, which is in my opinion the most important thing to look for, that efficiency drop-off from 2.4 to 2.01 to 1.66. And again, Travis Kelce's in the middle of his 30s. By far and away the oldest skill positional player that we have in the NFL. So, I would love to say, oh, I think the Chiefs offense is going to be a lot better this year because that's true. I think they will be. And also Kelce kind of has to be really involved early on. So I'm gonna have him at tight end six. I'm gonna have Andrews at tight end seven.
The efficiency fall-off didn't happen with Andrews. Andrews actually went from 2.01 yards per route run in 2023, and that jumped up to 2.3 yards per route run this past season. But the big, big red flag that you have for Mark Andrews is the involvement in this offense. While the efficiency was fine and the receiving touchdowns stayed the same despite him having the fewest targets per game in his NFL career by a country mile outside of his rookie season, the target share in this offense collapsed. 22.2% of the Baltimore Ravens targets in 2023, 29% of the Baltimore Ravens targets in 2022. That was 15% this past year. He fell from 27 routes per game in 2023 to 17 this past season. So, both of these guys could probably give you strong production at the beginning of the year just because they're going to be in good offenses. They have great quarterbacks. They've been elite fantasy producers in the past, but I think once you have Likey back in, once Rashee Rice is through with the suspension, Hollywood's healthy, I would probably drop Kelce and Andrews down to the tier below.
Now going over, looking at David Njoku, you can make a strong argument to put in Njoku ahead of Andrews, ahead of Kelce. Like, the expert average rankings on flockfantasy.com actually does have David Njoku ahead of Mark Andrews. Um, with Njoku, he was the tight end four in points per game this past year, 13.5. The efficiency collapse, don't get me wrong, 1.54 yards per route run. My main concern that I'm gonna have with David Njoku is just a cap ceiling given the fact that current sports books are projecting the Cleveland Browns to be the worst offense in the NFL in total points scored, and it's not even remotely close. Now, full PPR format, I think Njoku is going to be a fine low-end tight end one. I think he's an incredibly talented player, but again, the issue is going to be the overall offensive environment.
Evan Engram, I think is a much worse tight end than David Njoku at this point of his NFL career, but he's in a much better situation. He actually gets to go to Denver. This is a team that has a very thin wide receiver room outside of Courtland Sutton and has a great quarterback. Bo Nix currently is one of my most drafted quarterbacks on Underdog Fantasy. Um, the efficiency did not drop off for Evan Engram this past year. He was still at 1.89 yards per route run, which was the second highest mark in his entire NFL career. And he was at 25.1% of the Jacksonville Jaguars offense in the games that he played. That's a big thing that we do on flockfantasy.com. If you're looking at the target shares, if you're looking at the yards per route, it's all adjusted to the time they were actually on the field, which is super important because Evan Engram only played nine games.
Tyler Warren and Luke Musgrave will be our next two tight ends. And if you are using our draft sheets posted on the site, you will see these are your targets because Evan Engram, David Njoku, Mark Andrews, um, Travis Kelce, they're all going to go in the middle rounds. What I'm seeing happen is I'm seeing people go like, "Oh, I drafted my first two running backs. I drafted my first two wide receivers. I drafted my flex. I guess it means it's time to take Travis Kelce in round six. I guess it means it's time to take Mark Andrews in round seven." They get that tight end and then they forget about the tight end position where the tiers are so close between the Tyler Warren, Luke Musgrave, Evan Engram, David Njoku, and those tight ends at the top that it doesn't really matter who you draft, and you could get Tyler Warren or Musgrave five, six rounds later.
These are elite prospects with round one NFL draft capital. Musgrave immediately worked with the Chicago Bears first offense in training camp. They sent Cole Kmet down to be with the second stringers day one. You never see that happen with rookies. There's no competition whatsoever in Indianapolis for the tight end position. I'm hoping it's Daniel Jones would be the starting quarterback because of how much Tyler Warren I've drafted. I think Anthony Richardson would probably be a little bit worse for him. Maybe better for the Colts given the rushing upside, but obviously that wouldn't translate to fantasy points for Warren. But those are the tight ends you should be targeting.
Tucker Kraft also a great target. If you actually look at the range of outcomes tool on flockfantasy.com, the closest comparable seasons that we have from Tucker Kraft's age 24 year were Jalin Hyatt in 2014, Austin Hooper in 2018, Zach Ertz in 2014, Dallas Goedert 2019, Dalton Kincaid 2023, Noah Fant 2021, Cole Kmet 2023, and Kyle Rudolph in 2013. And what you actually see is you have high ceilings from a couple of these guys. Jalin Hyatt explodes in his age 25 season for 17 and a half points per game. And Austin Hooper takes the leap up to about 15 points per game as well. So that's in the range of outcomes for Tucker Kraft. He got better in every category you could possibly ask. He got better from a snap rate perspective, 56% of the snaps up to 86%. From a targets perspective, 2.4 to 4.1. Receptions 1.8 to 2.9. Receiving yards 20 to 41. Yards per route run jumped from 1.24, which is horrible, to 2.663, which is pretty much elite. Like we go ahead and we look at Tucker Kraft with the player comparison. Like this dude was fourth in the NFL in yards per route and second in the NFL in yards per target among all tight ends. So, um, again, you take these guys late. Don't, don't freaking draft the guys in the middle rounds.
Dalton Kincaid's exciting given the Khalil Shakir injury. Now Kincaid was injured, um, dealt with a bunch of nagging injuries last season, but what's very interesting, his target share in the games that he played rose from 17% as a rookie to 20% as a second-year player despite running nine fewer routes per game. He actually jumped from 1.47 yards per route run up to 1.75. So with Kincaid, you need him to stay healthy, but also if Shakir's injured, there should be more targets available.
Dallas Goedert, super safe pick. I mean, Dallas Goedert's a tight end that I'm coming away with a ton because I realistically think that Dallas Goedert's very similar to Travis Kelce this year. I think he's very similar to Mark Andrews, and this can be one of your last picks in your draft, whereas you'd have to take Kelce, Andrews, and Njoku in the middle rounds. Jake Ferguson gets a really nice contract. Um, I know that the Dallas offense should have a big bounceback with Dak Prescott's health, but possibly George Pickens draws a few targets.
If we're looking at Jonnu Smith, yes, he was the tight end five in points per game last year. Yes, he has the previous experience with Arthur Smith who went out there and traded for him specifically this offseason. Yes, he was dominant down the stretch. But with that in mind, I am always scared of this profile because we have seen Jonnu Smith with one, two, three, four NFL teams. He is on his fifth NFL team. We have seen Jonnu Smith with God knows how many starting quarterbacks. We have seen him with God knows how many coaching staffs, and you have about eight usable games in his entire NFL career because even last year he wasn't usable up until week 11. You look at week 11 through 18. Yeah, maybe he was the tight end one overall in fantasy. I mean, this dude, 28 points, 23 points, 21 points, 13, 19, 12, 11, 18. A tight end, he was a league winner, but change with the coaching staff. We've only ever seen him be successful in one scenario, and it's such a large sample of just disappointment.
Obviously, Kyle Pitts also has a very large sample of disappointment. He had posted the best tight end rookie season arguably of all time back in 2021. Then LaPorta crushed it, then Bowers crushed it right after. But what's very interesting for Kyle Pitts is he's gotten worse every single year with his targets per game. 6.5 targets as a rookie, 5.9 in year two, 5.3 in year three, and 4.4 this past season. Now, you get a little bit of training camp hype as you always do with Kyle Pitts, but realistically, this is just one of the last picks in your draft. And by the time you get to tight end 18, you should have already drafted one of these guys. Like, realistically, I can see where Kincaid, Goedert, Ferguson, Jonnu, Kyle Pitts, Musgrave, Tyler Warren are going. Like, they're very cheap. You can get one of these guys is like your round 11, round 12, round 13 pick. So if you wait that long and you don't get Bowers, McBride, Kittle, then you're probably going to draft a second tight end at just at the very end of your draft just as a throw-on bench stash.
Isaiah Likely could be viable again. The broken foot makes it where an inconsistent starter for you last year becomes that much shakier of a projection. Brevin Jordan had 1.92 yards per route run last year, but there's really nothing that tells us that he's guaranteed to be good. Hunter Henry finishes as the tight end 16 in back-to-back seasons. But realistically, Hunter Henry has not finished with 10 points per game or more since he was with the Chargers. Zach Ertz last year, yes, was great in full PPR formats. He was the tight end 10. So, I've actually used my last pick or my second to last pick a decent amount on Ertz.
Cade Otton could be interesting if Godwin's out for the beginning of the year. Elijah Jones and Mason Taylor have interesting rookie profiles. Um, yeah, no Fant in Seattle. So Elijah Jones all of a sudden has a path to have a role week one. And then with Mason Taylor, the main thing to monitor is going to be the high ankle sprain that he just suffered. But, I really hope I was able to help you out with these tight end rankings.
Again, I very much encourage you to use the draft sheets. That way, you don't get suckered into taking the LaPorta, Hockenson, Kelce, Andrews range, just way too high in your drafts. Either get an elite guy, depending on your league settings, that could be very advantageous, or depending on your league settings, you may be better off to wait and just grab two players at an extremely cheap cost like Dallas Goedert and Zach Ertz. But, I really hope I was able to help you out in some way with this. I really hope that you can join the flock sometime soon. Again, the best offer we've ever had on flockfantasy.com at the moment. $34 gets you access to everything on the site until January 1st, including all my draft sheets, weekly rankings, rest of season rankings and tiers, plus the player comparison, range of outcomes, trade calculator, trade finder, my teams page, dashboard, and if you use promo code FLOCK when you sign up, I will be actually answering your start questions and your trade questions for free during the season on live streams. But I think that's all I got for you.