Transcription
Every year I convince myself that the elite tight ends are guys we want to be drafting. The elite tight ends are incredible values. And every single year I get disappointed.
Starting with this past season, we can remember Brock Bowers was going at the beginning of the second round, middle of the second round, at the very latest, the late second round in your fantasy football drafts. You probably took him thinking, "Okay, I very easily have the Titan one in fantasy this next year." And then it was worst-case scenario. Brock Bowers gets injured at the beginning of the season. He tries to play through it and in weeks two through four, he scores fewer than 10 fantasy points every single week and then he misses weeks five through seven. So through the first seven weeks, if you had selected Bowers, most of y'all had losing records. You were sitting at two and five, you were sitting at three and four, and it didn't really matter what Bowers was going to do when he came back because you were already done.
Now, I want to give Bowers the benefit here. You have to remember the Las Vegas Raiders were dealing with Gino Smith, an incompetent coaching staff, and they were so bad that they got the number one overall pick in the NFL draft. So, if we look at this Bower season, add on the context that he got injured at the beginning, add on the context that the Raiders were the worst team in the NFL, and then we look at what it actually led to. Hell, he averaged 14 and a half fantasy points per game, and he was the tight end two in fantasy. So with all of that, Brock Bowers still managed to give you a respectable points per game mark, even if it didn't really lead to you winning a fantasy championship.
Now, if we look at his situation going into this next season, he's only 23 years old. And on top of this, you have a significantly improved quarterback going from Gino Smith to Fernando Mendoza. And this Raiders team that really has no weapons outside of Genty and Bowers, what did they decide to add this off seasonason? Jaylen Naylor. That that's who they added. You have no competition whatsoever here for targets. Brock Bowers is probably going to be sitting with a 27-28% team target share as a tight end, which is just absolutely ridiculous. And the efficiency is going to be a lot better given the offensive context. So, I'm okay having Bowers as our tight end one.
Now, moving over to Trey McBride. McBride's also incredible. McBride back-to-back seasons has actually averaged over nine targets per game. Obviously, he had the massive leap forward from 2024 to 2025 where he jumped from 15 and a half fantasy points per game up to 18.5. And this was primarily fueled off of him finally scoring touchdowns once you had Jacobe Brassette take over as the quarterback for the Cardinals. My only hold up with McBride is I do think if we look at his situation from last year to this year, it's actually gotten sneaky worse where Marvin Harrison as well as Michael Wilson will represent serious target competition. And at the same time, this is a team that had lost every single running back on their roster last year. So, they were forced to completely abandon the run. And you just saw 50-plus pass attempts for Jacobe Brassette every week. So, I do think the passing volume's going to be coming down here in Arizona. And I don't know if Jacobe Brassette's going to be as efficient as what we're going to get with Fernando Mendoza. I'm not going to fault you if you wanted to take McBride over Bowers.
Now, where I am ranking these two guys currently in underdog fantasy drafts will be at the end of the second round, the beginning of the third round. I'd be very happy taking them with Bejian Robinson, taking them with Jamir Gibbs as my first pick. However, for those regular reddraft leagues that are going to be in a couple months where you only start two wide receivers and one flex, I would move both these tight ends up a little bit higher. Underdog's going to be a little bit different because you do have that third wide receiver slot. And I will say the majority of these rankings I'm making right now are for those underdog drafts because that's where we are live streaming and drafting every single night on this channel. I've actually profited over $120,000 on underdog over the past four years doing drafts. I would love for you to draft with us. The link's in the description. It's in the comment section. If you sign up with code flock, you're going to be getting set up with the free flockfantasy.com and underdog fantasy tools for you to dominate those drafts, and you'll get $50 added to your account after you play your first five.
Now, moving over to Coloulston Loand. Loveland really didn't do much in his rookie year until the very end of it. If y'all watched the Flock League this past season, you remember me making fun of Danny, who eventually ended up losing the league, for rostering Coulson Lovelin through his week five buy, even though he was taking zeros in the lineup. I was like, "What are we doing here? This guy's making no difference whatsoever." But once you get to week 17, he drops 21 fantasy points. Once you get to week 18, he drops 25 fantasy points. And it didn't stop there either. If you go over and if you actually look at what Lovelin managed to do in the NFL playoffs, Lovelin against the Green Bay Packers, 15 targets, eight receptions, 137 receiving yards, and then against the Los Angeles Rams, that game in which the Chicago Bears lost, you have 10 targets for Coulson Loveland as well. So, the final four games that we had from Coulson Lovelin, who was a top 10 pick in last year's NFL draft at only 21 years old, he had 10, 13, 15, and 10 targets. What he would average about 12 to 13 targets per contest. And how is the situation from last year changed to this one? Oh, now you no longer have DJ Moore and all of a sudden there should be more targets to go around. So, I think Loveland is set up to absolutely smash. If you were just looking at the range of outcomes tool on flockfantasy.com, you'll see a couple other age 21-year-old tight ends that comped historically to Coulson Lovelin were guys like Rob Gronowski as well as Aaron Hernandez.
Now, moving over to Trey McBride. McBride was significantly worse in the games in which you didn't have Daniel Jones last season. Obviously, you can do this on flockfantasy.com as well. Just throw Tyler Warren into the player comparison, then hit splits and go with and without Daniel Jones. And what you're going to see is obviously the offense got significantly worse once Daniel Jones went down, but Tyler Warren fell from being the Titan six in points per game in those first 13 weeks with Daniel Jones to being the Titan 24 in points per game in those final four weeks when you no longer had Jones. Crazy drop off. Daniel Jones should be back this next season. Now, of course, with that in mind, you are going to see just the Indianapolis Colts regress back to the mean regardless where this was one of the top NFL offenses through the first half of last season. I don't think that should be the projection with Daniel Jones coming off the tornles. But Tyler Warren does have some upside to actually improve with his targets per game and the target share in this offense because you no longer have Michael Pitman Jr. and they don't really bring in additional target competition. So, it's just Tyler Warren, Josh D, as well as Alec Pierce. Um, I think that maybe the ceiling isn't as high as what you have with the Coulson Lovelin, but you can make an argument that the floor is higher where he just finishes the tight end 10 in points per game as a rookie.
Now, moving down to our next tier, it's going to be very interesting how you rank these guys in comparison to each other. Like Tucker Craft as an example had 33 fantasy points the week before he goes down with the torn ACL. He was the titan four in points per game at 14 and a half points per contest. And we got to ask ourselves how is this situation changed from last year? Well, you have Romeo Dobs going over to the New England Patriots. And on top of that, you are looking at Dantavian Wixs getting traded over to Philadelphia. So Tucker Craft, if anything, has less target competition than he did last season. And this offense isn't going to be any less pass happy. So I actually like the Tucker Craft projection if fully healthy. The issue is he did tear that ACL in week nine last season. So if you're looking at a 9-month recovery timetable, that brings them like right to the start of the season at coming back. So, if I was like in an underdog draft, say the puppy where it's a $5 buy-in, $100,000 to first place, and you really got to be chasing the highest ceiling possible in weeks 15 through 17 for that tournament. I like craft there. However, if you're looking to start a tight end week one in your regular fantasy league, you probably go ahead and take Harold Fannon because Harold Fannon, he's going to be good to go come the beginning of this next year. And if you compare Harold Fannon's first half of the season, we'll go ahead and throw him in the player comparison here. We are going to look at weeks 1 through eight and then weeks 10 through 18. This is before the by-week and after the by-week. You had Harold Fannon jumping up from 10.7 fantasy points per game up to 12.6 fantasy points per game. He actually managed to jump up to the Titans six in the second half of the year. Another way that we can look at this is we can look at Harold Fannon with and without fellow teammate David and Jooku, who obviously he's not going to be playing with InJoku this next season. And in the four games without David and Jooku, he had a 26% team target share, was the number fourth tight end in the league with his target share, and he was only 21 years old. He as well as Coulson Loveland historically comps to 21-year-old Rob Gronowski, 21-year-old Aaron Hernandez, and 21-year-old David Injoku.
Now, with this in mind, how has his situation changed from last season to this season? Coaching staff's changed. Don't know if that's going to be a good or a bad thing for the Cleveland Browns here. And on top of this as well, we can say that we are looking at the worst quarterback play potentially in the entire NFL where last time we saw Deshun Watson, he was the worst quarterback in the NFL and he has torn his Achilles twice since then. Then you sprinkle on the fact that this team goes wide receiver in round one with Casey Conception. They followed up with another wide receiver in round two with Denzel Boston. So there will be some additional target competition. So, the situation with Harold Fannon, not great.
Moving over to Kyle Pittz. Kyle Pittz, unbelievable week 15. 45 points in week 15. If you'll remember, there are people watching this video that had to go up against Kyle Pittz in the first round of the fantasy playoffs and their season was ended, which I can't imagine that being the situation for you. Um, he was the tight end five in points per game last year at 12.4.4 points per contest. He had a 22.7% team target share, which is the most that he has seen since 2022. And outside of Drake London, Bejian Robinson, he's very clearly the third name in this offense. Now, quarterback play probably not going to be great. Ultimately, if you are looking at Pitts, um I think you would maybe honestly kind of hope it's Tua based on the efficiency or lack of efficiency that we have seen from Michael Penn in his NFL career. But um yeah, I think that Pit's going to be playing for this contract and I'm pretty excited about the overall upside for a player that's still only 25 years old.
Now Sam Leaporta also's another 25-year-old tight end and I honestly may need to move Leaporta up because as we look at this, he has had three straight seasons as a top 10 tight end in fantasy. He has gone from the Titan three his rookie year to the Titan nine this past season to the Titan 7 in 2025. You do have some contingent upside as well where if you were to see an injury to a wide receiver like Aman Ross St. Brown, you could see Sam Leaporta's target share go up dramatically because his target share has been capped at only 18.6% this past year, 17% the year before that, and 21% in his rookie season. So, he's still young. It's still a good offense. He hasn't been flooded with a ton of targets, but he's been a consistent option for you for three straight seasons. So, he's a pretty safe name to be looking at.
Going over to our next tier, there's a very real chance that I'm going to have to update the rankings on flockfantasy.com if David and Jooku does indeed sign with the Los Angeles Chargers. Obviously, if that happens, Aronda Gadston gets absolutely nuked. But for how it stands now, I think that there will be additional targets open for the Los Angeles Chargers if we don't have to worry about Keenan Allen. And Gatston, a tight end that people were expecting absolutely nothing from last season, ends up coming through giving you some really strong performances. Like we can go over and see that he had back-to-back top three tight end finishes in week seven and eight. And ultimately, he was decently efficient as well. Had 1.78 yards per route run at in comparison to their quote unquote wide receiver one in this offense. Lad Manki at 1.47 yards per route. So Gatston young tight end came from really nowhere this past season and I do think has a lot of upside if you were to get no David and Jooku.
Now moving over to Jake Ferguson. Um, this is going to be really, really funny with Ferg, but if we go ahead and throw him in the player comparison and look at him with and without CD Lamb last year, um, it was a night in day difference. I remember the comment section, y'all get on me correctly a lot of times. This was not one of those. We called Ferguson a sell high right before CD Lamb came back. And we can see that in games in which Jake Ferguson played with no CD Lamb, he averaged 17.7 fantasy points per game. He was the tight end two in fantasy. Then in games in which CD Lamb played, he averaged 9.6 and was the tight end 18. So you're almost drafting Ferg based on the what if you were to get an injury to Pickkins, you were to get an injury to Lamb.
Now moving over to George KD. KD's a super interesting case in that it's really going to depend on your exact league settings on if and when you should draft him. If you are in an underdog draft where all the money is up for grabs in weeks 15 through 17, um maybe George KD is worth a few shots because he does have upside at that point. But if you look at the date in which George KD tore his Achilles, January 11th, and you look at the average timetable to get these players back from touring Achilles, which is not the ACL, it's not 9 months, it's longer, there's a very real chance that George KD's not coming back to fantasy football until after Thanksgiving, which if that's going to be the case, if you don't have an IR in your regular league, he's undraftable. He should be somebody that's on the waiver wire. But obviously if you have an IR and you're drafting in like an ESPN Yahoo league, then maybe you can go ahead draft him, stick him on the IR and hope that you get him for the fantasy playoffs cuz he was still incredible as he always is this past season before going down where he was the tight end three in fantasy points per game at 14.68. Obviously though, a 33-year-old tight end coming off a torn achilles. That didn't happen at the beginning of the year. Instead it happened in the NFL playoffs is very much concerning.
Now Travis Kelce is a player that is so damn difficult to rank. Like honestly he may be too low in my rankings. I'm surprised to see these statistics from Kelsey. Very clearly you could make an argument that he is the best tight end of all time. So very similar to a player like LeBron James. Maybe the age stuff frankly doesn't matter. But if you look at Travis Kelce in games in which Patrick Mahomes played versus games in which Patrick Mahomes did not play last season, he was the Titans seven in points per game in games with Mahomes. He was sitting at 1.85 yards per run in those contests in which Patrick Mahomes started. That was higher than where he was in 2024. I want to give a massive discount on him based off age because of course he's going to be 37 years old this next season. With all the data that we have on flockfantasy.com, the only tight ends we've seen over the past like 20 years um do anything at all in their age 36 season were Antonio Gates and Mercedes Lewis and neither tight end finished with five points per game or more in their age 37 year. So, I want to put a massive discount on him, but you can make an argument that Mason, it doesn't matter. You just simply have to go with Kelsey over these other names like Ferguson, Gadston, KD if Mahomes is healthy.
Now, moving over to Daltton Concincaid. Um, Concaid is such a tough player to rank because he only played 38% of the snaps from a per game perspective with the Buffalo Bills last year. And now you already have reports coming out early in the offseason that Concincaid's injury is going to be limiting him in 2027 as well. So I don't know exactly what the hell's going on with Concincaid. I don't know why he couldn't have just gotten surgery and fixed this for once and for all. But the efficiencies gone up dramatically where this past year he averaged over three yards per route. He averaged over 11 yards per target. But if you're only getting on the field for 38% of the snaps and you're only running 16 routes a game, it's very difficult to get behind you.
Now, moving over to Dallas Gddard. Dallas Gddard had a career year last season. I had Dallas Gddard in the Flock League. I was starting him pretty much every single week. He was the tight end six in fantasy points per game. But even though I was starting Dallas Gddard every single week and I was really liking it, I mean, I'll call a spade a spade. Nothing was different last year but the touchdowns. If you look at Dallas Goddard from 2019 through 2024, he has averaged anywhere from 5.1 to 4.9 receptions. He has averaged anywhere from 3.7 to 4.6 targets. Really, over the past three seasons, you've actually seen Dallas Goddard's receiving yards per game go down. So, the targets remain flat, the receptions made remained flat, the yards per game went down. The only difference is he started scoring touchdowns. His careerhigh touchdowns before this past season was five TDs in a year and that was back in 2019 before co and all of a sudden he comes out this past year and scores 11. So he was going to regress regardless. Then they go ahead and draft a really athletic tight end in round two of the NFL draft this year. So I think Dallas Gutdard has to move down ranks.
We are about to enter into the grossest range that you could ever imagine. Mark Andrews is our next one. Andrews tied in 24 in points per game last season, 7.7 fantasy points per game, 1.3 yards per route, six yards per target. Both by far and away his career lows, but everybody else here is gross. And you have no Isaiah likely.
Going over to Isaiah Likely. He gets paid to be a New York Giant, but this is a Titan that's now 26 years old that has never finished higher than tight end 20 in points per game. It's almost like Isaiah likely benefits from being I don't know, you could make an argument the biggest player in one of the most exciting NFL games we've had over the past two seasons, which was that opening night Chiefs and Baltimore Ravens game. If you all remember, he was the number one waiverwire player that ended up doing absolutely nothing. But it's a decent situation that he steps into with the Giants where you have Malik Neighbors and there really no other competition. Kenyan Sadi is a freak athlete. He has great NFL draft capital. The production in college wasn't phenomenal. You can't say that he is a um Tyler Warren level pro. Obviously, there's no way you could say he's a Brock Bowowers level prospect, but still good prospect at tight end, good athletic profile. The situation though is just god awful being a New York Jet playing alongside Garrett Wilson as well as the wide receiver they took in round one this year with Omar Cooper.
Now, our last tier of tightens. Um, the Jacksonville Jaguars took multiple tight ends to play alongside Britain Strange this next year, but I will give Strange the benefit of the doubt in that he was very efficient this past season. Moving over to Jawan Johnson. Jawan Johnson had his first season in his NFL career with over 10 fantasy points per game, but now you have additional competition with Jordan Tyson coming in. Hunter Henry has been a top 16 tight end in points per game for three straight seasons. But the expectations are this team has AJ Brown and they draft a tight end in round three. Dalton Schulz was the tight end 15 in points per game, but he's going to be going into his age 30 season. And he hasn't averaged more than 11 fantasy points per game since 2021. That was the only time he ever did it, and he was a Dallas Cowboy at the time. Chika Konko did show some upside at the end of last year. The main benefit that you're going to get is that he's on a commander team that really doesn't have any weaponry at all and he has a really good quarterback. TJ Hawinson looks like he is straight up washed. I took Hawinson in the flock league last season. I had to drop him a couple weeks in with how bad he was because he averaged 1.14 yards per route this past year. He averaged a 15% team target share. So, you could maybe make an argument that, oh, he just wasn't productive because the quarterback play was horrendous, but no, the 15% team target share means he wasn't even able to draw targets. And then going over to AJ Barner, really all these tight ends in this range, I'll just say I wouldn't draft them in a regular reddraft league. They're players that should be sitting out there on the waiverwire, but obviously in those underdog baseball drafts, you are going to be forced to go out there and you're going to be forced to take your shots at these guys.
But, I really appreciate y'all. I really hope that you enjoyed this video. And reminder, I'm going to be live streaming at 8:00 PM Eastern every single day, drafting fantasy football teams until the start of the season. So, I really hope I get to see you there. And much love, ladies and gentlemen. I'll see you in the live stream later.