0:00What's going on, man? Welcome back to the basement. I'm Ron, and today we are going to rank my top 30 tight ends for
0:06fantasy football leagues this upcoming season. Running backs and wide receivers get all the love, but tight ends are important, too. You are starting one
0:14every single week. Are you going to go and spend up on the elite tight end? Are you going to get a breakout option? Are
0:18you going to fully punt the position and take the waiverwire approach? Today we are going to break it all down, put them
0:25in tears, and talk about the tight end landscape as a whole heading into 2026.
0:30As always, if you enjoy, leave a like, subscribe if you're new. Now, I do want to say before we even rank these tight
0:36ends, I want to kind of talk about my philosophy with tight ends in terms of what I am looking for when drafting
0:43them. Now, shout out to Coupoop Fiasco on Twitter. He has long been one of my favorite follows in the space for tight
0:52ends in the fantasy football space. He has said uh pretty much that you need to be a top two target on your team to be a
0:59breakout tight end. This chart illustrates why we are always looking for players who are a top two target on their team. As you can see, 95.6% of
1:06teams over the last decade had two or fewer guys get 100 plus targets. Which team has the best odds of having three
1:12this year? essentially you want a pathway to 100 plus targets to find a league winning tight end. He then says below this in 2024,
1:23that's two years ago now, but the research, the data still holds up. In 2024, every top five tight end in PPR
1:30got at least 90 targets, finishes a top two target on their team. pretty much for 20 straight years, Randy Mcichael was the only tight end that didn't have
1:4290 plus targets or 10 plus TDs. And the easiest way to get 10 plus targets or 10 plus touchdowns and 90 plus targets is
1:51to be a top two target on your team. And in addition to that, we need our tight end to run routes. This is from last
1:57year. If you sort by points per game among tight ends until you get down to the tight end 14 with Dalton Concade,
2:03all of the tight ends in front of him ran 70% or more of the routes. We want 70% or more of the routes and we want a
2:09tight end that is a top two target earner on their team. Now, with that being said, let's talk about our tight end one in S
2:18tier. We are going to talk about Brock Bowers. Now, we did break him down in the top 24 overall rankings video from a
2:25couple weeks ago. If you want that plus how I'm ranking 1 2 3 4 5 six overall in your fantasy draft, you can check out
2:33that video as well. But with Brock Bowers, I'm essentially throwing out last year. He picks up a knee injury in week one and then is on an all-time bad
2:41Raiders offense. I want to bet on this Raiders team in 2026. You have Clint Kubak coming in. You have Mendoza first
2:48overall. You have a lot of outs for this team to overperform.
2:53the young quarterback could eventually take over the reigns from Kurt Cousins and provide some juice to this offense.
2:59Kubak could come in and do the same thing he did with the Seahawks where no one was excited about Sam Darnold and
3:04JSN and then all of a sudden they win a Super Bowl. I'm not saying they're going to win a Super Bowl, but I think that
3:08this offense is going to be a lot better for fantasy than people think. On top of that, Brock Bowowers is essentially the
3:13wide receiver one here. He's going to run plenty plenty of routes and he's not only going to be a top two target on
3:18this team, he's going to be the target on this team. The other wide receivers here are Trey Tucker, Jaylen Naylor, Dante Thornton, Jack Besh. It is
3:28essentially the Brock Bowers and Ashton Genty show. And yes, Bowowers got off to a rocky start last year because of the
3:34injury and the context of this offense.
3:36He's still on a crazy pace after being pretty much the best tight end prospect we've seen. It is OBJ. It is Puka Nakua.
3:44It is Michael Thomas. The only players through 29 career games with more receptions than Brock Bars. He's ahead of Anquin Balden, Justin Jefferson,
3:52Jarvis Landry, Aman Stain Brown. It is a crazy list to be a part of, especially as a tight end. And even still, while
3:59being a tight end, his per reception, per target numbers are on pace with a guy like Aman R St. Brown and less so
4:06Jarvis Landry, right? Jarvis Landry is kind of the downside comp, somebody racking up a ton of catches, not really doing anything with them. But we're
4:13looking at him versus Aman Rosane Brown both in about 170ish receptions, both at about 1,800 yards, both at about 1112 touchdowns. So if you are essentially
4:24getting Aman Rosane Brown in your tight end spot, he is going to absolutely crush. Moving on from that, we have Trey
4:31McBride, who I'm a little bit lower on, and I'll kind of inject my opinions here and there because tight end two for
4:36McBride's not really going to tell you if I'm drafting him or not, but I am definitely lower than consensus on Trey
4:41McBride. I just think that things are going to come back down to earth this year, but that still might be a fine
4:46outcome, right? He was the tight end one overall last year, 18.6 points per game.
4:51That was the third most ever for a tight end in PPR leagues. Now, of course, he played an extra game. Of course, uh he
4:59had a PPR type season, right? 126 receptions is just absolutely absurd.
5:05But I just think this Cardinals offense is going to be different, right? Drew Pingig now leaves and goes to the Lions.
5:12We have Mike Laflur in and we just don't know what this offense is going to look like. We still have Jody Brassette
5:19holding out which I think he's going to play for the Cardinals, but you do have to wonder, we've seen these hold outs
5:23last year. Terry McLaren was one of them where these players hold out and then they come in late and then the rapport
5:28is all messed up. I know that these are players that he's played with, but he still has to learn a new offense uh
5:33under Laflur. And last year was a career year in terms of touchdown rate for him.
5:37Usually these things come back down to the average.
5:42He threw 23 touchdowns last year in 12 starts. Before that he had 18 touchdowns in 15 starts, 12 touchdowns in 11
5:48starts, 13 touchdowns in 15 starts. I would just be shocked if Jacobe Brassette came out here and ran as hot as he did last year. Now, even with that
5:58being said, we can look back to that 2024 season as a reasonable comp. Kyler did have a great year, but two receiving
6:04touchdowns, 1100 yards for 15.6 and six points per game is probably like an above average outcome for Trey McBride.
6:10I would guess he's going to get to 14 15 points per game and be a fine tight end one for you. It just comes down to at
6:18what point in the draft are you okay with taking on a 14 15 point per game tight end. For me, that's probably about
6:26once you get to the area of drafts where it's like Chris Olive, T. Higgins, Garrett Wilson. These are all more of
6:32your like 13 14 point per game wide receivers. Now, as always for this video, the rankings are fresh off the press. I pretty much do the research for
6:40these rankings videos and then I update them on the master ranking sheet on patreon.com/ronstewart.
6:47As always, if you want access to my complete rankings if you want to upload them to underdog, all that can be found
6:52on the Patreon, patreon.com/ronstewart in the description and the comments section down below. Then we get to a tier. These are guys that I'm taking
7:00probably in the in home leagues probably more like your fourth to sixth round area. And somebody I'm pumped about is Coloulston Lovelin, my tight end three.
7:09He is, the more I look at it, the truth. If I'm being fully honest, you look at the rookie receiver report from last year
7:16where if you're not following the channel during the season, make sure you're subscribed. Make sure you check us out. Every single week I do the
7:23rookie receiver report where we break down every player's route share, their points per game, their targets per out run, their yards per run, their first
7:29downs per run, and their PFF grade. And just essentially on a per route basis, how good is this rookie? And you can see
7:35here with Coloulston Lovelin as a tight end. Tight ends are supposed to have a little bit lower in terms of yards per
7:41run, targets per run, all of that stuff.
7:42Instead, he puts up 10.32 points per game, largely a product of only the 66% route share. But 21.1% targets per out
7:50run is right there comparable with Tedo and McMillan. 1.86 yards per run is the second most on this list after Luther
7:58Burton. 9.1% first down sprout run is behind only Luther Burden and Tedo McMillan. And he led the entire rookie class in PFF grade. Absurd. That's on
8:10top of competing for targets with Roma Dunce, DJ Moore, Luther Burden, Cole KT, who he had to kind of keep at bay in
8:17terms of taking away routes from him.
8:19And once he got fully unleashed, it was just lights out. This is from Chris O'Brien here. When he ran 70% or more of
8:27the routes, he had 20 plus PPR points four of those six games. passer rating when targeted as the first read. He was
8:34the first read only behind Roma Dunay with 56. 130 passer rating when targeted as the first read is absurd for a tight
8:42end. And then this chart from Hayden Wings kind of showing that he had his first stretch of 80% or more of the
8:48snaps in week eight. And from that point on, he had the most volume and the most production among all Bears receivers.
8:54And I love this offense. I love Ben Johnson. And there is a real world where Coloulston Lovelin is not only a top two
9:03target earner next to Odun or Luther Burden, but that he just leads the entire team in targets, receptions, yards, touchdowns, and is just an
9:12absolute monster. We had a 13-game sample down the stretch from week eight on right from here. That was the first game where he had 80% or more of the
9:18snaps. He had 13.9 points per game over that 13game sample behind only McBride, Bowers, and KD. And that's from week eight through the playoffs.
9:28He already showed the upside. I think he can take another step forward as well.
9:32And in terms of running the routes, that's like the only concern, right?
9:36Only 66% of the routes last year. But we do have this article. This is from Ted Necuan. I think I'm saying his name
9:42right. He works over at The Athletic.
9:44The reason why I care about this is that he released an article highlighting the most versatile players in the NFL. He is a film grinder. He
9:52does not care at all about fantasy football. And to me, this stuck out as somebody drafting Lovelin. We want him on the field at all times. Can he clear
10:0080% of the snaps on most games? This would point to that being the case.
10:04However, there are select few who are good to elite at both blocking and receiving. For a while, George KD was the only tight end truly elite at both.
10:11Close and love is poised to take that title. He is huge on Lovelin in terms of his blocking prowess. And to me, that is
10:19a huge, huge deal. Now, a mini tier break. I'll say I would put Warren here, but we just don't have the space to like
10:26have a billion different tiers. So, mini tier break to Warren. Warren is good, but he is in a lesser offense. And
10:32that's kind of what this comes down to.
10:33I think he is a strong talent, right? We saw the rookie receiver report with Coloulston Lovelin. It's not all that far off when we look at Tyler Warren,
10:43right? 83% router, so he was already on the field a ton. 11.09 and 09 points per game is only behind Tedrell McMillan and
10:49Harold Fannon. Targets per run is great.
10:52Yards per out run for a tight end is fine. Uh and really the story of the season for Tyler Warren is that he
10:56started out strong and then we had the Daniel Jones injury where he had 13.1 points per game in his games with Daniel Jones. That is
11:08crushing for a rookie tight end.
11:10essentially, I think, behind really only Bowowers and Leaporta in the modern era in terms of rookie tight end production.
11:17And he did that only on six receiving touchdowns in terms of a 17game pace. He wasn't even really scoring touchdowns.
11:24He was just producing. He was on an 82 catch, 969 yard pace. On top of that, he was getting rushing production. And then
11:31Daniel Jones gets hurt. And for those five games, 6.3 points per game. And that's kind of what this comes down to
11:36like with a lot of the Colts players.
11:39What version of Daniel Jones do we get?
11:42We have him pretty much ready to go for the start of the season, but he's going to be a shell of himself. He's going to
11:46be limited. He's probably not going to be himself until 2027. As Deepak Jonah says up top, and then on the bottom, you
11:52see how absurd this offense was through week 14. They were first in points per game. Uh Dale Jones himself was fifth in
11:59yards per game, fifth in yards per pass attempt, uh eighth in touchdowns, ninth in passer rating. I just think a lot of
12:06those numbers are going to probably revert to outside the top 15.
12:12I will say in Warren's defense, Daniel Jones is much better than the Philip Rivers, Riley Leonard offense they were running
12:20in the meantime. And then he's also on a team without high-end target earners.
12:26And I say that because Alec Pierce only had 84 targets last year. He's much more of a downfield explosive playmaker. And
12:32then Josh D, who is a high-end target earner, might get squeezed out in two wide receiver sets anyways and then not
12:36be on the field enough to take away targets from Tyler Warren, who probably benefits the most from Michael Pitman leaving the team. So, he could very much
12:44lead this team in targets. It just comes down to how you feel about Daniel Jones this season. Then we go down to our B
12:51tier, and these are guys that are probably more of your mid round, not even mid-round, like mid to late round guys that are, you know, we'll have to
12:58see what home league ADP starts to shape up like in July, but I would assume these guys go round six to nine. That
13:05would be my guess. And Titan 5 here, I think people are going to be upset about, but I think you guys would also
13:10be upset if I just went down underdog ADP and copy and pasted that list. At Titan 5 in Btier, I have Kyle Pitts.
13:18Now, I do want to say Btier is really, really tough to rank. And I think my takeaway is that I like all of them for
13:25different reasons, right? We're going to get into tight end five through six, seven, eight. There'll be four tight ends in this tier. I'll probably just be
13:32drafting the cheapest of the four if I miss out on these top four guys and then taking like a late round stash alongside
13:39a Btier tight end. But with Kyle Pittz, when we talk about being a top two target and running all the routes, he's
13:45going to run all the routes. He's going to be a top two target. You have uh Drake London, then Kyle Pittz, and then
13:50a huge tier breakdown to Zachariah Branch, Jan Dodson, OM Zakius. Yes, Bejon Robinson is there and he's going to catch a ton of passes, but as a
13:59running back, it's going to be really hard to project him to outtarget Kyle Pitts. Pitts will likely outtarget Bejon Robinson. The only downside for Pitts
14:08and honestly a lot of these tight ends, that one of these teams is going to sign Stfan Diggs. And that's a little bit
14:13scary when it comes to being a top two target earner. But when we look at these Caesars overunder projections from Matthew Betts, this is a really good
14:22tool just to kind of see how the public is projecting out these tight ends. Now, of course, in PPR fantasy football, we
14:29care about receptions and touchdowns in addition to the receiving yards, but this is a good compass that's kind of pointing us in the direction of how
14:37these players are going to do. Now, projections aren't everything. My rankings aren't just straight down the board, right? Of course, Kyle Pittz is
14:44third on this list. I have him fifth, but it just goes to show that he projects very strongly this year. He
14:49finished as the titan four in points per game last year. He projects for the third most yards this year. Now, the
14:55elephant in the room is the Drake London splits. In terms of a 17game pace with Drake London, he was on pace for 75
15:03catches, 717 yards, and three touchdowns. In five games without Drake London, he was on pace for 119 yards, for or 119 receptions, 1400 yards, and
15:1310 touchdowns, which is just absurd.
15:16That is a puka style season to have like 120 catches and,400 yards or uh like that is
15:25just top dog wide receiver style stuff.
15:28I think that that highlights the ceiling that Kyle Pittz has. And then on top of that, we have to remember that tight
15:35ends outside of the top true true elite guys, Kyle Pittz really in terms of his games without Drake London just had bad
15:43touchdown luck. If if his 17g game pace here was 75 catches, 700 yards and seven touchdowns, that is pretty comfortably
15:51like 11 to 12 points per game as a you know tight end five through tight end 8 finisher. So I think that even in his
15:59games with London, he was fine. He is somebody who is playing on the franchise tag. He has everything to gain, lots to
16:06prove. Uh and then on top of that, we have a new play caller. We have a new quarterback in Tua. And I think that
16:13that is going to provide Pitts some new life and opportunity in this offense.
16:18And they're not projected to be terrible in terms of touchdown upside. They are out here as the 23rd projected implied points offense. Now, our tight end six.
16:28And again, all of these Btier guys I have very close. And honestly, within every tier, you can flip-flop these guys however you would like. At tight end
16:35six, this is a guy that I would probably have tight end three if he was fully healthy, uh, is Tucker Craft. And I hate
16:41betting on somebody tearing an ACL, but we're talking about tight end, which you can find off of waiverss, right? can draft Tucker Craft and then maybe get
16:49somebody later that we'll talk about like a Hunter Henry or Jawan Johnson that you can feel kind of comfortable starting in week one, two, three and
16:58kind of see how things go for Tucker Craft. And on top of that, I've kind of been lower on your previously injured
17:05players like Cam Scatabo and Quinn Sean Judkins, but these are running backs you're taking in round four or five.
17:10Tucker crafting your home league I have to assume is like a round seven round eight pick which at that point I can
17:16stomach the ACL tear just given what he was last year some of this efficiency stuff will come back down to earth
17:22especially off of an ACL tear but man he had a 4.8 eight yard a dot. So we are talking he was catching the ball closer
17:31to the line of scrimmage than like a rashi rice. That is really really close line of scrimmage. It's like Debo, it's
17:36Rashi Rice. Uh we're talking like prime Debo. And on a 4.8 yardd AOT, he was turning in a 15.6 yard per reception
17:45last year, meaning he would catch the ball at about the 5 yardd line and then take an additional 10 yards on top. Over
17:5110 yards after catch per reception. And for a tight end, it's absurd. Uh he was on an absolute terror pretty much before
17:59getting hurt. He was tied with Trey McBride as a tight end one with 16.2 points per game. Of course, Trey McBride
18:06then goes up to like 18 plus when Shakobe Passet comes in. But to that point, to the point of him tearing the
18:11ACL, he was tied for the tight end one in points per game. He's an awesome blocker. So, he was genuinely on a first
18:18team allpro level before he tore his ACL. Uh then we have this percentage of team receiving yards from Jacob Gibbs here. Uh that's really a Harold Fannon
18:28stat, but it's also a Tucker Craft stat where when he played he was making up 23.6% of the receiving yards. Uh and
18:35then also from Adam Shfter here. The ACL stuff has been going really well. He's projected to play in week one. We'll see
18:41how it goes. And part of the reason why I am making the exception for him as somebody coming off the ACL tear is I
18:50really like one I think he's a great player. Two, I think that this is a awesome offense to be a part of with the
18:56Josh Jacobs uncertainty and the offensive line not being as good as it once was. And on top of that, Micah Parsons being banged up to start the
19:02year. I think we're going to get a lot more pass attempts than we have in years past. I'm a big Jordan Love guy. This is
19:07a team with Laflur that since he took over in 2019 has been third in EPA per play. They score touchdowns. They move
19:15the ball. And why not Tucker Craft? I I think that especially with how these wide receivers shake out. I like Watson,
19:21but he's always banged up. I like Reed.
19:23He's always banged up. Matthew Golden, who knows what he is. Puckercraft is squarely in the conversation to be a top two target earner on a top 10 scoring
19:31offense in the NFL attached to Jordan Love who is one of eight quarterbacks with a seven plus adjusted net yards per
19:39attempt over the entire history of the NFL. Adjusted net yards per attempt is just kind of yards per attempt, but layered on top of that, interceptions,
19:47touchdowns, sacks, negative plays, all of that. Uh he is a lot better than given credit for. Tucker Craft already showed how he can crush in a given
19:55season. Then we have Sam Leaporta as our tight end seven. Wow, we are 20 minutes in only talking about seven tight ends
20:01here, but we're getting in the nitty-gritty here. Uh because honestly, I don't have time to talk about tight ends in August and stuff. So, this is
20:08we're getting it all out here. Now, we have Sam Laora. He's interesting. Since coming into the NFL, he's finished as the tight end three, the tight end
20:17eight, and the tight end six. I'm just a little bit squeamish. He's coming off a back surgery that just kind of came out
20:23of nowhere. It was like it was week 10 and then he just decided, hey, I'm gonna go get this back surgery. I don't know
20:28the guy. I don't know what his rehab is like, but I think they were probably not skeptical enough.
20:34When you're in your mid20s getting a back surgery and ending your season because of it, I think things can just really go south.
20:42Like back injuries are just no joke.
20:44That's just kind of my intuition speaking. But outside of that, tight end 7 for a guy who's finished tight end three to tight end 8 every year of his
20:52career feels fine. This is somebody that is in a really strong offense in the Detroit Lions who will sleepwalk to being a top 10 unit. It just kind of
21:00comes down to a new offensive coordinator and Drew Petting, but I do think Drew Petting, a guy who just had all that success with Trey McBride, will
21:06be great in this role with Sam Leaporta.
21:08You have Aman Ross saying Brown, the top dog, and then you kind of have Leaporta fighting for the next biggest share with Jameson
21:17Williams, then even Jamir Gibbs a little bit. This is what it looked like before he got hurt last season in terms of the
21:24target share distribution. It was Aman Rashane Brown at 80, then Leaporta at 45, then J Mo, then Jamir Gibbs. And with Sam Laaporta here, he had
21:35better efficiency than Jameson Williams.
21:38Of course, not yards per reception, but yards per out run, uh, yards per target, all of that. Uh, he was right on par
21:45with Jameson Williams, who is known as an efficiency guy. So, we'll see how it looks coming off the back injury. We'll
21:51see how it looks because it seems like Dan Campbell when he took over play calling last year made it a point of
21:55emphasis to give Jameson Williams the football. I wonder how that plays out with Drew Petting. Uh then at tight end 8 we have Harold Fannon who
22:05that's probably lower compared to the market, but this is like as high as I can put him. He's on the Browns again.
22:10We need touchdowns. This is I I know that I'm going to get for the Kyle Pitts ranking, but there's a pretty big
22:18gap between the 23rd ranked offense. And by the way, this screen grab is from Connor Allen NFL on Twitter. He went
22:26through the hassle of looking at all of the look ahead lines on Vegas and found the implied point totals for all these
22:30teams. Cleveland is dead last, even like a tier below dead last. Where Arizona is 18.6 implied points per game, Cleveland is.7 below that. Atlanta at 23rd is a
22:42below average offense. Cleveland Brown is the basement of the NFL, but Harold Fannon is a really strong player. When we look at his rookie receiver report,
22:51he was out here on the Browns putting up the second best points per game, putting up the second best targets per out run,
22:59putting up the fourth best yards per outr run, 7.3% first downs per out run.
23:06Super super impressive. You got to remember as well, Coloulston Levelin and Tyler Warren were on top 10 offenses in EPA per play. The Browns were 31st.
23:15What he did in the context of that offense was awesome, but when you start to draft him in this B tier, he needs to
23:23have true top five upside. I think that there is top five upside, but I think that there is some downside here. I I
23:29will continue to kind of prop him up a little bit with Jared Smalla up here in four full games without Injoku. We're
23:35talking 27% target share, 82.6% of the routes, all of the usage in the world.
23:41But I do want to remind people, Sam Sherman points it out here that Harold Fannon is dealing with an injury. He's
23:46not practicing. Nobody really seems to care. But I think when you get a new play caller and Todd Mon coming over,
23:53not getting reps isn't a great sign. So, we'll just kind of see how this shakes out. This is a team that has Shador
24:00Sanders and Deshaawn Watson. So, pretty terrible quarterback play. On top of that, they draft Conpsion, they draft Denzel Boston, they still have Jerry
24:08Judy, they still have Cedric Tilman. I'm not saying all of those guys are going to matter. I'm just saying it might
24:14displace Harold Fannon a little bit because he's not a great inline blocker.
24:17He is essentially a receiver playing tight end that maybe benefited from a weak wide receiver room last year. Now, his coach is gone and we need to kind of
24:25hope that his usage is the exact same or else he is Dalton Concaid on the Browns where he's running 60% of the routes.
24:31He's efficient on those routes, but it's just not enough to propel him into tight end five territory. And instead, he's like the tight end 12 in points per game
24:40and probably a waste of a pick. So, it's tough. I could see him leading this team in receptions. I could see him uh maybe
24:48having like five or six touchdowns, but having the second or third most receptions among tight ends and crushing. That's very much in his range
24:54of outcomes. But, there is some scary downside with Harold Fannon. Then, we have a huge tier break to tier C. This
25:01is where we are talking about guys that I'm drafting in like n round nine or later. Uh and if I'm drafting a guy in
25:07Ctier, I'm drafting two tight ends uh on my fantasy team. We will talk about Travis Kelce at tight end 9. I'm not the
25:14biggest fan, but this is still somebody who's still kicking around. He was the tight end 8 last year. He was a tight
25:21end six before that, the tight end one in 2023. Obviously, he has been slowly but surely deteriorating, but last year when Mahomes was healthy, Kelsey was
25:30pretty easily like a top six tight end.
25:33He wasn't doing it in a sexy fashion, but when we start talking about tight end nine, I think Travis Kelce is a fine
25:40bet here. He's honestly a touchdown spike away from really crushing his ADP.
25:44Even if his yards perception is down and all of his efficiency stuff is down, if he can just fall in the end zone eight
25:50plus times on this Chief's offense, which isn't crazy to think about, all of a sudden Kelsey crushes his ADP where he
25:56is going. He still projects great as well when we look at the list of overunder receiving yards. He is right after Hild Fannon, but ahead of Tucker
26:04Craft and Sam Laaporta. Then we have our tight end 10 here, George KD. Another one where we're talking about UNS here.
26:12A lot of unks in this section. We have George KD who tears his Achilles but is targeting week one. Uh Jeff Mueller
26:20here, a fantasy injury analyst over on Twitter talks about George KD where he's been doing power sleds and box jumps and
26:28jogging and seems pretty confident he'll play week one. Now, always the case with these Achilles tears, as we've seen with uh Kurt Cousins, as we've seen with
26:38Aaron Rodgers and JK Dobbins and all of these players, is that the return to play is actually about as fast as ACL
26:45tears, if not faster, but the return to efficiency and who the player was before the injury is a lot longer. So, is it
26:53going to be a shell of himself in terms of Jared KD? Is he just the outlier?
26:56This is somebody that over his entire career has a 2.34 yards per out run.
27:01That would be a top 12 number at the wide receiver position last year. He's a monster. He has a career 10 yards per
27:07target, which is most in NFL history for anybody with like 300 plus catches. It's like a 300 player player pool. Uh he is
27:15ridiculous. He is essentially the AJ Brown of tight ends. He is a monster monster efficiency tight end, but he is 32 years old coming off a torn Achilles.
27:23He will be in a Shanean offense of course that'll score touchdowns. Maybe he comes on down the stretch of the season. He's similar to Tucker Craft
27:29where you draft him and you get an early season hammer next to him. Uh then we'll talk about tight end 11. And I will say
27:36this honestly this tier or really these two tiers, you can really flip-flop these guys. This is so tough. Uh Andrews is a tough one. We talk about being a
27:45top two target earner on your team. It is a Flowers and then like Rashad Baitman, Elijah Serat, Jacobe Lane. I think Mark Andrews
27:53is going to be squarely in the conversation for the second most targets on this team. And we look at the Vegas
27:58projections. Baltimore is of course directed for the six most points in the NFL. But then you also have Mark Andrews who is in his 30s coming off a horrific
28:06tight end 23 point per game season last year.
28:10Does he still got it in the tank? I think you're essentially just hoping for a touchdown spike, which is fine, but he
28:14probably gets a bump in half PPR. I will say as well, I really should have specified, but these are rankings through the lens of PPR leagues, but for
28:22tight ends, there's like very minor changes between PPR and half PPR. Uh, then we will talk about Don Concincaid.
28:31This one is tough and he probably projects worse than the other tight ends after him, but this is where I'm comfortable taking an upside swing. You
28:38do have to remember that when we're talking about like seasonal rankings for these tight ends and we remove ourselves from best baseball, the floor doesn't
28:46really matter. At any point, you can go to the waiver wire and get next year's Harold Fannon, uh, Aronda Gadsden, trying to think of other guys, I guess
28:54like Jawan was probably on the waiverss for a little bit. There's guys you can just turn and burn and uh, even a guy
28:58like Dallas was probably on waiverss at a certain part of your season. Don Concincaid though, he's somebody that I think has the upside to really crush
29:06where he's going. Uh he had 2.79 yards per route run last year among all tight ends and wide receivers. He was behind
29:13only Puka and JSN. His issue, he doesn't run enough routes, but there is some upside that he could run more routes as
29:20he gets further into his career and the Bills start to try and find real options in the receiving game. And then you can
29:27also point to his health as maybe a reason he hasn't been unleashed with a full route share. Now, of course, part
29:33of it is that he can't block as well as Jackson Haw and Dawson Knox. So, they're getting some routes where they are
29:41coming out on heavy personnel like they're going to block and they're going to run the ball and then they have, you
29:45know, Dawson Knox on a leak out or Jackson Haw downfield. That's how these things happen where Don Concincaid ends up with like 55% of the routes. But you
29:53also have this really good article from Dwayne McFarland over on fantasylife.com. I really implore you to check it out. It's an awesome article
30:00kind of highlighting the injuries that went under the radar last year. But you can see Donkey Kid had a torn PCL from
30:06the 2024 season and then was just banged up the entire year between PCL and training camp and oblique and hamstring and PCL and all these things going on.
30:15He was through five games. He was the titan three in points per game. Then after his injuries, his final nine games, he was down to 10.2 points per
30:24game outside the top 18 in five of his nine contests. So it's kind of like a Jacqueline Hyde situation. But even if
30:32he can just go out there for like a clean 70% of the routes, he is somebody who could finish as like the tight end
30:37eight in points per game, especially in this Bills offense that is going to score plenty of points. Then at tight end 13, we have Dallas Goddard finally
30:46unlocked. Uh, no AJ Brown. We have a fivegame sample here of Dallas Goddard without AJ Brown at 14.9 points per
30:56game. Now, of course, that's over a span of like since 2022, right? We now have Dallas Gddard into his 30s. He had a 1.37 yards per hour
31:06run last year, the second lowest of his career. So, he's not quite the same player.
31:12He had 11 touchdowns last year, which did a lot of heavy lifting for kind of what Dallas Goddard looked like in 2025.
31:18But outside of that, he wasn't great. He was kind of using like a weird gimmicky gadget role in the end zone. I just
31:23don't know how transferable that skill set is going to be into 2026. They have a new offensive coordinator now. You bring in Mai Lemon, you bring in Eli
31:31Stower. So, as much as yes, no, AJ Brown is huge, I just don't know that Dallas Goddar is that same player from this
31:37fivegame sample, and then I also just don't know that he is the clear number two target. I think that it's going to
31:42be kind of spread between him and Mai Lemon in a similar part of the field.
31:47And then also, yes, he had 11 touchdowns last year, but I would just be shocked if he can have a touchdown spike like
31:53that again. I think he only had like two touchdowns in the year prior and then three touchdowns before that. This is an
31:58offense that is going to want to score with Saquon, score with Jaylen Herz, score with tush pushes, and that's just not a Dallas
32:07uh way of scoring. Then we have our tight end 14, Jake Ferguson.
32:12He is somebody that I was shocked. He does not project well at all. He is all the way down there at 475 and a half
32:19receiving yards between Chico Conquo and Brenton Strange. Now, of course, you find himself on the Cowboys offense that is going to score a ton of touchdowns.
32:27is going to rack up a ton of receptions as well for a tight end. But you have CD Lamb, then you have George Pickkins, and
32:34then even Ryan Florenoi who has been really rising in ADP recently, taking away some looks from Jake Ferguson. He was the tight end 10 in points per game
32:44on eight touchdowns. If you have eight touchdowns, you should really be a top six tight end in points per game. He was
32:49purely touchdowns, which is fine. It's just not something I'm all that interested in drafting. I think he's going to go much higher than tight end
32:5514. Uh, I'm not drafting a lot of Jake Ferguson unless if I have Dak Prescott.
33:00Then our last titan in this tier that I think is the perfect uh addition to a George KD or a Tucker Crafter. You want
33:08an early season hammer is Isaiah Likely.
33:10I'm starting to warm up to Isaiah likely. The Giants are projected for the 20th most points in the NFL. Neighbors is banged up. After Neighbors, Juan Del
33:18Robinson is gone. It's essentially like I don't know, it's like Darius Slayton and it's Darnell Mooney and it's Malachi Field. And I just think that Isaiah
33:26likely is going to be a top guy in this passing game. I will say he's shown his flashes. I was a little bit disappointed
33:32to see he only had a 1.43 career yards per out run. They really like Theo Johnson there who could squeeze him for
33:39some blocking snaps and lower that route percent number. But especially early on, if Neighbors misses these games, Isaiah likely is going to essentially be their
33:46wide receiver one and somebody where I'm ranking uh my week one tight ends and all of a sudden he's like the tight end
33:55eight or the tight end, you know, somewhere like a backend tight end one in any game that Malik Neighbors misses.
33:59So, you can draft him late, pair him with one of these injury guys and kind of have a fun early season hammer. Then
34:06a huge tier break. These are purely upside swings. In Dtier, we have Kenyan Sadi. Uh he is a rookie tight end and
34:14recently these have been a great bet. We have 14 rookie tight ends who have ever 10 plus points per game over uh 10 or
34:22more games played in their rookie year.
34:23Six of those 14 have come in the last 5 years. Three of them in 2025. Why not bet on the first round prospect out of
34:31Oregon 43940 43 and 1/2 in vertical.25 25 career missed tackles forced per reception is a crazy number. He is a freak with tons of
34:41upside. And even on a Jets offense that projects to be outside the top 20 in passing yards and passing touchdowns.
34:47Mike Clay of ESPN who does these team level projections where he takes into account the coaching tendencies, the quarterback tendencies, the receiver
34:56efficiency has Kenyan Sadi as the tight end 13. We're even lower than that at the tight end 16 here and we are still
35:04ahead of the market. It's also worth mentioning that Frank Reich, new OC, got one of the best Eric Ebron seasons with
35:11the Colts, somebody who just I think he was with the Chargers as well during the Antonio Gates years. I'm not saying that that's
35:17going to be Kenyan Sadik, but he was kind of handpicked for this offense. Then we have another upside swing, Arande Gadson. This one's really
35:26tricky, I think, especially in reddraft manage where you can just cut him if he's not being used. Uh, he is a really
35:31fun upside swing. He's somebody else who kind of crushed the rookie receiver report, right? Arande Gadston. Uh 17% target sprout run, 1.66 yards per run is
35:40actually between uh Tyler Warren and Harold Fannon. 7% first down sprout run, 70 plus PFF grade. Uh really solid year for a day three pick. We want pieces of
35:49this McDaniel offense. Now, in terms of top two targets, I kind of glossed over it with Sadique, but it's Garrett Wilson. And then I think that Sadi is
35:56very much up for grabs in terms of the second most targets with AD Mitchell and Omar Cooper. It's not a very strong
36:02room. And then of course Bree Hollow catch passes, but second most on the team. I would be shocked if it's a
36:06running back. Now with Aronda Gadston, you have of course Lad Mccon, you have Quenton Johnston. So top two targets a little tough, but we have seen McDaniel
36:16squeeze out a Janu Smith year on an offense with Tyreek and Waddle. And then even last year, Darren Waller he had
36:22going pretty crazy during a small stretch. So he could really want to feature Arande Gadston in this offense.
36:28And then a really good tweet here from Dynasty Zultan. Kind of showing that Gatson had a four game span of 377
36:37receiving yards, the most by a rookie since Mike Dicka. Then from week nine on, Joe Alt gets hurt. This offense deteriorates and then Gaden kind of
36:46fades away into obscurity. They do go this off season and they grab Charlie Kolar, a pure blocking tight end. They grab David and Jooku and that could
36:56really screw up the route. So the downside is that you draft or that you drop Aronda Gadston after a few weeks
37:01where uh he's getting squeezed for routes by Injoku and Kolar and then he's not even a top two target earner on his
37:06team. Uh things could get really ugly.
37:08Now I'll also say in this tier we have kind of your safety high floor picks. If guys like Isaiah likely are off the
37:15board, we have Hunter Henry. He was a tight end 12 last year. He's always a fine backend tight end. Uh something
37:20that's kind of like sneaky is that Austin Hooper is no longer a Patriot.
37:24They draft Eli Raridan, who I like, but it's probably just going to take over the hooper role and have 30% of the
37:29routes. Hunter Henry will probably stay around 75% of the routes, score some touchdowns. There should be more passing volume with a tougher schedule, but of
37:36course, he now has to compete with AJ Brown, Romeo Dos, uh, and that's probably it. Maybe they bring back Dig, so it's a little bit crowded, but Hunter
37:43Henry just is what he's been. Uh, then we have a OG rookie receiver report darling in Chgo Conquo, tight end 19.
37:53This is from uh what year is this from?
37:56This is from 2022. This is a long time ago. This is the first ever rookie receiver report. And in week 14, I did a
38:04tight end report just because uh and Chiggo Conqu was somebody who crushed 25% targets per out run, 2.75 yards per out run, 79.5 PFF grade. He ends that
38:15season with a 2.62 yards per out run.
38:17issue is he hasn't hit a 1.5 or better yards per run since then, but since then he's hit 50 plus catches in every single
38:25year. This is a Maryland kid coming back home to the Commanders. Uh and then after Terry McLaren, it's up for grabs.
38:32It's Antonio Williams who I like. It's Trayon Burks and then it's Chico Conquo.
38:37I will say this is definitely a team that could get Stfan Diggs, definitely a team that could get Brandon Aayuk and
38:41then he would probably fall to the bottom of this year. But for right now, I do like Chiggo Conquo. Then we will
38:47talk about my tight end 20, Jawan Johnson. Uh, similar to Hunter Henry, high floor guy is what he is at this
38:54point. He was the tight end 11 last year, the Titan 25 before that, Titan 18, Titan 25 the three years before
38:59that. Uh, 20 is much lower than his tight end 11 finish last year. But they add Jordan Tyson into the mix. He can't
39:06be a top two target. Then you also draft Oscar Delp in the third round who is probably going to display some of these
39:11routes for Jawan Johnson because Oscar Delp is a better inline blocker. If you want to sell yourself on Jawan Johnson, you could say Chris Olive uh is already
39:19dealing with like some kind of blood clot thing. Just just keep an eye on that. There's some sort of blood clot
39:23thing going on with a lav. Jordan Tyson was banged up his entire college career.
39:26So, there's certainly paths for Jawan Johnson to be a top two target if something was to happen to the wide receivers ahead of him. Then we have
39:34Etier.
39:36These are guys that you can you can drop after week one if they don't show you anything. But we're going to go AJ
39:40Barner. Uh I really like him. The Steelers are projected to be a top 10 offense this year. After JSN, you have
39:46Rashid Shahed, you have Cooper Cup, but nobody that's like firmly going to be second in targets on this team. AJ Barner heading into year three. He was
39:54the tight end 20 last year, but uh he was somebody they used a lot down the stretch during the playoff run. They
39:59love him as a blocker. I think he's going to keep Elijah Royo off the field and potentially take a step forward this
40:04season. He's actually my most drafted tight end over on Underdog. As always, if you want to hop on underdog, draft the baseball mania, draft the puppy, all
40:12of that stuff can be found on Underdog, use promo code Ron, play $5, get $50 back in bonus funds over on Underdog.
40:21You can check that out in the description and the comment section down below. Now, with Brett Strange as our tight end, too, he's another tough one
40:29where he looked good last year. He was a tight end 17. He was 10th best in yards per run at 1.7. And I like this offense
40:35with Liam Cohen, but the top two target earner thesis with him, it it's really fuzzy. You have uh Brian Thomas, Parker
40:44Washington, Jacobe Myers, you have Travis Hunter who's going to rotate in.
40:47On top of that, they take a tight end in round two. They take a tight end in round five. So now he's getting
40:51displaced by the other tight ends for routes. And then he also has a really stacked wide receiver room to compete for with targets. I think that he's
40:58probably a better in best ball guy as like a backend tight end, too. Uh but that's where I'm at with Brettton
41:02Strange. Similar deal with T.J.
41:03Hawinson. I will say last year he was coming back from an ACL tear. Now he's another year removed from that ACL tear.
41:10He'll probably be a better player. He also now instead of JJ McCarthy has Kyler Murray who should be an upgrade at
41:15quarterback. The top two target earner thing I think is going to be tough. It's going to be Jefferson and then it'll be
41:20Addison. And then even him versus Jawan Jennings I think will be tough. But he's a fine tight end option. He's going to
41:24run a lot of the routes. He's going to be on the field and if the Vikings take a step forward as an offense, he is
41:29going to benefit. Now this is a wacky one. Again, we're getting to a point in your draft where these are guys you're
41:34taking with like your last round pick and just stashing. I got Greg Dolric at tight end 24. If we pull up the rookie
41:40receiver report, Darlings, he was actually one of them. Uh he was ahead of Chico Conquo here with 80% plus rep participation, 1.48 yards per out run,
41:49which is actually pretty solid for a tight end. He is one of 12 rookie tight ends since 2000 to hit 40 plus receiving
41:55yards per game on 10 or more games played as a rookie. He was a tight end 17 in that given year. uh he has the
42:02opportunity in Miami where Chris Bell is coming off the ACL tear and you're talking like Malik Washington and Caleb Douglas. Uh Devon Achan probably is the
42:11favorite to lead this team in targets, but Greg Dol is right there uh to be a top two target earner for this team.
42:18What that means in the context of this passing offense with Malik Willis, we shall see. Uh Titan 25 Daltton Schultz is what he is. He was a tight end 14 in
42:27points per game last year, but then we're going to see these Texans wide receivers take a step forward in terms of after Nico Collins. It's Jaden
42:34Higgins. It's Jaylen Null. It's even Tank Dell who's coming back healthy this year. And then a sneaky storyline is Kate Stove, the kid out of Ohio State.
42:42They like him a ton. Uh he gets hurt last year. Schultz had 9.9 points per game in games with Stover, 11.1 in games
42:50without him. And it was about like half the season for each of those samples. Uh then we could talk about Gunnar Helm,
42:55who's another rookie receiver report darling. Uh somebody that was awesome last year, Gunnar Helm, you can see him across the bottom here with Ibuka. Uh he
43:05wasn't used a ton, right? 40% route share getting squeezed by Chico Conquo.
43:08Okonquo is now gone. Its wheels all the way up. 20% targets per run is crazy for a Gunner helm. 1.45 yards per run on par
43:16with Higgins and Null. 6.9% first downs per run. on a per out basis he was as good if not better than Ellio Manor and
43:24Shamir DK which for a rotational tight end that's very impressive but it's the Titans offense and then also it's Carnell Tate it's Juan Delale Robinson
43:32and even Calvin Ridley who I've been sneaking in the back end of these underdog drafts uh ahead of him for targets so I don't know if he's going to
43:39actually matter uh in reddraft manage leagues then you have Kate Aton he kind of goes as the offense goes he was a 10
43:47and 24 last year when the offense fell apart he was a tight had an 11 before that when Baker Mayfield was on fire. Uh
43:52he just kind of again he's going to run all the routes. Uh he's not going to be a top two target earner, but if the
43:58offense is good, he's going to be a streamable tight end at times. Then Pat Frymouth. This one's tough. Jonnu leaves, which is a good thing for him.
44:08They bring in Mike McCarthy, but I think they like Darnell Washington so much. I don't know that he's going to run enough routes. And then on top of
44:16that, you have DK Metaf and Michael Pitman. So, Frith just kind of here based off of what he's done in the past.
44:21He does uh have a tight end 13 finish in 2024. We'll see if he can kind of rebound to anything among those lines,
44:28but for now it's going to be tricky. And then our F tier, these are just pure upside swings that might just get
44:33dropped instantly. Uh Eli Stoers, he is kind of the cheap Kenyan Sadi, right? If there's going to be a Harold Fannon in
44:39this year, it's going to be Eli Stoers.
44:41He is a pure receiving prospect. He also is a converted quarterback. If you want to get really deep in the weeds here,
44:47converted quarterback, the Eagles like to do the tush push, maybe they don't want to do it with Jaylen Herz anymore.
44:51And if they start doing it with Eli Stoers, he's going to score a lot of points on top of his receiving
44:56production. We also have the emergence of wanting to play with more tight ends in the offense. Yes, they'll have Dallas GD, but we could see Dallas Gddard and
45:03then we could see Mai Lemon and uh Devonte Smith with Eli Stoers in 12 personnel for a lot of their snaps. But
45:10we are getting a lot of smoke right now that they liked on Tavon Wix. We'll see how that goes. Uh, and we'll just see if
45:15Elias Stores can be anything. He also has a downside to be, you know, he could be Elijah Royo, uh, or no, he could be
45:21Harold Fannon, he could be Elijah Royo and just be a non-factor or he could be Terence Ferguson, who was also kind of a
45:26non-factor this year. But year two is oftentimes the uh, jump for Titans. We saw with Trey McBride uh, in his second
45:34year. Was it third or second? I'm actually starting to think through that now.
45:40Might be third or second. I do want to see when was the McBride breakout.
45:44Actually, I think that it was McBride's second year now that I'm thinking about it. Uh because I think he had his first
45:48year. Yeah, it was his second year that he he broke out for the first time. Uh so the year two breakouts for tight ends
45:54is usually a good year to want to bet on them. Uh that could be Terrence Ferguson in this Rams offense, but of course it's
46:00Puka, it's Dvonte, and on top of that, you still have like Tyler Higgby and Davis Allen uh rotating in with Ferguson. So there's a lot going on. And
46:08then they even just drafted the kid uh Max Clare out of Ohio State. So there's a lot of things going on uh for Terren
46:15Ferguson. But that is going to do it for today. That's my top 30 tight ends. 45 minutes on the tight end position. This
46:22is probably going to be the only time this offseason we have time to sit down and talk about my 30 tight ends. But
46:27it's a it was a good exercise to sit down and like truly put pen to paper and rank these tight ends. I ended up
46:34flopping and switch switching around all of my rankings that I had prior to doing this research. I think that Titans are
46:41probably a little bit underrated as far as YouTube goes. So, I'm glad that we got this done. As always, if you want
46:50access to the entire rankings right now, they'll update from now through week one. You can get that over on the Patreon, patreon.com/rrons in the
46:57description and the comment section down below. But if not, just leave a like, subscribe if you're new, and I will see
47:02y'all in the next one.
47:16Leave me stones like this. Ice cold ice.
