That’s right, we’re doing a countdown, although halfway through, I realized I’m technically doing a countup (and making up words while I’m at it). First, some other words:
- I’m not trying to figure out who’s injury-prone. It’s a game where hundreds of high-speed collisions occur every week. The entire league is injury-prone. I’m assuming everyone is healthy unless I hear otherwise. Adjustments are for during the season.
- Opportunity matters. Committees don’t foster that.
- These players’ stats use base PPR scoring: 1 point per reception, 0.10 points per yard rushing/receiving, 0.04 points per yard passing, 6 points per touchdown, and -2.00 points per turnover.
- This column has little to do with Dynasty fantasy football. My focus is redraft.
- I love offenses. I will be assuming I have an idea of which teams have the best ones.
- The 2025 stat lines for each player will be, in order: scoring rank based on total PPR points, games played, targets, target percentage, receptions, total yards from scrimmage, yards per reception, red zone targets, total touchdowns, PPR points, PPR points per game.
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The final group is players that have to be on ALL fantasy rosters, although I suppose if the league is fewer than ten teams, a couple of these players may go undrafted. This range scored between 315.9 (!) and 177.7 points in PPR in 2025.
10: George Kittle, San Francisco 49ers
2025: 13, 11, 69, 12.5, 57, 628, 11.0, 12, 7, 161.5, 14.7
Somewhere, there is a kinder Earth where George Kittle is indestructible, leads tight ends in scoring every year, and entertains the other tight ends as a great raconteur every summer at TEU. Alas, this is our Earth. I’ve used receiving success rate as a stat before, but this is the way Pro Football Reference defines it: “A successful reception gains at least 40% of yards required on 1st down, 60% of yards required on 2nd down, and 100% on 3rd or 4th down. Denominator is targets.” At 61.2% for his career, the only active TE I could find with a higher rate is Travis Kelce. Kittle is an animal on the field. In part, he is his own worst enemy. The only reason I have him at 10 is that he’s still recovering from a torn Achilles suffered on January 11. I’m all over him at cost. His efficiency is among the best of any NFL player.
9: Travis Kelce, Kansas City Chiefs
2025: 3, 17, 108, 19.7, 76, 851, 11.2, 11, 5, 193.2, 11.4
Even a declining Travis Kelce is still a force in fantasy football. One way to wind up near the top in arguably the worst season he’s had in a decade is to play. Kelce has not played fewer than 15 games since 2013, his rookie season. The Chiefs are nowhere near replacing Kelce. Kelce is declining, but his usage still demands attention. The upside may be gone, but the floor is still there.
8: Kyle Pitts, Atlanta Falcons
2025: 2, 17, 118, 22.8, 88, 928, 10.5, 11, 5, 210.8, 12.4
At 22.8%, the only tight end in the league who had a higher target share was Trey McBride, and if Kyle Pitts played against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers every week, he might be a yearly 1.01 in fantasy drafts. In his last four games against the Bucs, he’s had 33 targets, 29 receptions, 404 yards, 5 TDs, and 99.4 PPR points. In the other 30 games, he’s had 159 targets, 106 receptions, 1,126 yards, 4 TDs, and 242.6 PPR points. I hope the second half of last season is a positive indicator of future value for Pitts, but the numbers I just pointed out concern me. Pitts thrived with Kirk Cousins; if he continues that with Tua Tagovailoa and Michael Penix, he’s a steal at this spot, and he’s played every game each season he’s been in the league except one. I need to see consistency before I invest in him at cost.
7: Tucker Kraft, Green Bay Packers
2025: 24, 8, 44, 9.7, 32, 489, 15.3, 12, 6, 117.2, 14.7
There may not be a tight end in the league who does more with less than Kraft; the corporation I once worked for would have loved him. Before he was injured in Week 9 last season, he was a YAC machine, and his target share was increasing, with 19 in his last two games before the injury. I got shares of him cheaply in late spring in drafts, but as the summer came in, people were noticing, and his price jumped. Speculation is that he’ll be available to play in games once the season starts. Coming off a torn ACL is a mixed bag: everyone heals differently, and we have yet to see how Kraft performs outside of practice. From my POV, he could need time to ramp up and to achieve the efficiency he had before the injury. This is a high-risk, high-reward player in 2026.
6: Sam LaPorta, Detroit Lions
2025: 27, 9, 49, 8.8, 40, 489, 12.2, 4, 3, 106.9, 11.9
Like Kraft, LaPorta is coming off a mid-season injury that cut the season short about midway through. LaPorta’s injury was a herniated disc, which sounds scary, but unlike Kraft, LaPorta had returned to regular activities before hurting his hip in camp. The hip injury may limit him early, but it does not sound serious. LaPorta is plainly behind Amon-Ra St. Brown and Jahmyr Gibbs in the receiving pecking order, but if he’s healthy, there still should be targets for both LaPorta and Jameson Williams. How high he finishes depends on RZ usage. He may not achieve 10 TDs again, but 7-8 could give him a path into the top-6 TEs.
5: Harold Fannin Jr., Cleveland Browns
2025: 6, 16, 107, 20.8, 72, 744, 10.2, 10, 7, 186.4, 11.7
I love the player, and he rewarded that love down the stretch and in the fantasy playoffs for the 2025 season. But I don’t know what to think of the organization in 2026. I mean that objectively. The coaching staff has been replaced. The team invested in wide receivers. David Njoku is gone. The biggest concern I have is the team turning back to Deshaun Watson as the quarterback. I’m not going to discuss Watson as a human being, but as a football player, there is no sign of the player he was for the Texans, and I don’t think there will be again. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s out of the league when his contract with the Browns is up. But while Watson is the QB, the rest of the offense will rise and fall with him. How that affects Fannin remains to be seen. Fewer TEs should have Fannin’s opportunity, which is why I have him here.
4: Colston Loveland, Chicago Bears
2025: 16, 82, 58, 15.5, 58, 711, 12.3, 14, 6, 165.1, 10.3
Colston Loveland can be a top-5 TE in this league for years. He’s this high because the Bears should be one of the league’s most potent offenses again in 2026, and Loveland will benefit. He’s this low because I believe the TEs in front of him, while on poorer offenses, have less competition for targets. The relative health of Rome Odunze and Luther Burden will be a factor, but to my mind, Loveland is the third option. I don’t doubt that if Rome Odunze or Luther Burden are out, Loveland leapfrogs Tyler Warren and is battling Trey McBride and Brock Bowers for tight end supremacy. But I don’t forecast injuries.
3: Tyler Warren, Indianapolis Colts
2025: 4, 17, 112, 20.9, 76, 825, 10.8, 19, 5, 188.5, 11.1
It is wild to me that I have three second-year players in the top five at this position, but these players weren’t as good as advertised; they were better. Consider this: before the Week 11 bye, the Colts were 8-2, Daniel Jones seemed a lock for Comeback Player of the Year, and Tyler Warren was a top-7 TE in six of ten weeks. After the bye, the team took a turn for the worse even before Jones’ season ended in Week 14. Philip Rivers was valiant in relief, but at 44 years old and out of the league for the previous four seasons, was barely a shadow of what he was before retiring. Even though Warren never connected with Rivers, it was not due to a lack of opportunity for Warren. The main difference between Jones and the other QBs was a lack of ability to push the ball downfield. Shane Steichan survived the 2025 collapse, but Michael Pittman left for Pittsburgh, and Keenan Allen is not in the prime of his career. It remains to be seen how long it takes Alec Pierce to get right, but I see the arrow pointing up for Warren in opportunities. If the rest of the team stays healthy, this could be his floor.
2: Trey McBride, Arizona Cardinals
2025: 1, 17, 169, 27.5, 126, 1,239, 9.8, 32, 11, 315.9, 18.6
McBride was my TE1 overall entering last season, but the road taken to the destination was wild. In the five games Kyler Murray played, McBride had 275 total yards, 1 TD, and finished no higher than TE5 in a week. After Jacoby Brissett took over, McBride was TE1 four times and TE2 four times. In twelve games. It was like watching Tecmo Bowl (if that sounds weird, ask your Dad about it). McBride had one game under 10 PPR points in that time. He scored 253.4 PPR points. In that 12-game stretch, he outscored the number 2 tight end by 42.6 points. Not for the stretch – the number 2 TE had 210.8 points for seventeen games. He would have been RB6 and WR4 for the season in PPR points. There is potentially no bigger positional advantage in fantasy football than for the top two TEs above the field. The thing is, unbelievable seasons tend not to repeat, even if many of the surroundings are the same. I still believe McBride is in rarefied air in fantasy, even if some regression is in order. I also think one other is in the same territory.
1: Brock Bowers, Las Vegas Raiders
2025: 11, 12, 86, 17.2, 64, 680, 10.6, 16, 7, 176.2, 14.7
While Bowers’ 2025 was not as impressive as McBride’s, it was still impressive. The difference is that while both franchises burned in 2025, Arizona’s was offensively functional. The Raiders only managed 241 points in 2025, third-fewest in the 17-game era (since 2021). The coaches and QBs are gone. I just don’t think this will be a good franchise until they commit to a full rebuild and give it time to take. I like Kirk Cousins, but unless the coaches can pull a Moby-Dick-sized rabbit out of their hats, I don’t see how their offensive line will be any better, and Cousins’ mobility is not one of his virtues. Tre Tucker and Jalen Nailor don’t profile as possession receivers, and it remains to be seen how far Jack Bech has progressed as a factor in the passing game. Bowers and Ashton Jeanty may fight over 50+% of the targets in that offense. On even ground this season, I have Bowers slightly over McBride, even in a less-functional offense. I think both are worth the investment in the mid- to late-round 2 of a 12-team PPR league. If they last longer, we’ve been blessed.
We have arrived at our destination. Please restore your seats and trays to the upright position, and deboard the plane at the front of the cabin. To your right is the beginning of the NFL season on Wednesday, September 9.
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