Fantasy TE Rankings - Top Fantasy Football Tight Ends For 2025

This has been our bread and butter. It’s what put us on the map. And it’s rather simple really. We heard a mantra echoing throughout the entire fantasy football community. A rule that many considered a gold standard. They would proudly proclaim, “You should only ever draft one tight end in your fantasy football draft.” And our response?

“Why?”

Since then, we’ve developed a strategy as elegant as it is simple. If you get an elite tight end at a good value early in the draft, then great, just draft one. If not, we are breaking the rules and drafting TWO. And we’re using our balancing act called Yin & Yang Tight End to do it.

The one misconception with this concept is that you WANT to have two tight ends that you rotate. You don’t. You want to use this strategy to find the one breakout tight end who will win you your league. And we’ll do it at a discount. Bonus points if they are both good and you can trade one for extra value!

Before I explain how the grid works and provide the actual rankings, I’d also like to share one last piece of advice. Think for yourself. This is a philosophy. A lifestyle. You don’t have to use my rankings. You can take the concept and apply it to your own thoughts. I’ll be with you every step of the way during the season, letting you know who we are adding/dropping anyway.

Without further ado, here are this year’s Yin & Yang Tight End Rankings.

Dynamic Tier Fantasy Football TE Strategy

Standalone Tier

Simple. If you pay up for an elite tight end, you believe you’ll be starting that guy for the majority of the season. So you don’t use draft capital on another. You’ll need to figure out bye weeks or injuries but you have made your bet drafting a tight end early. 

Yin & Yang Tight End

Remember - the goal here is not to have two tight ends and stream them. We wait and we take two but making those decisions week to week can be a nightmare. The true goal is to end up with one difference-making, standalone tight end. And to do it at a discount. So you want to give yourself a shot at high-risk upside. But you’ll need someone to start in the meantime. 

Yin

The guys have a decent floor. They aren’t “scary”. But they also have some concerns as to what their upside will be. It could be a crowded room for targets with more than one wide receiver ahead of them. They might lack the athleticism we look for. They might play a part-time role. They are at least safe enough for us to start early in the year while we look for upside. For some of them, an injury to a WR could push them into that standalone tier as well. Happens all the time.

Yang

This is a list of the highest risk, highest reward options. Maybe it’s a new coordinator or quarterback. Maybe we don’t know the target pecking order at all. Maybe they are a rookie. A lot of moving parts. But there is a path for them to be a top two target on their team - or even lead their team - if things break right. You NEED some sort of upside. You can always skip the Yin tight end and draft two Yangs, just know that it can get dicey. You have to be ready to swap your yang tight ends for a new upside play at a moment's notice. The good news for you is that I’ll update this chart in my waiver wire article on Fantasy Alarm each week. 

The Rest

There could absolutely be some gems in here. But they are generally all going outside the top 20 tight ends in ADP so you don’t need to draft them in a typical league. We are watching them all closely to see who could take a leap. There are certainly guys I like in this range but a lot of them are useless for fantasy, quite frankly. 

Handcuff

There are some tight ends that aren’t currently starting that could make some noise if the starter gets hurt. We saw it two years ago when Zach Ertz went down and Trey McBride went nuts. However, it did take seven weeks for that to happen (hence why we draft a guy off the Yin list). These guys are the most Likely to be that guy if the starter goes down. Likely is capitalized there for a reason. 

Color Code

Green players we are drafting at or above their ADP

Yellow players we will consider at ADP

Red players are ones we’re only considering if they slide past ADP

2025 Dynamic Tier Fantasy Football TE Rankings

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