Yin & Yang Tight Ends: 2025 Yin Yang TE Fantasy Football Draft Strategy

So you’ve made it this far in the Ultimate Tight End Guide. Good. You’re undoubtedly smarter now than you were mere moments ago. You probably don’t even need my advice anymore - just the raw information I’m sharing in these articles. You’re pretty much a tight end whisperer yourself. 
 

But we are not quite done yet. We still have the most crucial part of the series left. Yin & Yang Tight End. Since you’ve read the articles leading up to this one, you already know what we are looking for in potential breakout tight ends. And what we are avoiding. I’m going to leave the links to those articles right here for anyone who might be showing up late. For those unfamiliar, the one titled What Makes An Elite Tight End is crucial reading for understanding the concepts in this article.

Article 1: What Makes An Elite Tight End - This is our “manifesto” of sorts that breaks down exactly what we are looking for in elite tight ends. Suppose you read that first, and the next few articles, including this one, are going to make a lot more sense to you. And you might not even NEED the rankings articles, because you will be so gosh darn smart when it comes to tight ends. But please still read them anyway because it makes me look good, and that makes me like you more.

Article 2: The Elite Tight Ends - These are the top picks, or what we like to call “Standalone” tight ends. You pick one guy, and that’s it; you only worry about his bye week or injuries. Just make sure it’s a player you truly believe in because you are often giving up early draft capital and making a big commitment.

Article 3: The Tight Ends Fades - These are the guys we really don’t like at ADP to the point where we are almost never drafting them. People really love to hate this article, but for folks that draft in a lot of leagues, it’s key to know where the landmines might be. Identifying overvalued players is just as important as identifying the undervalued ones.

Article 4: Yin & Yang Tight End - This is a specific late-round tight end strategy that we have used for about half a decade to great success. If you are wondering to yourself, “What the heck is Yin & Yang Tight End?”, I’m about to explain that.

What The Heck Is Yin & Yang Tight End?

Contrary to popular belief, the plan here is NOT to have two tight ends all year, deciding which one to start each week. That’s a nightmare. The plan here is to find this year’s breakout tight end. At the end of the day, we want one great tight end that we can trust. And guess what? Based on the ADP data we have available, a tight end has come from TE18 or later in ADP to finish top five in 13 straight seasons. So they’re out there.

The plan here is pretty simple. If we get a Standalone tight end at a good value, then great, we’re done. If we don’t, we wait on tight end and we draft two. We draft someone that we can at least feel comfortable starting, so that we don’t lose too many games early on and ruin our season. And then we draft the highest risk, highest reward possible option, hoping to hit this year's breakout. If you are feeling froggy, feel free to go Yang Yang and join the #YangYangGang, but just know that it can get quite risky and ugly fast.  

Due to the nature of the strategy, it DOES NOT stop with the end of your fantasy draft. If we don’t hit with our Yang tight end, we keep rotating that bench spot until we find the guy. Some years it takes a little longer than others, but that’s what our Yin tight end is for. Every week in my waiver wire article, I will update the Yin and Yang tight end recommendations with what I’m doing in my leagues to keep us chugging along.

2025 Yin & Yang Tight End

As with past years, I’m going to cover the Yin tight end options first, followed by the Yang options. Some of these will have been covered in previous articles, so I will include the links there. As always, for any new write-ups, I will include The Good, The Bad, and The Advice so that you can either make your own decisions if you’d like or you can follow my advice.

• The Good - the objective good things about the player
• The Bad - the objective bad things about the player
• The Advice - my subjective advice on whether this is a good player to draft at their ADP

LINK TO RANKINGS - To summarize all this info, I have created a color-coded grid that encapsulates exactly how we are approaching the position here in the Dynamic Tier Rankings! If you have that open to reference while you read this then it will make a lot more sense to you - especially when you actually go to draft!

2025 Yin Tight End Options

Some people want to ignore these guys completely and go #YangYangGang - and that’s fine. But just remember two things. 

The first is that the breakout tight end does not always emerge right away. In the year Logan Thomas finished TE3, he was the TE26 through the first six weeks. Trey McBride had to wait seven weeks for Zach Ertz to get hurt. Jonnu Smith’s first four games last year were as follows:

• 1 catch for 7 yards
• 6 catches for 56 yards
• 2 catches for 18 yards
• 0 catches for 0 yards

Also, sometimes the Yin tight ends CAN get elevated to the standalone tier. For instance, a key injury to one of the wide receivers could pump up their target share. Or maybe their quarterback takes a massive step forward. Or maybe I’m just wrong and they are simply not as “safe but boring” as I thought. Is that what you wanted to hear? That sometimes I get things wrong? 

Evan Engram, TE Denver Broncos

We already wrote about Evan Engram in the Elite Article. And that’s because I think he offers safety AND upside in his new role with a new team. So I’m willing to draft him as a standalone tight end. But he has been a fairly low aDOT target machine as of late, which also could fit the bill as a “safe but boring” option for some. He goes late enough that it’s not crazy to grab him as your first TE in a 10-team league, then circle back for as much upside as possible later. 

T.J. Hockenson, TE Minnesota Vikings

This is a player we’ve already discussed as well, albeit in the Fades Article. It’s not that we don’t think T.J. Hockenson is talented. But, as we broke down in that article, we’ve only actually seen one game with Hockenson, Jordan Addison, and Justin Jefferson all playing 75% of the snaps together. And we’ve never seen any of them with JJ McCarthy. I worry that, if you draft Hockenson as your starting TE, you might find yourself having to circle back to find a TE. Which technically makes him a Yin candidate, albeit one going a little too early for how we like to deploy the strategy. 
 

Tucker Kraft, TE, Green Bay

The Good

There’s something special about players who are battle-tested. Nothing was given to Tucker Kraft. Tucker Kraft wasn’t even the first tight end drafted by the Packers in 2023 - Luke Musgrave was. And, much like Mark Andrews, who was drafted by the Ravens after Hayden Hurst in 2018, Kraft simply won the job outright. In fact, Kraft missed virtually all of the offseason last year with a torn pec and STILL won the job. That tells you something about how the Packers view this guy. Or how much they dislike Luke Musgrave.
Kraft primarily plays an inline role where he plays more than half his snaps. But he was still able to create for himself in a big way from that spot. He tied for the most missed forced tackles among all tight ends with 15, which was a key part of his absurd 9.3 yards after the catch per reception. If you set the minimum at 20 catches, here were the top five tight ends in YAC/REC last year. 

I typically hate when people say “and it’s not even close”. But, when it comes to the stat above, it wasn’t. He wasn’t even close to George Kittle, who wasn’t even close to normal humans. There’s a lot of steam around this player as both Kraft and quarterback Jordan Love have been quoted this offseason saying they’d not only like to get him the ball more but have him doing more damage downfield. We love that he was one of only six players to catch double-digit screens because screens are receptions, too, but a boost to his 5-yard aDOT would be a welcome change. 

The Bad

There’s a lot of uncertainty in this Packers pass-catching group. So Kraft could emerge as a top target. But he wasn’t quite one last year. His target share was only 13.6% which was 15th among tight ends. And that translated to only 70 targets on the season, which is 4.1 per game. That’s not really going to cut it. They drafted wide receivers in the first and third rounds in the 2025 NFL Draft, so it could be more crowded than ever for the pass-catchers over there.

Kraft has decent athleticism for a two-way, inline tight end, but a 4.69 40-yard dash isn’t otherworldly; it’s about ~75th percentile per PlayerProfiler. This guy had two plays of 66 and 67 yards last year, which is obviously great, but we really can only bank on that happening from guys like George Kittle, who have 95th percentile speed. Those two plays alone accounted for almost one-fifth of Kraft’s receiving yards, and it’s not often that a team as incompetent as the Jaguars will just leave a guy this wide open down the middle of the field. He’s literally alone on the center field logo here.
 

If Tucker Kraft were in a different scheme where he lined up at WR more often and was a clear focal point of the offense, it might be a different story because we like him a lot as a player. But he just so happens to be on one of the most run-heavy teams, where they love to spread the ball around. It wasn’t just Kraft - NO ONE on the Packers got more than 76 targets. You need ~6 targets per game to really give us the 100+ target pace for big upside, and here were the Packers' targets per game leaders:

• Romeo Doubs - 5.54
• Dontayvion Wicks - 4.47
• Jayden Reed - 4.41
• Tucker Kraft - 4.12
• Christian Watson - 3.53

Yes, Watson is expected to miss major time, but he was also at the bottom of that list, so who cares? Now you add a first-round Matthew Golden and a third-round Savion Williams, and it could get even MORE thin. 

The Advice

We like this player in a vacuum. Why doesn’t anyone ever ask me to play in a vacuum league? I do have Tucker Kraft in dynasty leagues, which I am happy about. There is a path to being a top two target on this team - it’s not like he’s stuck behind Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins in the pecking order here. Plus, the Packers were dead last in drop-backs last season, and he was still relevant, so we could see his target totals go up even if his target share doesn’t.

On the other hand, his upside does feel a little capped, doesn’t it? We’re kind of hoping he goes from his 70 targets last year to at least 90-100 this year. But a guy like David Njoku, going in a similar ADP range, just got 97 targets in 11 games, which is a ~150 target pace. He has good athleticism for his size and role, but not really the kind that can routinely rip off big chunk plays. And they say they want to get him downfield more this year, but we have to see it - a 5-yard aDot banking on 9.3 yard YAC/REC simply is not sustainable. 

Here’s where I stand on Kraft. I’m not just going to draft Kraft as my only tight end and say, “My work here is done”. That’s a little too scary a proposition. But his composite ADP of TE11 is exactly “fine”. So it’s a guy I will consider at the right price. If someone else wants to reach for him, they can have him. If he falls to me at a good value, I’ll grab him and start him Week One. But I’m grabbing another high-risk, high-reward option to stash on the bench. The Packers have the earliest bye week in Week 5, so you’re going to need one fairly quickly anyway. That makes Kraft a pretty solid Yin for the Yin & Yang strategy.    

Hunter Henry

The Good

We have not written about Hunter Henry yet, so let’s dive in. This guy does not get enough credit as a route runner. His ability to create for himself, especially in short spaces, is a big reason why he had the 6th most catches against man-to-man last season. His 19 catches were more than George Kittle's (16) and right behind Mark Andrews' (20) and Brock Bowers' (21). His 8 contested catches also tied Andrews and were right behind Trey McBride, Travis Kelce, and George Kittle, who all had 9. 

Where that ability translates the best is to the short area of the field, where teams often go into lock-down, 1 vs. 1 coverage. You have to be able to beat the guy across from you in those situations. Despite the Patriots being one of the league's worst teams and not making many successful trips to the red zone, Hunter Henry was actually 5th in targets inside the redzone, and his 11 targets tied for second inside the 10-yard line with George Kittle (Trey McBride was first with 12). In 2023, Hunter Henry actually tied for the second-most TDs in the league of any TE behind only Sam LaPorta, despite playing only 14 games for a team that only threw 16 TD passes total. The Hunter could get in the hen house a lot this year. 

Last year, Hunter Henry quietly led the Patriots in targets while tying for sixth among tight ends with 97. The Patriots did add some weapons this year, but we are talking about Stefon Diggs coming off a torn ACL, a field stretcher in Mack Hollins, and a third-round rookie in Kyle Williams. He doesn’t necessarily need to lead this team in targets to have upside as long as he’s top two. As we know, the top ever tight end season was Rob Gronkowski in a year where Wes Welker got 173 targets. I know you can’t really compare those teams to this one, but Josh McDaniels was the offensive coordinator in 2013 and 2014 when Gronk had back-to-back TE1 overall seasons. Sportsbooks like BetMGM have the Patriots set at 8.5 wins, so we can hopefully expect better than the season last year, which saw only three real wins and one fake one that the Bills let Joe Milton have to ruin the Patriots' draft pick.
 

The Bad

Hunter Henry NEEDS those targets. More than many other tight ends. We’ve talked ad nauseum about how athleticism (specifically, speed) often translates to higher aDOT routes, more YAC, more upside. Well, Hunter Henry doesn’t have that. He ran a 4.73 and, at 30 years old, he’s not getting any faster. Yes, Zach Ertz, who is slightly slower at a 4.76, DID have a single 1,000-yard receiving season at age 28 - but he needed 156 targets to do it.

Like many tight ends in that speed range, Henry is not really a threat to break off big chunk plays. He has one single 40+ yard play in his entire eight-year career, and it happened in his rookie season back in 2016. We talked about his redzone ability, but we honestly don’t love chasing touchdowns. If he’s going to get things done based on targets, he’s going to need a lot of them.

Typically, we would put a guy who has a shot to be a top-two target on his team in the upside category. But we just watched Hunter Henry be the top target on his team, and that was… fine.  Believe it or not, last year was the best season of his career in terms of targets, receptions, and yards, and that looked like 66 catches on 97 targets for 674 yards. He technically finished as a TE1 but as the TE12. Do we expect this guy to magically come out and have an elite season at 30 years old? 
 

The Advice

This is actually a pick I like quite a bit. In fact, it’s my top recommendation at or even ahead of ADP for your Yin tight end this year if you are waiting until outside the top 12 tight ends. Because that ADP is currently TE20 based on our composite ADP across various sources. That’s a guy going undrafted in most leagues. 

Let’s consider our two paths to being a top-five tight end. You either need 90 targets or you need 10+ TDs. Hunter Henry just got 97 targets last season. And he’s one of the better tight ends vs. man to man, which makes him a top candidate for TD scoring. He actually has both the conditions we need for UPSIDE, if possible. Most Yin tight ends really just offer floor, not upside.

So yes, he PROBABLY is going to be more of a boring but safe option that you can start early on in your league. If Hunter Henry is part of your tight end room in fantasy football, you absolutely should be using the other spot on a high-risk, high-reward option. But you can actually have a safe, reliable guy to start in Henry while also getting a little access to upside if things break just right. Not to mention, the Patriots were last in their division, so they play a last-place schedule - we love when our Yin tight end has a soft schedule and a late bye week (Week 14, in this case).

Dallas Goedert, TE Philadelphia Eagles

We talked about Dallas in the Fades Article. He’s basically what we call a “double handcuff plus”. Sure, he has some standalone value. But he really only has upside when one or both of AJ Brown or DeVonta Smith are hurt. The problem with playing that game is that it’s actually Geodert that seemingly gets hurt every year - six straight years now. That said, for the Yin and Yang strategy, he offers some floor, and he could even move up to the standalone category if a WR suffers a season-ending injury. 

Jake Ferguson, TE Dallas Cowboys

The Good

There are three ways to yardage as a tight end. There is brute force volume, like when Zach Ertz had his only 1,000+ yard season on 156 targets, which we mentioned in the Henry section. There is speed, which guys like George Kittle or Jonnu Smith bring to the table. Or you can be a fighter, like Rob Gronkowski was, battling your way up and down the field. Jake Ferguson is not super fast, but he’s certainly a fighter. His 15 broken tackles tied for the league lead among tight ends last year with only Tucker Kraft. And Ferguson did it playing three fewer games. He’s also not scared to mix a hurdle in there from time to time.

This is once again expected to be a high-volume offense. And Dak Prescott always seems to get his tight ends involved, whether it’s Jason Witten, Dalton Schultz, or Jake Ferguson. Ferguson managed 81 catchable targets per Pro Football Focus, which would put him at about a 98 target full season pace, which is all we really need for upside out here.

The Bad

Jake Ferguson is slow.  There’s no two ways about it. Guys that have a forty time slower than 4.8 are in the 40th percentile for tight ends per Player Profiler, which is really scary when you realize how many chunky blocking tight ends are also in that database. Even with the “fighter” label, it’s fairly rare for guys who run a 4.8 to have multiple 40+ yard plays in their whole career. Since I’ve been doing this, it’s basically only been Isaiah Likely for guys that slow and he seems to end up wide open often operating as the TE2. You have to go back a full 20 years to find a tight end that slow to finish top 5 in fantasy football - Heath Miller back in 2012.

Two months ago, that would not have been the end of the world. But on May 7th, the Dallas Cowboys traded for George Pickens. That almost certainly moves Jake Ferguson from the top two target on the team to third behind CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens. With the target volume that Lamb commands, it’s going to be hard for Ferguson to get the consistent volume of targets that we look for in elite upside at the tight end position. Dak Prescott would need to go nuclear to really support all three guys and, if that’s what you think happens, just draft Dak Prescott. 

The Advice

I’ve been warning folks in dynasty leagues to sell on Ferguson for quite some time because I was scared this could happen. Guys in this speed range really need to be PEPPERED with targets to have upside. So they really need to be top two targets on their team. With CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens in town, that’s not really in the cards.

It also could be a lot worse, though. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers now have Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, Jalen McMillan, and Emeka Egbuka. How many injuries away from upside is a guy like Cade Otton? Quite a few. The Cowboys traded for George Pickens for a reason - they are brutally thin at wide receiver. One injury to Lamb or Pickens and we are back in business. So, Jake Ferguson also fits that “double handcuff plus” billing here, making him an okay Yin tight end option. I’m just not really sure his ceiling is all that high, even if someone does get hurt. He’s gotten over 100 targets before, and he turned that into 761 yards compared to a guy like George Kittle with real speed that routinely turns ~90 targets into over 1,000. There’s a reason a guy like Kyle Pitts even averages 13.5 yards per reception while Ferguson averages 9.6.    

OTHER DEEP LEAGUE YIN TIGHT ENDS 

Zach Ertz, TE Washington Commanders - We quietly like Zach Ertz better than Jake Ferguson, which is why Ferguson is red on the Yin & Yang rankings. But Ertz goes outside the top 20 TEs in drafts, so he actually ends up on waivers or can be a very last pick in some leagues. Deebo Samuel is a pretty weird player as he has not actually averaged over 6 targets a game since 2022, and he only has one season with over 100 targets. Sure, he gets carries, but Zach Ertz was not going to get those carries so that doesn't matter to us. Ertz has a decent path to targets but he’s also never been fast and he’s 34 years old. If anything happens to Ertz, we will be adding Ben Sinnott right away, like we did with Trey McBride. 

Brenton Strange, TE Jacksonville Jaguars - Basically, Brenton Strange offers you what you got from Cade Otton last year in Liam Coen’s scheme. He’s the clear third fiddle behind Brian Thomas Jr and Travis Hunter. If one of them gets hurt, he will have upside. There’s also the bonus possibility that Travis Hunter just outright faceplants as a rookie, but that’s not something I’m betting on as the second overall pick. I think Travis Hunter is pretty good.

Mike Gesicki, TE Cincinnati Bengals - If all things go according to plan, the Bengals DON’T throw it to Mike Gesicki. They want longer developing plays to Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins, and Joe Burrow will routinely pass up the low-hanging fruit when he thinks those guys will be open. That’s the sign of a good quarterback. But as the third fiddle and rotational “big slot” tight end, Mike Gesicki does okay. He actually had the most catches of any tight end vs. man-to-man last year in a lot of quick dump-down situations. We will be interested in adding Gesicki off waivers if one of Chase or Higgins goes down. 

Jonnu Smith, TE Pittsburgh Steelers - As we talked about in The Fades article, Jonnu Smith doesn’t fit well into the Yin & Yang TE strategy at all. Arthur Smith just loves mixing and matching tight ends, going back to his days as the TE coach with Tennessee. That said, this team is so weak at WR after DK Metcalf that it’s not crazy to take a stab at the athletic Jonnu Smith. 

Juwan Johnson, TE New Orleans Saints - Kellen Moore will probably focus on his wide receivers like he typically does. But Chris Olave, Rashid Shaheed, and Brandin Cooks have to be one of the shakiest groups of pass-catchers injury-wise. They paid Juwan Johnson pretty well this offseason, and he’s a converted wide receiver, so he’s one of the few guys out there this deep where we can be confident he at least skews towards pass-catching. 

Dalton Schultz TE Houston Texans - Obviously the path is more clear than last year with Tank Dell and Stefon Diggs gone. Nico Collins is the top dog so it's Schutlz vs. Christian Kirk, Jayden Higgins, and Jaylen Noel. It would be nice if Schultz was a little more talented in general but he may have a better floor this year. 

Theo Johnson, TE New York Giants - Theo Johnson has good athleticism on paper with the 4.57 forty at his size. There are two things working against him though. First, he primarily plays inline tight end and was asked to block on 13.8% of pass plays last year which is in the danger zone. Second, two WRs on the team got 140+ targets last year. Even if you think Wan'Dale Robinson takes a step back here, it needs to be a MASSIVE step back for Theo Johnson to be the second target behind Malik Nabers. And Russell Wilson loves the deep ball, not the dink and dunk game.

Yang Tight End Options

These are the proverbial “league winners”. The guys that have the path to glory. The problem? They might not be super trustworthy. Some are in unclear target pecking orders. Some of them have confusing quarterback situations. Some of them have never even played in the NFL. Some of them were in the NFL, dealt with hamstring issues, left the NFL to try to be a rapper, and are just now coming back. It's chaos.

That's we try to pair them with a Yin tight end where we can. Something to hold down the fort while we chase upside with a bench spot. You can take two guys from this list if you want and go straight for upside - I'm willing to do that sometimes myself. But don't blame me if you start 0-4. I also do that sometimes.

David Njoku, TE Cleveland Browns

We are willing to draft David Njoku as our only tight end. And we wrote about why in our Elite Tight Ends article. But we’re also willing to take risks. And David Njoku does carry some risks, especially with the quarterback situation. He could actually technically be deployed as your SAFE tight end with another high-risk, high-reward guy on the bench if Joe Flacco wins the starting job - just keep in mind that things could get scary down the stretch if Flacco gets benched and they start rotating weirdos, as they tend to do every season. 

Dalton Kincaid, TE Buffalo Bills

The Good

If you are top 12 on my super secret tight end spread sheet in a statistic we care about, the color-coding system will highlight you in green. Here are some statistics that we care about where Dalton Kincaid was “in the green”. 

• Pass Block %
• aDot
• YAC/REC
• WR Route %
• YPRR
• Screens
• Receptions vs. Man Coverage
• Forced Missed Tackles

Some of those stats are even counting stats, meaning they are accumulated totals rather than percentages, like screens, receptions vs. man, and forced missed tackles. That means he was able to get those totals despite playing in only 13 games. Numerous sources have also come out saying that Kincaid played through portions of the season on pretty brutal injuries. You could listen to rumblings that Matthew Berry overheard at the NFL combine, but why not just take it directly from fellow Bills’ tight end Dawson Knox, who said he played through injuries in both knees on top of a collarbone injury he suffered early in the year.

The Bills also didn’t really get aggressive in adding weapons. For the outside roles at WR, it will be Keon Coleman, Joshua Palmer, and Elijah Mitchell competing for those two spots. Khalil Shakir will still play his part-time slot role. That could leave Kincaid with a path towards leading this team in targets or at least being top two. He not only led the team in targets per route run per Fantasy Points Data Suite, but he was the TE2 overall in that stat. A healthy season could see the breakout we’ve been waiting for.

The Bad

This guy needs to play more. Straight up. Targets per route run are fine in theory but when you are TE36 in routes run, you aren’t getting enough targets. And we can’t fully blame it on injuries either. In his rookie year, Kincaid played over 80% of the snaps in only three games and over 70% in only five. In 2024, he actually regressed in that regard, playing over 80% in one game and over 70% in four games. Everybody gets banged up at some point - Michael Pittman was playing 90% of the snaps in games last year with a broken back.

That’s the number one problem for this player. And it might just be part of their offensive philosophy. For years, they relied too heavily on Stefon Diggs, living and dying with his performance. Now they spread out the snaps, and they spread out the targets. Only Khalil Shakir got to 100 and just barely. They might not WANT anyone to be a focal point. They have capable wide receivers and another capable tight end in Dawson Knox. Dalton Kincaid has shown some interesting metrics, but he’s yet to prove to the Bills or the world that he deserves to be the focal point of an NFL offense. 

And you don’t have to believe me. Bills GM Brandon Beane was especially critical of Dalton Kincaid following their playoff loss, stating that Kincaid needs to “continue to work on his play strength” and that “he’s not as muscular as Dawson,” so it’s hard to play 17 games. That doesn’t sound like a guy who is willing to chalk it up to injuries; he’s basically implying that if Kincaid were stronger, he would not have gotten hurt. 

The Advice

After seeing the work that Dalton Kincaid has put in this offseason, Brandon Beane was willing to walk back his take to some degree. He admitted that he was a “little over critical” and highlighted the injuries that Kinciad dealt with. Most importantly, he has since stated how happy he’s been with the strength and bulk he has added to his frame. So the guy who said Kincaid needed to bulk up to play more snaps has now said that said player has bulked up. We like that.

All of the underlying metrics are there for Kincaid. It’s now on him to take that step forward, stay healthy, and translate it into a full performance. If he gets the snaps up, then he can get to that 90-100 target range we need for top-five upside for a tight end, as simple as that. And he currently goes as the composite ADP TE13, so you can wait until just about everyone in your draft has a tight end already and then double tap the position. In a 10-team league, something like Evan Engram (TE8) and Dalton Kincaid (TE13) could have you feeling good. In a 12-team or deeper league, I’m even willing to push the limits with Kincaid as my Yang at TE13 and Hunter Henry as my Yin at TE20 off the board. Let’s get crazy. 

Kyle Pitts, TE Atlanta Falcons

The Good

Alright, I get it. You’re out. “Never again”. “He burned me before”. “Kyle Pitts is the devil”. “Kyle Pitts litters”. “Kyle Pitts signed me up for some weird yacht club email list where it keeps sending me yacht spam, and no matter how hard I try to unsubscribe or report it I literally cannot get off the stupid list, and the emails keep coming.” Well, guess what? I quietly like looking at the pictures of cool boats. A dude can dream, right?

And that’s what we’re doing here. We have SEEN it before. The youngest rookie tight end ever to have 1,000 yards and the second ever after Mike Ditka. A year where he was elite in target WR snaps, route participation, air yards, aDot, red zone targets, receptions, receiving yards, YAC - pretty much everything but touchdowns. This is a 6’6” 245-pound unicorn that runs a 4.49 and has arguably the best on-paper athletic profile since Vernon Davis, per PlayerProfiler.

The expectations were obviously set VERY high following that. Injuries and bad QB play, and scheme changes have since derailed him. I mean, he still put up back-to-back 600+ yard seasons and is top 5 in yards all time through age 24. Plus, he doesn’t turn 25 until October, so he could pass Jason Witten and Mike Ditka to move up to third on that list. This guy is one of only three tight ends over the last half decade to break off three or more 40+ yard plays in a season as a tight end along with George Kittle and Chig Okonkwo, and he had two 50+ yard plays last year. The glimpses are there - is the magic really gone?

The Bad

Well, at the very least, the magic is “hibernating”. We did a full write-up about a possible Kyle Pitts trade this year that has not materialized (and probably won’t). And, without that, the prospects of Kyle Pitts having his second breakout are pretty dim. I encourage you to read that full article, as this article is already going to be long, and we can’t include full articles inside of another article. But here’s the idea.

The short and sweet is that Kyle Pitts COULD be on a trajectory like Evan Engram. Both these players broke out as rookies playing with veteran Hall of Fame-caliber QBs in Eli Manning and Matt Ryan. Both dealt with injuries. Both dealt with poor QB play. Both dealt with schemes that didn't fit them. And both essentially became running jokes of the online football community.

With Engram, he eventually escaped to Witch Mountain (and by that, I mean to Doug Pederson’s scheme where he could play big slot). He then had the second-most receptions of any tight end ever, and everyone who ever doubted me and my boy had to EAT IT. The problem for Kyle Pitts is that he’s still stuck in a scheme where Zac Robinson wants to use a two-way inline tight end. And that’s simply not what Kyle Pitts does. So much so that Robinson was actually using an inline blocking tight end, Charlie Woerner, over Pitts down the stretch last year. 

If all that sounds pretty bad, it is. But it gets worse. Kyle Pitts is reportedly dealing with an “unspecified foot injury” that has kept him off the field for all of OTAs. Raheem Morris reassured us that he doesn’t talk about injuries this time of year, while he was talking about the injury. He said they are being “Extremely cautious with Kyle right now and what he's got going on. Obviously, you don't talk about injuries this time of year, but definitely be cautious with him. So you won't see him."

The Advice

No one is making you draft Kyle Pitts. No one is making you tweet mean things about Kyle Pitts. You don’t have to draft every tight end. I’m not necessarily making Kyle Pitts a priority. I certainly sprinkle him in around or after ADP in Best Ball because of his big-play ability. But we have to acknowledge the kind of players that fit within this strategy. Sure, Pitts could just continue to put up middle-of-the-pack numbers. But would it shock you to see him come out and post 700-800 yards and a few touchdowns? I don’t think folks realize how small the margins are between someone like Zach Ertz (TE7 with 654 yards and 7 TDs) and Kyle Pitts (604 yards and 4 TDs).

This is a new quarterback in Michael Penix Drake London will probably be the top dog, but we don’t know who he’ll prefer out of Darnell Mooney or Kyle Pitts. Darnell Mooney is dealing with a shoulder issue and could even miss some time to start the season. And there’s not much after them. There’s a real chance that Zac Robinson spent the offseason working on how to mold his scheme around Kyle Pitts, not fit Pitts into the mold. I think Pitts is a guy you should be holding or buying in dynasty, regardless, but there’s also a chance he turns things around here. He’s 24 years old with a lot of football left to play. 

Tyler Warren, TE Indianapolis Colts

The Good

Tyler Warren is not your average tight end. This guy was actually a quarterback who converted to tight end at Penn State. So, not only was he among the top rookie tight ends in things like yards per route run, avoided tackles, contested catches, yards, receptions, touchdowns etc., he ALSO played a bit of wildcat QB. He had 26 carries for 218 yards and 4 touchdowns as a senior and even threw a touchdown pass.

The Colts have run a tight end rotation for SEVEN years now. Last year, Mo Alie-Cox, Andrew Ogletree, and Kylen Granson each played between 39-43% of the snaps. Nightmare. Colts GM Chris Ballard spoke before the draft about how hard it is to find a tight end to operate in all three downs. And then they drafted one in the first round. They let Kylen Granson walk and kept the blocking tight ends, so we know what Warren will be doing.

And the Colts quarterback situation kind of has to improve one way or another. Either Anthony Richardson figures it out, or they just start Daniel Jones. This team was supporting fantasy-relevant assets with Joe Flacco throwing for 220 yards a game and Gardner Minshew before him throwing for under 200 a game, so the bar is not set very high.

The Bad

It would be nice if Tyler Warren went to the Jets, where he could obviously be a top-two target on the team. Or to Greg Roman’s scheme with the Chargers. Or to be Sean Payton’s joke with the Denver Broncos (the Jaguars messed that up by releasing Evan Engram). Instead, he lands with the Colts.

Now, the Colts' weapons aren’t necessarily insurmountable targets - we aren’t looking at Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins here. But the captain of the team, Michael Pittman, had back-to-back 140 and 150 target seasons, then just led the team with 111 despite missing time and playing through a broken back. So you can likely pencil him in for 100+ targets as a healthy 27-year-old WR. 

Then there’s Josh Downs, who also got 100+ targets despite missing time and dealing with a toe issue. He’s more of a pure slot guy that comes out of the game for 2 WR sets, but the metrics suggest he should hopefully get a bigger role. Last year, he did not play in two WR sets, though, because they had Alec Pierce and, when Pierce or Pittman were hurt, Adonai Mitchell played those snaps. Did we mention that they also have those guys? The Colts have just been loading up on weapons, hoping it papers over their QB problem. Which is still also very much a problem. 

The Advice

I’ve said it a million times - YOU have to place YOUR bets. It’s very rare for three guys on the same team to all get 100+ targets, and that’s kind of what we need for upside. Tyler Warren is a unique player that they did spend a lot of draft capital on, so there ARE some windows for upside here. Here are some examples of narratives you can create for yourself.

• An injury to either Michael Pittman or Josh Downs could open up targets for Warren.
• Josh Downs could remain a part-time slot guy. Alec Pierce could remain as the full-time outside guy, but a low-volume field stretcher. That could allow Warren, as a full-time player, to get more targets than Downs running similar routes, allowing Warren to be the second target behind Pittman.
• Maybe Warren is the third target on the team, but is used as the wildcat and Tush Push QB, where the rushing work makes up for the lower volume pass work. So he’d basically just be a better version of Taysom Hill.

You have to use your imagination in this ADP range. My imagination tells me that Michael Pittman and Josh Downs are probably the top two targets, and they already have not one but TWO QBs capable of running the football while being more of a threat to throw. So I’m not really drafting Tyler Warren in redraft at his TE12 ADP. But you can.  

Colston Loveland, TE Chicago Bears

If you read what we just read about Tyler Warren, you know the game here. This is a talented player that we loved in dynasty. But it’s a crowded team of pass-catchers. They not only have one guy who can operate out of the slot in DJ Moore, but two of them with rookie Luther Burden. Rome Odunze was the third target on the team last year and came close to 100 targets, so he could easily take a step forward in 2025.

Then there’s the pesky issue of Cole Kmet, who has far more pass-catching chops than what Tyler Warren faces. Loveland could realistically just end up being a part-time player as a rookie, which is fairly common for rookie tight ends in general. The seasons by Kyle Pitts, Sam LaPorta, and Brock Bowers are the exception to the rule. It’s difficult to remember, but Trey McBride was stuck behind Zach Ertz for a full year and then seven games of the next before Ertz got hurt.

I’m not really drafting Loveland. But you could make the case that this guy, as their first-round pick, is good enough to be second on the team in targets behind DJ Moore. Rome Odunze, Cole Kmet, and Luther Burden are not exactly “insurmountable” objects. You really need to decide for yourself who you like and who you don’t like, and attack. I’m afraid Warren and Loveland could be buried, so I’m attacking elsewhere. I like drafting Yang TEs that I can drop quickly for the next one rather than stashing rookies for the long haul, hoping some catalyst comes along to change my fortune. You often end up waiting a long time for nothing to happen. 

Chig Okonkwo, TE Tennessee Titans

The Good

If you’ve been reading the last gazillion words or so, you probably have an idea of the main focuses for us. Talent and opportunity. 

Talent, in many cases, for unproven guys comes in the form of athleticism. At the very least, guys who have the speed to beat linebackers and safeties can do “more with less”. Chig Okonkwo runs a 4.52 forty, the same as George Kittle, so he has 97th percentile speed for the position. We mentioned earlier in the Kyle Pitts section that Okonkwo, Pitts, and Kittle are the only three tight ends over the last five years to have 3 or more 40+ yards plays - if you expand that to all active tight ends at any point, the only one that doesn't have ~90th percentile speed is Noah Fant.

 As far as opportunity goes, we expect Calvin Ridley to be the top target on the team. Then who? Tyler Lockett is a 32-year-old field stretcher. Van Jefferson is a journeyman. They added a few rookies, but not until Day 3/UDFAs in Elic Ayomanor, Dike Chimere, and Xavier Restrepo. Treylon Burks is still floating around, I guess. Okonkwo could carve himself out a nice target share.

The quarterback play for Okonkwo has been atrocious in recent years, but first-round pick Cameron Ward could come out slingin'. Ward had a tremendous connection with his “big slot” tight end, Elijah Arroyo, at Miami. This is the section of the article where we dream, isn’t it?
 

The Bad

There’s one little issue with Chig Okonkwo. His frame. He’s a muscular guy, but he’s only 6’2” 243 pounds - you can only pack so much on there. We love the idea of these undersized, speedy tight ends, but that can make it difficult for them to be every-down players. And stay healthy. We ran into this issue for years with the Giants and Evan Engram, where he was a smaller guy who didn’t fit the scheme and couldn’t stay healthy. This team was already supplementing the snaps for Chig Okonkwo with Josh Whyle, and they just drafted Gunnar Helm in the fourth round of this year’s draft.

Okonkwo needs to be a better wide receiver than the wide receivers on the team, and that’s a tall order for any tight end. That's why he’s never really cracked the top of any of the important metrics we care about besides athleticism and the chunk plays that come with that. He was outside the top 15 WRs last year in target share, route participation, yards per route run, man receptions, contested catches, etc. We are hoping they view him this year as a safety blanket for Cameron Ward, but that’s asking for an increase in usage. 

Not to mention, Cameron Ward might just suck. If you go over to a sportsbook like BetMGM, only three quarterbacks have a lower over/under passing yard total than Cameron Ward’s 3,225.5. They are Jalen Hurts, Bryce Young, and Justin Fields. That doesn’t really paint a picture of a quarterback that is going to come out here and support multiple fantasy-relevant assets. If Ward plays like a typical rookie quarterback, we’ll be lucky if Calvin Ridley has upside - it could just be nobody.

The Advice

In this ADP range, I do not care about the floor. Not one bit. In many cases, the Yang tight end we draft will be dropped within the first two weeks. That’s the nature of the entire strategy. We are targeting uncertainty with a glimpse of upside. If we like what we see, we hold or even move the guy into a starting spot. If it doesn’t break our way, we add the hot new pickup. As mentioned in the intro, I will continue to update the Yin & Yang tight end in my waiver article every week. We’ll find those rascals!

Okonkwo goes off the board as the TE29, so we are talking about a very last pick in pretty much any redraft league. If he gets the role, usage, and attention from Cameron Ward that we are hoping for in Week One, then great, we are feeling good. If not, on to the next one. You are almost certainly going to be dropping guys from your bench within the first few weeks, so why not focus on a position like tight end, where there’s actually a pretty well-documented history of finding late breakouts.

Mason Taylor, TE New York Jets

The Good

If I were going to cook up the perfect football player, I might start with Jason Taylor. Bring that up to a boil, then add a dash of Zach Thomas to finish it off. And that’s basically the recipe for Mason Taylor, as Jason Taylor is his father and Zach Thomas is his uncle. 

And Taylor was drafted as the third tight end off the board to one of the best landing spots in terms of immediate opportunity. Not only will Taylor likely start as the two-way tight end right away, but after Garrett Wilson, who is the target competition. Sure, Breece Hall is there, but how many targets can he get? Are guys like Allen Lazard and Josh Reynolds really competition? I don’t think so.

The Bad

A lot of times, NFL teams like what they see from a player in college and draft them to use them that way. That would not be great for Mason Taylor, as he was used sparingly in a WR spot and primarily operated in-line. Even more scary, he was used to block on 16.7% of his pass plays, which was the highest of the 20+ tight ends we scouted predraft. If you aren’t running a route, you can’t catch a pass. So we need the Jets to change their usage at the next level.

The quarterback situation is also scary. In the Chig Okonkwo section, we mentioned that Justin Fields has a lower passing yardage total line with Vegas than Cameron Ward. Well, it’s actually MUCH lower. In fact, it’s much lower than everyone. Every quarterback with a line listed has a total of at least 3,000. Justin Fields is listed at 2,550.5 yards. That’s essentially a bet that he will fail. And he could have trouble supporting Garrett Wilson at that line, let alone multiple tight ends.

We should also now point out that Mason Taylor suffered a high ankle in practice and could miss some time here. The high ankle sprain is a notoriously fickle injury as well that could linger. Not ideal for a rookie tight end to be missing the only live bullets we get in the short training camp.

The Advice

Mason Taylor quietly has the best opportunity of any of the rookie tight ends, given how barren the pass-catcher landscape is with the Jets. And teams change the usage of rookies all the time at this level. Look at Rashee Rice. In college, he only played on one side of the field and primarily operated downfield. The Chiefs move him all over the formation and feed him screens and short targets. We don’t know what the Jets have planned, but based on the depth chart, it seems to heavily involve Taylor.

The Justin Fields situation does concern me because the guy they have waiting in the wings if Fields does fail, Tyrod Taylor, does pretty similar things. We just have to hope the targets are HIGHLY consolidated among Garrett Wilson, Breece Hall, and Mason Taylor. I’m not necessarily drafting Taylor outside of best ball because you don’t have to at his ADP. We’ll be watching his deployment closely to let you know if he’s an add after Week One, though. 

Deeper Yin Tight End Options

Ja’Tavion Sanders, TE Carolina Panthers - This is a player I like in dynasty. His profile reminds me of guys like Hunter Henry or Zach Ertz. The thing with all three players is that they aren’t particularly fast, so they need a LOT of targets. If the Panthers moved on from Tommy Tremble, it would be a lot easier to find snaps for Sanders, but they brought him back. If Adam Thielen retired, it would be a lot easier to find targets. Tremble did have back surgery, and the weapons the Panthers have aren’t exactly superstars, so there is still a path. But it’s not a super clear one. 

Darren Waller, TE Miami Dolphins - We all know how dangerous a game this is. But one thing we need to keep in mind is that, even if Waller shows up healthy and in shape, that doesn’t mean he will just jump right into the production that Jonnu Smith had. The nagging injuries to Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle were a big part of Jonnu getting some of the extra targets he did get. We still expect both Hill and Waddle to get more targets than Waddle, so it’s tough to weigh the risk/reward here. But Waller was so good in his prime, and he did get 74 targets in only 12 games just the year before last, so there is intrigue there.

Noah Fant and/or Elijah Arroyo, TE Seattle Seahawks - 

***UPDATE*** Noah Fant has been released since the original publishing of this article. So everything we wrote about believe is a full go. 

This Klint Kubiak offense has some key elements from the ones run in San Francisco and Miami that create upside for tight ends like George Kittle and Jonnu Smith. Namely, the usage of the fullback and blocking tight end take other pass catchers off the field for a huge number of snaps. Last year in New Orleans, the back who played the second most snaps for Klint Kubiak behind Alvin Kamara was fullback Adam Prentice. In Seattle, he says he’s going to implement that scheme, and they drafted the 270-pound Robbie Ouzts to play that role.

I gave a full breakdown of the scheme here. The bottom line is that it’s good for the tight end, but we don’t know for sure who that will be. AJ Barner profiles as the inline blocking tight end (he’s super slow and his best comparable player on Player Profiler is Durham Smythe, who played that blocking role in MIA). Noah Fant is the incumbent, and he does have 90th percentile speed, as we mentioned earlier. He can be cut or traded with $9.5M in savings, though, which would put rookie Elijah Arroyo in that driver's seat as the pass-catching tight end. We’ll be watching closely this summer, but it’s not crazy in deeper leagues like some FFPC formats or something like the Scott Fish Bowl, where it’s like 20 rounds to use your last two picks on Arroyo and Fant to just guarantee you get “the guy”. Then you just drop the other and move on with your life. The odds of your 19th/20th round pick hitting at all are so low that cornering the market like that makes some sense in game theory. 

Jonnu Smith, TE Pittsburgh Steelers - We like him better as you “Yin” TE as we mentioned, but technically, there is a path to being a top two target on the team as of this moment, and he has the athleticism. So it’s not a crazy thought, but you need Arthur Smith to ditch his stupid TE rotation.

Tyler Conklin and/or Oronde Gadsden II TE Los Angeles Chargers - If it’s Tyler Conklin, then fine, whatever. He’s kind of boring, but he’s had some 80 target seasons and we don’t know who the second target after Ladd McConkey will be. But a new name is emerging with some hype, and that’s rookie Oronde Gadsden II.

If that name sounds familiar, it’s because his father was an NFL wide receiver. The younger Gadsden started as a WR as well before converting to tight end at Syracuse. Last year, he went out and had the most contested catches of any tight end in this class. Now he’s growing steam with Chargers tight end coach Andy Bischoff comparing him to Darren Waller whom he coached when the Ravens turned him into a tight end. We’ve seen Greg Roman not only produce a bunch of top 5 TE seasons with a TE lining up primarily as a WR, but we’ve seen Mark Andrews have a top 5 TE season in 2019 while only playing 41% of the snaps. This is a name to know. 

***UPDATE*** The signing of Keenan Allen pours some cold water on the Orande Gadsden business as now they have two good slot WRs and that's where we'd like to see Gadsden play. 

Tight End Handcuffs

These guys don’t necessarily need to be drafted, but it’s an important section to know because it’s how we got Trey McBride and Isaiah Likely, key pieces of winning lineups in 2023 when they first broke out. If the TE1 goes down on these teams, there’s upside to be had. Or maybe some of them can overtake the starter outright…

Oronde Gadsden Jr, TE Los Angeles Chargers - We wrote about him above - he might be more of a handcuff than an outright starter, but he’s the more exciting one of the Chargers' tight ends if you ask me.

Isaiah Likely, TE Baltimore Ravens - Isaiah Likely is pretty slow, but he’s got that sneaky basketball player agility that helps him maneuver around a bit. I must admit, though, the ADP for Likely really makes no sense for me at all right now. Yes, he had that good first game, but Mark Andrews clearly was not right at that point. He didn’t exactly do much over the season that many of the other inline TE2s didn’t do. And that’s really what he was - Andrews got to run 80% of his routes from a WR spot while putting up far better stats, while Likely played more inline, geared towards blocking. Until Andrews is gone, we have a bit of an Ertz/Goedert situation on our hands. He has the most standalone value of this group, but he’s only really been startable when Andrews has been hurt. Oh yeah, and Likely himself just had foot surgery. 

Ben Sinnott, TE Washington Commanders - If you blinked last year, you missed it. The glimmer of hope for Ben Sinnott. All year, Zach Ertz served as the primary pass-catching tight end with John Bates as the primary blocking tight end. But there was one point during Week 15 when Zach Ertz caught a ball and got popped, landing him in the blue tent. He missed the rest of that game. And it was not John Bates that stepped into that pass-catching role but Ben Sinnott, playing nearly 20 snaps from a WR spot. If something were to happen to Ertz, Sinnott would very likely get his chance to shine.

Elijah Higgins, TE Arizona Cardinals - Surprise, surprise, another wide receiver converted into a tight end. Which makes sense when your starting TE plays like a WR. Tip Reiman is the mauler inline, but Higgins was the one who stepped up and played 27 WR snaps in the Week 4 game that Trey McBride missed. If McBride were to get hurt too early in the season, maybe they make a move for another TE, but this guy could have utility for spot starts in deep leagues if McBride misses sporadic time. He did tie McBride with two touchdown receptions…

Noah Gray, Cole Kmet, Dawson Knox, Austin Hooper - I’m just going to lump all these guys into one bucket here. There is a better pass-catching tight end on the team, but they still have a role and offer some DFS value. Gray is likely the most interesting if the starter gets hurt, but it’s hard to get overly excited about any of them. 

Stone Smart, TE New York Jets - How could we wrap our ultimate tight end guide without Stone Cole Smart (yes, that is his real name)? The son of basketball players and a quarterback turned wide receiver turned tight end. What happens if rookie Mason Taylor completely faceplants? Who will be there to pick up the slack? Our guy will. Our 2023 DFS hero. Because Stone Cole said so!

LINK TO RANKINGS

Again, all of this info is summarized in a nice, neat chart that is color-coded based on ADP in the Dynamic Tier Rankings. If you've read this and have that by your side, you'll be in good shape! Thanks again for reading the ultimate tight end guide and may the fantasy football gods be with you!

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