0:00We're going to talk tight end rankings and tiers, but more importantly, tight end draft strategy cuz there is a ton that goes into the position this year.
0:07Starting off with the S tier guys, we're going to have Bowers and McBride. Now, the first thing you may notice is, "Oh,
0:13Trey McBride averaged 18.6 points per game last season. He was the tight end one and he is only 26 years old. How the
0:21hell is he not the tight end one in fantasy this season where Bowers averaged only 14 and 1/2 points per game?" Well, there is a lot that's going
0:29into this. The first thing I want to discuss will be how the Arizona Cardinals offense is changing year over year and it's one of the biggest things
0:36in fantasy. Because we saw in Arizona last season, in the second half of the year, McBride as well as Michael Wilson
0:45become league winners. And what did it take for that to happen? It took the Arizona Cardinals to see injuries to James Conner, Trey Benson, which led to
0:55them not being able to run the ball at all, having to completely abandon it and only lean on the pass, which we can see
1:02evidence of Jacoby Brissett with 44, 36, 31, 44, 57, 49, 40, 34, 40 passing attempts. He was dropping back every
1:14single play. And also on top of this, we had the injury to Marvin Harrison, which did end up leading to more targets being
1:21available for the accommodation of McBride and Michael Wilson. Now, the Arizona Cardinals this off-season, they draft Jeremiah Love at three overall.
1:30They signed Keaontay Ingram to a pretty decent contract. Now, all of a sudden, this running back room is one of the
1:36better units in football and they will finally be able to be a little bit more of a balanced offense and run as much as
1:43they pass. Now, going over and looking at what sportsbooks are saying about the Arizona Cardinals offense this season, they are actually projecting the
1:51Cardinals to fall from about two to two and a half points per game. So, if we combine those factors of one, the
1:59Cardinals being much more run-heavy this year than they were last season. Two, the Cardinals scoring fewer points overall. And three, Marvin Harrison Jr.
2:08actually being healthy and having some targets. It is going to hit McBride with a ton of regression. And then, if we
2:15look at the other side of the coin with Brock Bowers. While Bowers was very bad last season for where he was drafted. He
2:21went at the beginning of the second round in the Flock League draft. This can be excused away partly due to the
2:28Bowers injury that he suffered at the beginning of the season. He tried playing through it in weeks two, three, and four. Um obviously, he wasn't able
2:35to. Eventually, he had to miss these three weeks. The first game he came back, he dropped 43 points in, right? We
2:41know the talent that Brock Bowers is.
2:43But, it was partly due to one, the injury that Bowers suffered last season.
2:47Two, the fact that the Raiders were the worst offense in the entire NFL. And if we look at how that situation's changing
2:55year over year. Right now, sportsbooks are projecting the Las Vegas Raiders to be the most improved offense in football. You have a massive upgrade
3:05with the quarterback room going from Geno Smith to the combination of Cousins and Mendoza. An unspeakable upgrade with this coaching staff. And then,
3:13obviously, they invest into the offensive line this off season as well.
3:16So, the Raiders right now are supposed to increase by about five points per game, which does lead to me ranking Bowers ahead of McBride. Not to mention
3:25that Bowers literally has nobody to compete for with targets. It's Trey Tucker, Jaylen Nailer, and then a bag of potato chips. So, Bowers, I would be
3:35looking to target in the second round of drafts depending on your league format.
3:40Um or I would be looking at McBride in the third. But, of course, I want to discuss with some strategy of where the
3:47elite tight end matters a little bit more. So, I play in a 12-team double flex league. What that means is that
3:53means wide receiver depth and running back depth is going to be pretty important to build out. Like if you go through and you look at my custom draft
4:01sheets that we have built out on flockfantasy.com for the people that have those season passes, you will see that in that 12-team double-flex league,
4:10we have Bowers say it like 15 and Trey McBride down at 23 in our ranks.
4:15However, if you were playing in say a 10-team format where you only have one flex spot, in that scenario, we're going
4:22to be moving Brock Bowers all the way up to 12 and Trey McBride's going to move up to the top of this tier as well at
4:29pick 20. So, it is going to matter on the format that you're in. The deeper the league, less tight end you want to
4:35invest into. The shallower format, the more the elite ones he's going to make a difference cuz it'll be easier to find
4:41wide receiver depth later. But of course, if you need to help making the adjustments to your exact league settings, you can get access to all the
4:47real-time draft assistance, all the draft sheets that are custom to your exact league and your exact platform with a flockfantasy.com season pass.
4:56It's 34 bucks for the entire year, not $34 a month. And on top of all the draft sheets, the draft assistance, you're
5:04going to be getting weekly rest of season rankings updated every single day from the creators that you watch on YouTube including myself, access to the
5:13My Teams page, unlimited trade calculator use throughout the entire season. I'm linked to flockfantasy.com's in the description in the comment section. But let's move over to the A
5:23tier. We are going to have Colston Loveland here. Loveland wasn't great in fantasy this past season, not necessarily his fault though because he
5:31was a 21-year-old tight end. If you look at the flockfantasy.com range of outcomes tool, the closest comparable age 21 seasons that we have at the tight
5:41end position were Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez. You combine this with the fact of four Colston that he was a top-10 NFL draft pick,
5:50it's pretty safe to say this was an elite prospect that at a very early age did show signs, which is typically all
5:58you could expect from a rookie tight end.
6:01And the situation just got a ton better with DJ Moore out of Chicago, and obviously Olamide Zaccheaus not seeing the same work that he did. Now, we can
6:09look at the breakout that we had from Cole Kmet Loveland at the end of last season, where we had in week 17 him
6:15scoring 21 points. He was the tight end two in fantasy. He had 10 targets. And then in week 18 he scored 25 points. He
6:22was the tight end one in fantasy with 13 targets. But one thing we don't have on flockfantasy.com right now that we
6:28probably need to get added in is the ability to look at those playoff weeks.
6:32But I can head over to ESPN real quick.
6:34Let me look up Cole Kmet Loveland playoff game log, and let's just look at what we got once the Bears got to the
6:42playoffs and things mattered more than the regular season. Oh, we got Cole Kmet Loveland with 15 targets against the Packers, and then 10 targets against the
6:53Los Angeles Rams. So, the last four games of his rookie season, he had double-digit targets. He was a top-10 NFL draft pick at only 21 years old. So,
7:04this dude is set up to absolutely crush in his second season. In terms of where I'd be targeting him here, if I was like
7:11in a 10-team two wide receiver one flex, we already discussed that format, tight ends are going to be pushed up. There, I
7:17think you could very reasonably make an argument to take him in like the early 40s or even the late 30s with your draft
7:24pick. Because again, wide receiver depth going to be very easy to get later in your draft. Now, for the flock league as
7:30an example, there I do think it's important to get your running backs, important to get your wide receivers early. It's a 12-team double flex. So,
7:36I'd be looking at that format, taking him at the four or five turn, preferably the early fifth round. But I know in my
7:42league, the Flock League, there's no way in hell he makes it to the fifth round.
7:45Every single person and their mom absolutely loves this dude. Now, moving over to the B tier, we're going to have Tyler Warren leading us off. Um with
7:52Tyler Warren, very incredible rookie season, right? You can look at the beginning portion of this year, and obviously it was much better than what
7:59we had in the second half. I mean, he did trail off, but it's very understandable why, right? The beginning portion of the season, this Indianapolis
8:06Colts offense, it was elite. You had Daniel Jones playing at literally an MVP level. It was insane. And then once we
8:12had the Daniel Jones torn Achilles, everything um got much, much worse. I'll go through and with our site, let me just put the games that we had Tyler
8:21Warren with and without Daniel Jones, and you'll see that the games in which Daniel Jones played with Tyler Warren, he was the Titan the six in fantasy. The
8:31four games that Tyler Warren played without Daniel Jones, he was the Titan 24. So, a massive, massive drop-off.
8:39Now, I will say the Indianapolis Colts were kind of due for a regression regardless. Sportsbooks do have them as one of the top offenses in the league
8:47that would regress year over year. So, there's some worry about the overall offensive output that we get in Indianapolis in comparison to when Tyler
8:56Warren was the Titan six in fantasy. The other thing that I want to mention with this though that works in favor of Tyler
9:01Warren is not only is he going to year two where he could be primed for a breakout similar to Kylen Loveland, but
9:07on top of this, you have no Michael Pittman Jr. Um Pittman kind of operated in the similar area of the field that
9:12Tyler Warren did. So, I think he does get a decent amount of those targets. I know everybody wants them to go straight
9:17to Josh Downs, but they're going to be dispersed throughout.
9:20Now, our Titan five is going to be Tucker Kraft. So, the latest report that we got with Tucker Kraft is that the
9:27doctor that he works with, and of course, I mean, I'm sure that they're hyping him up to make him feel good,
9:32keep him motivated, blah, blah, blah. Um but the doctor that he works with told him my knee looks spectacular, almost like he's never seen a knee
9:41rehabilitation like mine. So, it seems like this is going great. He's actually out there at camp right now. I mean, this was a torn ACL pretty late in the
9:51year, right? I mean, it was in week nine, but before that point, Tyler Wan was averaging 14.65 points per game. He was the tight end
10:00four in fantasy. He's only 25 years old and keep in mind how this offense has changed year over year. You no longer
10:07have no Romeo Dobbs. You don't have Dontayvion Wicks anymore. So, the target competition isn't as much as it used to be for the Green Bay Packers. You would
10:16assume that probably means they lean a little bit more on Kraft. The reason I prefer Tyler Wan over him though is one,
10:22Tyler Wan's not coming off a significant injury, and two, with Kraft, he was probably going to regress to some degree anyway, cuz he was running extremely hot
10:30on touchdowns. I mean, this dude had 44 targets um last season and he had six receiving touchdowns. So, that probably wasn't going to maintain, but
10:40regardless, these top five tight ends, if I draft one of them, I'm not taking another, right? I think Tyler Wan, I'd
10:47be looking to take in round six. Maybe you could push him up to round five depending on your format. I probably
10:52won't it. Tucker Kraft, I'd also be looking at drafting in round six or seven. Um but if I took one of these top
10:59five guys, I'm not going to draft a backup unless we get like an incredible value. Now, the drop-off from Tucker Kraft to Sam LaPorta is going to be
11:08pretty big. Um I actually fell for the LaPorta experiment after his rookie season. If y'all go back and look at his
11:15rookie year, Sam LaPorta was the tight end three in fantasy points per game averaging 14.08.
11:23Now, a lot of smart people were saying, "Hey, he's in line for regression for reasons X, Y, and Z." I, of course,
11:29wasn't smart enough to listen to them. I just looked at a rookie tight end breakout like this and I said I want to
11:33go all in. So, I think I drafted him in round four of the Flock league the first year. But, regardless, I think he's a
11:40safe tight end pick. We've seen him back-to-back seasons now. Finishes that like mid to low end tight end one. You know what you're getting. He's still
11:48pretty damn young at only 25 years old.
11:50Yes, he got injured last season, but it sounds like he is fully healthy. And we don't have much hesitation here with
11:56LaPorta. Now, I will say this is about the range though where if you were to draft one of these tight ends, I'm
12:02probably going to be taking a second.
12:04Now, Harold Fannin had an incredible second half of the season, right? I mean, he ended up finishing as the tight end eight in points per game. And he did
12:12so at only 21 years old. Very similar to what we saw with Dalton Kincaid. The closest comparables that we had to
12:18Harold Fannin's rookie season is we were sitting there with Rob Gronkowski, Aaron Hernandez, and David Njoku. And speaking of David Njoku, that is a player that
12:28this Cleveland Browns offense is not going to have this next season.
12:33And with Njoku's absence, it's going to lead to more snaps, it's going to lead to more routes, and more importantly, it's going to lead to more targets for
12:40Harold Fannin. Like, we can just go through and look at the instance of last season in which Harold Fannin played with and without Njoku, and we can see
12:50that the games without David Njoku, he saw a 26% team target share. And in the games with Njoku, that was down at 20%.
12:59So, pretty big gap in the usage. Now, the main hesitation that you have to have with Harold Fannin is he plays for the Cleveland Browns.
13:07I hate to say it, and maybe you can say Mason, um well, Trey McBride plays for the Cardinals, and they're supposed to
13:13be just as bad this next year.
13:16But, I don't know. McBride averaged 18 and 1/2 fantasy points per game, and Harold Fannin was at 11 and 1/2. But,
13:20he's an incredibly young player. He looked really good his rookie season. He has more targets available this year, so I understand going in on them.
13:28Now, moving over to Kyle Pitts. Kyle Pitts averaged 12 and 1/2 fantasy points per game this past season, and he's still only 25 years old. Like, look at
13:35this. Jacory Cross can merit a rookie from last year's class is the same age as Kyle Pitts. Woody Marks, another rookie from last year's class, is like 2
13:45months younger than Kyle Pitts. So, Pitts is still an incredibly young tight end. We had that breakout at the end of
13:52the season where he dropped 45 points in week 15. Um he was ultimately the tight end five in points per game, and if we
13:59look at the situation that we have in Atlanta this next season, who's the wide receiver two? Is it um is Zachariah Branch? Like, there is no
14:06meaningful wide receiver depth that you have for the Atlanta Falcons. It's really just Drake London, Bijan Robinson, and Kyle Pitts. Now, of
14:14course, you can make an argument, "Well, this offense is going to be garbage.
14:17They have Tua as their quarterback.
14:18Blah, blah, blah." But, the offense was garbage last year, and Kyle Pitts still was the tight end five in points per
14:23game, so. Um I'm fine drafting Kyle Pitts at cost this season, but again, this tier of tight ends is the first
14:30tier in which I think you could go ahead and either build your team around one tight end and one tight end only, or you
14:38could decide to take the second tight end very late if you have a value that you do like.
14:44Now, moving over to the D tier, we are going to have George Kittle leading us off. I'm going to be live streaming
14:51every single night until the season starts, real money fantasy drafts that you can participate in. In case you've missed it, every stream we're doing, I'm
14:58doing a real money draft where I put anywhere from $200 to $500 in the league pot. You put $0 in, and just the first
15:0511 people that click the link in the live chat get to come and draft with us.
15:09So, I really appreciate everybody hanging out with us in those streams. I hope to see you there.
15:13But, with George Kittle specifically, this is going to be a player that I have to just continue to give you updates on.
15:19Cuz if he was fully healthy, he would be up there with Cole Kmet and Loveland.
15:23Now, I wouldn't put him in the Bowers-McBride range um simply for the fact that the dude's about to turn 33 years old, right? So, I do think you
15:30have to have some regression baked in, but he has been a top three tight end in back-to-back seasons in terms of points
15:37per game. Obviously, Kmet's always missing time, but it just comes down to what should the expectations be with Kmet coming off the torn Achilles and
15:45what are the updates that we get through camp for him? Now, Travis Kelce going to be our next name. With Kelce, super
15:52boring, right? Like honestly, George Kmet should probably be in the tier above this because even if he was going to miss a couple of games this year, I'd
15:59still rather have him over Kelce. I don't really see what the ceiling is with Kelce. I almost think that he's like a much better best ball pick where
16:06you know that he's going to be startable, you know he's going to be a high-end tight end two, low-end tight end one, but he does look like he's just
16:13frankly zapped from his athleticism at this point, and you can't blame the dude either. I mean, he's going to turn 37
16:19years old, so. Um not blaming Travis Kelce at all, but I probably see a very cap ceiling. And again, anybody in this tier, I'm drafting a
16:29second one. Like, that's why we have Kmet in this tier ultimately cuz if Kmet was my first tight end, I would need to
16:34draft a second. Mark Andrews, similar story here. He looks like he's washed up. Tight end 24 in points per game this
16:40past year. About to turn 31 years old, but the benefit that you have with Andrews is now you have no Isaiah Likely
16:47in Baltimore. Uh maybe the Baltimore Ravens offense does take a tick up with Lamar Jackson back in fully healthy, change with the coaching staff, and the
16:56Ravens project to be a top five offense in the league. And while Zay Flowers getting paid Avery Huffman type money, I
17:02don't know if Zay Flowers is a Justin Jefferson-level receiver. Now, Jake Ferguson going to be our next guy. Jake Ferg absolutely balled out during this
17:10stretch of games. And why did it happen?
17:12Oh, CeeDee Lamb was injured. The second CeeDee Lamb comes back, what happened with Jake Ferguson the rest of the season? He looked like a waiver wire
17:19tight end, so um very simple like the again, these are guys that are startable, but you can very easily see you dropping them to the waiver wire.
17:26Dalton Kincaid, insane from an efficiency perspective. 3.02 yards per route run, 11.7 yards per target. The problem is he doesn't play. He played
17:3538% of the snaps this past season. This dude's made of glass. They need to keep him healthy through the year. He doesn't
17:42see enough snaps.
17:43So, I hope give you big weeks if he were to ever start and play 75% of NFL games, he's probably a top five tight end in
17:51fantasy. We just haven't seen it. Now, Isaiah Likely, our next guy. Isaiah Likely averaged 4 and 1/2 fantasy points per game this past season. If you go
17:59through and look at Isaiah Likely's NFL career, really there's only one notable game, and that one notable game was week one of 2024. Um I'm very biased, but
18:10that Ravens-Chiefs game, I think was one of the best NFL games that we have seen in quite some time. And obviously,
18:16Isaiah Likely was the number one waiver wire pick up of the season. Pretty much everybody was going crazy for him.
18:22Turned out to do nothing. I think he does have primarily more name value than anything else, but to be fair to him, um
18:29the coaching staff brings him from Baltimore to the Giants. You have no wide receiver two. Malik Nabers, while he's looking good in camp, it's not like
18:37he's 100% healthy. So, I think situation's good for Likely, but he's never proven to be a reliable fantasy asset. Um Dallas Goedert was actually
18:44the tight end that I started in the Flock League this past season. He helped me out a ton. Like a lot of weeks, he
18:49was scoring more points than Saquon Barkley for us. He averaged 12 and 1/2 fantasy points per game, was the tight end six. But we got very lucky with
18:55touchdowns. Like he had 82 targets, but 11 receiving touchdowns. So, that's going to be coming down no matter what with Dallas Goedert.
19:03And also, they drafted Eli Stowers in the second round this year, and Stowers could definitely eat into his snaps and his routes. Now, Rondale Gadsden has
19:11David Njoku going over to Los Angeles.
19:14Um and they drafted I mean they signed another just pure blocking tight end, so tight end room's a little bit crowded.
19:19Gadston's problem is probably is not going to see as many snaps as you would like just because of the blocking stuff,
19:26but it's probably pretty good news that Keenan Allen's not going over to Los Angeles because then maybe they throw him out there on the field more just as
19:32a pure route runner. Now, Hunter Henry will be our next guy. Hunter Henry was viable last year tight end 13 in points
19:38per game, but you bring in Romeo Dobbs, you bring in A.J. Brown, so now he actually has target competition, so I'd expect
19:45targets to go down for Henry. And the Patriots are supposed to be a worse offense overall. Now, Britain Strange, our last guy. The Jacksonville Jaguars
19:52drafted tight end pretty highly and with Britain Strange, you have Parker Washington, Brian Thomas, Jakobi Meyers, and Travis Etienne you got to compete
19:59for targets with. And the Jags project to be one of the top offenses in the league with regression year over year
20:05according to sports book data, so um Britain Strange, not super exciting. I will say though that expect all 18 of these tight ends to get drafted in your
20:14fantasy draft if you're in a 12 team draft or more. Once we get to the F tier though, this is where guys may stay out
20:20there on the waiver wire or if your first tight end you draft is Dalton Kincaid, you're probably want to take these names. Whether it's Juwan Johnson
20:28who they drafted Oscar Delp and Jordan Tyson, whether it's T.J. Hockenson who looks like he may just be zapped of all
20:33athleticism. To be fair, he doesn't have to play with nine this season though.
20:38Whether it's Chig who a lot of people were excited about before the Diggs signing, but now that Diggs is there, it's probably tough. Whether it's Kylen
20:45Granson who's a pretty talented rookie or a high upside rookie, but looks like he's going to be missing the entire off
20:51season program due to the hernia.
20:53Whether it's Schultz, whether it's Barner, whether it's Gunner Helm. Like these are going to be your waiver wire tight ends that you could possibly be
20:59looking to add on your squad dependent on who the first guy that you drafted is. But if you were to draft a tight end
21:06inside the top five, I wouldn't bother about any of these names here. Now, I really appreciate you, and I hope I was
21:11able to help you out with something in this video. Again, if you need help figuring out exactly where you should draft your first tight end based on your
21:18league settings, I would highly recommend the flockfantasy.com season pass. It's going to give you all those custom draft sheets to your exact league
21:25settings, the exact platform that you're on. It's going to give you those real-time draft assistants, trade calculator, my team's page, the whole
21:31nine yards. Use code flock, and you're going to be getting free starts and trade questions that you can ask me in
21:37the live streams that I'm going to be doing every single night during the season. Links in the description. It's in the comment section. But, much love,
21:44ladies and gentlemen. I really appreciate you, and I hope I get to see you out in the live stream later tonight.