Tight Ends: Fantasy Football Takeaways and Stats (2024)
Discover the top tight ends shaping the 2024 fantasy football landscape. From breakout stars to reliable veterans, our in-depth analysis of key stats, trends, and takeaways will help you dominate your draft and optimize your lineup. Stay ahead with the latest insights on tight end performances and strategies for fantasy success.
Fantasy Football Tight Ends: Stats and Takeaways
Since the 2020 NFL Season, only three tight ends have amassed 300 or more full PPR points in a campaign. Travis Kelce in 2020 with 312.8, Mark Andrews with 301.1 in 2021, and Kelce again with 316.3 in 2022. Noting that there were none in both 2023 and 2024. Meanwhile, during that span, there were 19 wide receivers and 15 running backs to hit this marker, accounting for 91.9% of the 37 total players to eclipse 300 full PPR points.
At what point do we sacrifice depth for top positional talent and vice versa? Sam LaPorta, the overall TE 1 in 2023 with 239.3 full PPR points, only managed to finish as the TE 8 in 2024 with 174.6 points, yet he appeared in 16 games. As a side note, he currently sits fourth in the latest FantasyPros best ball rankings and 3rd for dynasty league purposes. It’s no secret, LaPorta looks great and has proven himself. However, he has Amon-Ra St. Brown and Jameson Williams ahead of him to contend with for looks. Additionally, they have Jahmyr Gibbs, who also tacked on 63 targets last season.
Trey McBride, Brock Bowers, and Kelce were the only tight ends last year to lead their teams in total target percentage with 28.1%, 25.8%, and 23.3%, respectively. McBride’s target share was good enough to put him at fourth overall for all “receivers”, ahead of the likes of Ja’Marr Chase and St. Brown. Moving forward, we don’t expect McBride to consistently outpace Marvin Harrison Jr. or for Kelce to garner more opportunities than Xavier Worthy or whoever Kansas City adds in the 2025 NFL Draft.
Nonetheless, fantasy football managers want to target vacated situations or favorable opportunities, such as George Kittle with the absence of Deebo Samuel. We knew going into 2024 that both Harrison and Worthy might be “raw” as rookies, opening the door for upticks in volume for McBride and Kelce. What Bowers did as a rookie himself was truly special, given his quarterback situation. Clearly, he benefited from the absence of Davante Adams after Week 6, which was impossible to expect. However, he is being drafted now in or just outside the first round of best ball, according to his Player Profiler average draft position of 15.4, and understandably so.
Tight Ends: Fantasy Draft Strategy for 2025
Per usual, drafters will be pitted with tough decisions regarding their tight end and draft capital. Especially as it relates to interesting stats from 2024. It’s fine to take Bowers or any player off the board in the right situation and format. Ultimately, no player is off limits, but each player does have a certain value that they should fall to.
Overall, the message is not to panic in drafts if you see several go in a row, or ahead of ADP. We never want to use this year’s draft capital to pay for last year’s luxury. We cannot exactly plan for lightning in a bottle either, like in 2023 with David Njoku in Cleveland, once the correct quarterback was started in Joe Flacco. Njoku from Weeks 14 – 17 finished no worse than the TE4 in PPR during that span and certainly won some fantasy football managers their leagues.
Finally, target opportunity in your drafts and all season long, just do not overpay for it. Your tight end only has an 8.1% chance to clear 300 full PPR points over the last five seasons.
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