2024 Lessons Learned: Your 2025 Tight End Strategy

RELATED: See lessons learned at all other positions:
Quarterbacks | Running Backs (coming) | Wide Receivers (coming) | Tight Ends

In this week's roundtable series, I asked our Footballguys staff to discuss their fantasy New Year's resolutions for each position and their overall takeaways for approaching drafting in 2025.

Yesterday we talked about the quarterback position. In today's article, we will move on and discuss the tight end position.

Lessons Learned at Tight End

Inconsistent And Unreliable Position

Jason Wood: The tight end position is always less reliable than we expect it to be in the preseason. Early in the season, it looked like the bottom had fallen out for Travis Kelce and Mark Andrews. However, both rebounded strongly in the second half. Trey McBride finished as TE3 despite scoring just one receiving touchdown. It was an odd year; one where many managers found success by playing the hot hand and staying aggressive on the waiver wire.

I have two New Year's resolutions for this position. First, draft McBride next season. Positive touchdown regression could easily make him the No. 1 player at the position by a significant margin. Second, accept that rookie tight ends are no longer built like they used to be. Even the best tight ends in history—Gronkowski, Gonzalez, Sharpe, Gates—needed a season or two to find their footing. But now we've seen Sam LaPorta and Brock Bowers rewrite the record books as rookies in back-to-back seasons.

Tipp Major: Tights ends have been the bane of fantasy football for years. The inconsistency of tight ends was felt yet again. Even fantasy managers dropped Mark Andrews at the beginning of the season due to several dud weeks in a row. Fast forward to the end of the season, where Andrews finished his own streak, scoring a touchdown in each game for over a month. The tight end position is fun to predict, and this next wave of rookies coming in should be a decent class. None will be on the level of Brock Bowers, and that's not because I am a Raiders fan. Bowers broke records this season and could be the TE1 moving forward in redraft.

Jeff Blaylock: I resolve to run away from the position. Too much volatility and randomness from week to week make me not want to draft a tight end before round nine in redraft leagues. Touchdowns were scored by 65 different tight ends in 2024. All but 23 of them scored no more than two touchdowns. Jordan Akins, Payne Durham, Johnny Mundt, and Brock Wright had as many receiving touchdowns as Trey McBride, a consensus top-three tight end in draft rankings.

Just three tight ends averaged 15 point-per-reception (PPR) points per game: Brock Bowers, George Kittle, and McBride. While they gave their drafters a positional advantage of four to six points per game, using premium draft picks to land these elite tight ends meant chasing other positions with higher-scoring potential. I might be willing to risk a high draft pick for McBride, especially if I consider his lack of touchdowns this season as an outlier, but I'll pass on the other top-ranked tight ends.

Draft Elite Early

Jeff Haseley: Generally, I invest in an elite or near-elite tight end early. If I can't get one, I'll target the best available in the later rounds. The tide is turning at the tight end position. Brock Bowers and Trey McBride are dominating targets for their respective team and have a firm role in the offense. Any tight end that exceeds 80 receptions is a roster mainstay. Having 90 or 100+ is another level altogether. Only four tight ends in the top 20 this year were 30 or older. All four were in the top 11. Next year, don't forget about T.J. Hockenson, Dalton Kincaid, and possibly Evan Engram. The ebbs and flows of a career could be swinging in the right direction for that trio in 2025. This is also a prime position to target on the waiver wire after a few weeks have revealed their role on the team and ability to stay healthy.

Colton Dodgson: I firmly believe in the advantage an elite tight end gives you in fantasy. The position is the antithesis of quarterback. As deep as quarterback options are, the pool of quality tight ends couldn't be more shallow after this season. Brock Bowers, George Kittle, and Trey McBride gave managers a significant advantage simply because, in most weeks, no other option could touch their production. Jonnu Smith and Mark Andrews came on in a big way down the stretch. Travis Kelce and Sam LaPorta had their weeks, although they could be considered slight disappointments given their third- or fourth-round price tags. Still, the difference between TE1 Bowers and TE4 Smith was 28.4 points in half-PPR formats.

My resolution is simple – invest heavily in Bowers or McBride. Given where they're at in their careers, they may be only scratching the surface. McBride is a target hog in Arizona's offense, earning double-digit looks in all but one game from Week 12 on in 2024. On the other hand, Bowers turned 153 targets into 112 receptions for 1,194 yards and five touchdowns as a rookie. These guys are world-beaters. If Bowers' ADP climbs too high into the first round, it's McBride or bust.