Each year, tight ends were consistently a big advantage within the Top-3 – Travis Kelce, Mark Andrews and George Kittle. They were, for a few seasons, the only difference-makers in the position and if you didn’t reach one of them, most drafters just waited until at least Round 6 to draft one, and it would be about Round 11 before all teams had their TE1.
Not anymore.
For tight ends, 2023 was a historic shift. It was well established that rookie tight ends never had fantasy relevancy until their second season at the earliest. But that was all shattered. Kelce and Kittle still delivered but Mark Andrews missed six games.
Sam LaPorta broke all the rules. The Detroit rookie ended as the No. 1 fantasy tight end. Second-year Cardinal Trey McBride was the No. 7 with a furious end to his season. The Bills rookie Dalton Kincaid stepped up to become a fantasy starter by the end of the year.
In 2023, nine tight ends scored over 175 fantasy points. In 2022, there were only four. Tight ends are contributing more fantasy points than ever, and the reality is that no longer is it “Top-3 or forget it.” That increased value for starting fantasy tight ends changed how they are drafted.
Let’s break down where the average best ball draft takes tight ends.
Average draft position for best ball tight ends
First off, this is where the Top-24 tight ends are drafted in the average best ball draft this summer. It’s similar to traditional leagues.
This is a change from 2023, when Travis Kelce was a first-rounder, and Mark Andrews and T.J. Hockenson went in the third or fourth rounds to reward them for their fine 2022 season, but then both would lose much of their season to injury.
The Top-10 last until Round 8 this year, but extended to Round 9 in 2023. The plus for drafters is that there were so many fantasy-relevant tight ends last year that drafters wait longer before taking them and burn through the Top-10 with two taken in each of Round 5 to Round 8.
As a big proponent of getting an elite tight end on my fantasy team, those Top-3 are much cheaper this year, thanks to higher perceived value from the rest.
Mixing and matching tight ends
Since every week matters, I gave each tight end their average fantasy game score from 2022 to replace any missing games. That changed the order a bit from what actually happened, but nothing dramatic.
Here are the Top-24 once their missed games were replaced.
The bang for the buck was less in 2023, without a dominating No. 1 and No. 2 who had greatly outscored the rest of the position. That’s why we’re seeing the position not drafted until the third round.
The Top-9 fantasy tight ends were still over 200 PPR points and the difference between the No. 1 and No. 7 were only 33 points. For best ball purposes, consider the above Top-24 and how each did in producing games with 15+ fantasy points.
This is really very telling. In 2022, Kelce produced 13 games with 15+ points and became a fantasy first-rounder. However, only Mark Andrews and George Kittle managed six of those games that year, and no one else managed more than four. In 2023, the Top-3 all tied with seven each and then nine tight ends turned in at least five such games. That blew away the previous season.
Notable too in this look is that George Kittle showed he is still feast or famine with monster performances balanced by only minor games otherwise.
Getting a Top-8 tight end is an advantage and almost no one ever drafts their second tight end before the eighth one is selected. The same phenomenon happens with fantasy quarterbacks. You just will not get much from your TE2 even when optimal scoring is done in a best ball league.
Bottom Line
The tight end as a fantasy position subtly underwent significant change in 2023. That elite Top-3 did not distinguish themselves nearly so well from the rest of the pack and the best tight end was a rookie that often was undrafted in many leagues.
It still pays to own a top tight end, same as it is an advantage in any fantasy position. But the payoff isn’t nearly as large as it had been in recent years. And that is reflected in how they are drafted, with the Top-2 gone by Round 4 and then an even two-player drain each round to finish out the ten best fantasy tight ends.
The good news is that you do not have to reach nearly as early to be solid at your tight end. The bad news is that the advantage that is offered has decreased.