PPR Rankings: TE

Bowers is the consensus No. 1 fantasy tight end, following a debut campaign with the most receptions by a rookie in NFL history (112) and a rookie-TE record of 1,194 receiving yards. Both totals led NFL tight ends in 2024, as did Bowers’ 153 targets. That production came despite the 4-13 Raiders having some of the worst QB play in the NFL from a combination of Gardner Minshew, Aidan O’Connell and Desmond Ridder. Vegas will have better QB play after trading for Geno Smith, who lacks proven pass catchers beyond Bowers and WR Jakobi Meyers. Bowers may nonetheless have a hard time matching last year’s target volume after the Raiders hired running-game aficionado Chip Kelly as their offensive coordinator. Still, there’s potential for more touchdowns and big plays if the offense improves. The upgrade at quarterback may help Bowers break the trend of sophomore slumps among exceptional rookie tight ends— the previous six TEs with 800+ yards as rookies all saw their yardage totals decline by at least 158 yards the following season.

After taking roughly a season and a half to acclimate, McBride has now delivered elite production for an equal stretch of time, dating back to mid-2023. His 111 catches and 1,146 receiving yards in 2024 were second most among TEs, behind only Brock Bowers, with McBride continuing his torrid pace from the final 10 games of 2023 (66 catches for 655 yards). The lone drawback in 2024 was a lack of receiving touchdowns (two, plus a third rushing) despite ranking second in the NFL with 22 red-zone targets. He has just six TDs among his 221 career receptions, but he did score in Weeks 17 and 18 of last season. The usage hints at potential for a big jump forward in TDs, even with WR Marvin Harrison providing solid competition for Kyler Murray's red-zone targets. Among tight ends, only Bowers has a similar volume ceiling, with McBride's 147 targets last year being the sixth-highest total among TEs over the past 12 seasons. He'll likely take a slight step back from last season’s average of 9.2 targets per game, especially if Harrison makes a second-year leap to stardom, but that might also be a scenario in which Arizona's offense improves and sets up McBride for more TDs.

Kittle has aged like fine wine, with his 2,126 receiving yards over the last two seasons easily the most among tight ends. His 14 TDs in that span are third most, trailing only the 17 apiece of Sam LaPorta and Mark Andrews. While he seems to suffer multiple injuries every year, Kittle often manages to fight through them, falling shy of 14 regular-season appearances only once in eight NFL seasons. He has surpassed 1,000 yards four times, including each of the last two seasons. There is one less mouth to feed in San Francisco after WR Deebo Samuel was traded to Washington in the offseason, while RB Christian McCaffrey and WR Brandon Aiyuk are coming back from season-ending injuries. Relative to other top tight ends, Kittle relies on per-target efficiency rather than volume, having finished last season seventh at the position with 94 targets. He made up for it by ranking second among TEs (50-catch min.) in both yards before the catch (7.5) and yards after the catch (6.7), sporting a high catch rate and tons of YAC despite getting some downfield looks. Kittle's talent is the main driver of that annual efficiency, but it helps when Kyle Shanahan and QB Brock Purdy have the passing game humming in general -- and even more so when McCaffrey or one of the starting WRs is injured.

LaPorta took a step back after his outstanding rookie season, dipping from 86 catches for 889 yards and 10 touchdowns in 2023 (on 120 targets) to 60 catches for 726 yards and seven TDs in 2024 (83 targets). There’s plenty of success to go around on a Lions offense that led the NFL with 33.2 points per game last season, but RBs Jahmyr Gibbs and David Montgomery tend to eat first, and Amon-Ra St. Brown is still the top pass catcher. That makes it tough to project big-time volume for LaPorta or Jameson Williams, who broke out in 2024 with his first 1,000-yard season while getting only eight more targets than LaPorta. The tight end did improve later in the season after a slow start, scoring double-digit PPR points in his final seven games (including playoffs) and recording six or more targets in each of his last nine. LaPorta’s 17 TDs since he came into the league are tied for the most among TEs over that span, and his 20 red-zone targets in 2024 were fifth most at the position, so he should keep scoring plenty of TDs under new offensive coordinator John Morton. The question is whether LaPorta can also match his target volume from 2023 and the latter part of 2024, rather than slumping to a lesser role like he did for the first half of last season (3.6 targets per game).

Hockenson played the final 10 games of the 2024 season, returning from a torn ACL suffered at the end of 2023, but he never quite regained his pre-injury form, finishing with 455 receiving yards and no touchdowns. He caught 95 of 127 targets for 960 yards and five TDs in 2023, ranking second among TEs in targets and catches, as well as fourth in yards. A normal offseason without rehabbing from major surgery should help Hockenson regain explosiveness for his age-28 campaign ahead, but he’ll have to jostle for targets with the standout WR duo of Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison in an offense quarterbacked by an unknown quantity, 2024 first-round pick J.J. McCarthy. While Hockenson was a fantasy starter for years in Detroit even with poor QB play, it wasn't until playing with Kirk Cousins that he became a high-end TE1 rather than a mid-range option. A return to the first tier of tight ends, or at least to the second tier, will depend on Hockenson regaining his pre-injury athleticism and McCarthy being an adequate starting QB.