RELATED: See lessons learned at all other positions:
Quarterbacks | Running Backs | Wide Receivers | 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.

Look for Tight Ends in Good Positions

Andy Hicks - Every year, players come from the free agent pool to be fantasy starters at tight end. Jonnu Smith, Zach Ertz, and Tucker Kraft this year. The elite options, though, tend to be reliable. Travis Kelce, George Kittle, Trey McBride, and Mark Andrews started the season as expected top six receivers and ended there. Second-year players Dalton Kincaid and Sam LaPorta were expected to join them following promising rookie years. They did not meet expectations following players like Kyle Pitts in previous years. Like Jason, I would be loading up on Trey McBride in particular. Brock Bowers will have a much higher ADP with a new head coach, quarterback, and offensive scheme. He is a major risk to regress.

Dave Kluge: Like quarterbacks, the optimal strategy for drafting tight ends the last few years has been "Great or Late." If you drafted Travis Kelce or Mark Andrews, you nearly guaranteed yourself a top-two tight end. If you missed them, you'd wait for a late-round breakout, which seemed to surface yearly. This year, however, preseason ADP looked nothing like end-of-season finishes. A significant guard change is happening, as long-time steady contributors are falling down the ranks, and guys on rookie contracts are solidifying themselves. As with previous years, those who finished highly in fantasy were top target-earners on their teams. When drafting next year, look for players with a short route to the top of their receiving game's pecking order.

Rachel Tootsiepop: My resolution going into 2025 is to prioritize drafting Trey McBride or wait and pick up players like Tucker Kraft or Jonnu Smith. All three were viable options on fantasy rosters this year due to being target leaders and big-time playmakers for their teams. Though McBride only had two touchdowns on the year, that's bound to change next season. He more than made up for it by garnering fantasy points via his 1,146 receiving yards. With seven and eight touchdowns, respectively, Kraft and Smith proved that solidifying receiving roles on their offenses allowed them to finish in the top ten.

The Yards After Carry Factor

Jeff Bell: YAC is king

Travis Kelce and whatever players had touchdown luck dominated the position for years. Robert Tonyan Jr was TE3 during a season with 586 yards.

The 2024 season saw an explosion in players serving in creative offensive roles. Jonnu Smith is the poster child for this evolution. In his first seven seasons, Smith topped 41 receptions and 448 yards once. Multiple teams struggled to find a role for him in their offense. The Dolphins unlocked him, giving him opportunities to create with the ball in space, and the result was 88 receptions for 884 yards. There have been 40 tight end seasons of 88 and 880 yards, with 17 coming since 2018.

Corey Spala - Jeff Bell noted the importance of having a tight end who can gain yards after the catch. Furthermore, this emphasizes athletic tight ends. A lesson within this lesson is not falling into make-believe. The main example is Kyle Pitts, and a lesser example would be a healthy Jelani Woods. The importance of the position generates value when understanding the environment surrounding the tight end. Is the tight end athletic enough? Is he in the right scheme? Does he have the opportunity to provide value? You do want a tight end who will finish at the top of their team in targets; often, this may be due to unforeseen circumstances such as injuries. For example, Jonnu Smith finished second in Miami with 111 targets; he was drafted at TE26 and 197th overall.

If you miss out on Trey McBride, George Kittle, and Brock Bowers for 2025, you should want to find the later-round tight ends who can provide the yards-after-catch value. In 2024, Smith and Bowers provided this value for championships with their draft position to season-end-finish relation. Further importance would be an emphasis on identifying scheme and opportunity, while hoping you get lucky.

The league is full of copycats, and in 2025, grabbing tight ends who can serve as yards-after-the-catch compilers will be key.

Exercise Caution

Will Grant: In leagues where you are required to start a tight end every week, I usually try to target one of the top two or three players in the draft and go with one on my roster until I need a bye-week filler. This has worked very well for the last several years, but not in 2024. I took Travis Kelce in the second round. While he still finished as the #5 fantasy tight end, there was plenty of value to be had later in the draft, and I could have waited.

The strategy would have worked perfectly had I drafted Brock Bowers, who finished in the top spot for fantasy tight ends this season and had nearly twice as many points as the #12 player David Njoku. But that's obviously with the benefit of the season being over. Even people high on Bowers going into the season nabbed him two or three rounds after the top picks like Kelce and LaPorta.

My resolution for next season is to cautiously approach the tight end position, looking for mid-round value with mid-tier tight ends in good positions. Sam LaPorta will probably be drafted high, even though he underperformed this season. Bowers and Trey McBride will also probably be near the top of the draft. I'll wait to target someone like Tucker Kraft or Pat Freiermuth and focus on quarterbacks and running backs with my early picks.

Bob Harris: The idea of streaming at this position is far more appealing than the reality of streaming at this position. There will undoubtedly be times when circumstances force me to dive into the murky waters of outlier tight ends. This year, the less I have to do that, the better I'll feel about my teams.

Your 2025 Strategy at Tight End

Understanding and knowing that the tight end position is unpredictable is half the battle. One approach for the 2025 drafting season is to draft elite early. If you end up waiting, pay attention to tight ends in good situations and those who produce yards after carry. Be ready to pivot and stream when needed.