RADIO
Tight end is one of the most important positions in fantasy football, and this season, there are a plethora of capable, young, athletic options mixing in with the old guard of Travis Kelce, George Kittle, and Mark Andrews.
The best part is that you don't have to spend draft capital in the first two rounds of your fantasy football draft to get a top name, with Sam LaPorta coming off of the draft board in the third round. But should he be? The fact that there are questions about whether LaPorta should be the top tight end in fantasy this season really illustrates the strength of the position as a whole.
Who are the fantasy football tight ends you must have in the 2024 season? Let's dive in.
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Travis Kelce, Kansas City Chiefs
ADP: TE2
Travis Kelce has been one of the fantasy stalwarts at tight end for almost a decade now, but Kelce's reign was usurped by Sam LaPorta's amazing rookie season, where he was the TE1 in total fantasy points. However, Kelce was TE1 (tied with T.J. Hockenson) with 14.6 fantasy points per game last season, so he's not quite dead yet.
Heading into his age-35 season in 2024, Kelce is still earning targets at a fantastic rate at just shy of 20% last season, and his yards per route run remains very strong for a tight end at 1.92. As he's getting older, Kelce's aDOT has steadily declined from 2020's 9.3-yard mark to 6.9 yards. While it's certainly possible Kelce's athleticism continues to fall off, his immediate impact remains as sound as it's ever been. He's the top target in a Chiefs offense quarterbacked by Patrick Mahomes, who looks to improve from a lackluster 2023.
After leading the NFL in EPA/pass in 2022, the Chiefs stumbled to 14th in 2023 and responded by reshaping their wide- receiver room with Xavier Worthy and Marquise Brown. Those moves, plus Rashee Rice, should boost this offense back into one of the best in the league again. Any efficiency and explosiveness from the wide receivers will take attention off Kelce.
Only TEs to post a 2.0+ YPRR vs single and two-high defenses last season (min 150 routes vs each)
- Travis Kelce
- Trey McBrideData: @FantasyPtsData
— Football Insights 📊 (@fball_insights) March 5, 2024
The bet for Kelce in 2024 is him being a target monster in a much more efficient Chiefs offense than last season. While Kelce may be more of a compiler at this stage of his career, that's not exactly a bad thing for a tight end. Kelce still has plenty of spike weeks left for fantasy managers to take advantage of in 2024 and a return to finishing as the overall TE1 is still in play.
Kyle Pitts, Atlanta Falcons
ADP: TE8
After the last two seasons that saw Kyle Pitts get bogged down by the offensive environment in Atlanta, he'll look to shake off the Arthur Smith "leather helmet era" of Falcons football to post his best fantasy finish since his 2021 rookie season in 2024. Pitts is not far removed from a 110-target, 1,000-yard season as a rookie at age 21, and with a new offensive coordinator, new quarterback, and new offensive scheme, Pitts is primed for a huge bounce-back season.
In 2023, the Falcons were at the bottom of the NFL in terms of pass rate over expected (PROE) and were second lowest to only the 49ers in raw pass rate at just 55%. Dial that back to 2022, and you’ll see the same trend: the Falcons are posting the second-lowest percentage in PROE and have a league-low 48% raw pass rate. It's extremely difficult for any pass-catcher to thrive in those conditions, but the cherry on top was Smith using ancillary players regularly, like MyCole Pruitt, Jonnu Smith, Mack Hollins, and others, while essentially running out Pitts and fellow first-rounder Drake London as decoys at times.
Kyle Pitts through his first two seasons (27 games):
- 23.5% target per route run rate
- 1.92 yards per route runGeorge Kittle through his initial 27 career games:
- 21.5% TPRR
- 1.94 YPRRTravis Kelce through 27 career games:
- 22.4% TPRR
- 2.10 YPRR— Jacob Gibbs (@jagibbs_23) March 27, 2024
Exit Arthur Smith and his propensity to run the ball into the stone age; enter Raheem Morris, offensive coordinator Zac Robinson, and new quarterback Kirk Cousins for 2024. The reins are given to Robinson and Cousins to lead this offense with an offensive fitting of today's NFL, with more pass attempts and 11 personnel utilization this season.
No team used 11 personnel less than the Falcons last season, using three wide receivers on just 16% of their total plays. In contrast, the Los Angeles Rams -- led by former Rams passing game coordinator and now Falcons OC Robinson -- used the most 11 personnel in the NFL with a whopping 93% utilization.
Robinson worked under both Sean McVay and future Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell as an assistant quarterbacks coach and eventually passing game coordinator and quarterbacks coach from 2019-2023. Both McVay and O’Connell have used limited offensive personnel as head coaches with the Rams and Vikings, respectively. When healthy, their starting wide receivers and tight ends rarely come out of the game.
Last season, Cooper Kupp was utilized in 100% of routes per dropback in 7-of-12 games, with two other games above 97%. Puka Nacua played all 17 games last season, ran 100% of routes five times, and had routes per dropback above 87% in nine other games.
In 2022, both Justin Jefferson and Adam Thielen ran the most routes of any player in the NFL -- they were the top two. K.J. Osborn was not too far behind at 14th, just behind Kelce and Garrett Wilson. Simply put, not only will there be a drastic increase of the pass plays for the Falcons offense in 2024, but also the concentration of routes to the starting players and more opportunity for the likes of Pitts, Drake London, and others to cash in for fantasy football.
With Pitts still sitting behind the elites at tight end like Mark Andrews, Dalton Kincaid, and others in ADP, he legitimately may be the best pick at tight end this season. If you ask me, the best overall pick regardless of position.
Dallas Goedert, Philadelphia Eagles
ADP: TE11
The tight-end position in fantasy football is one of the deepest positions this season, where the top options are bunched up together. After those top options, the next couple of tiers of the position tend to fall in drafts, and that's where Dallas Goedert resides this season. In the last two seasons, Goedert was firmly entrenched as a top-six option in ADP, requiring some premium draft capital to get him. This season, you can find him in Round 10, which is pretty astounding value.
Not much has changed for Goedert over the last couple of seasons; he set career highs in targets, receptions, and target share in 2023. However, his yards per target and yards per route run both cratered last season. Some of that may have to do with how the Eagles closed out their 2023 campaign. Spoiler alert: it was not good.
The Eagles suffered from a glaring lack of big plays in the second half of last season, as they were 26th in the league from Week 13-18 with only 16 plays of 20 or more yards. Add on the fact that they were 30th in plays of 25 or more yards with just seven, and you can see just how deficient the Eagles were on offense last season as they stumbled into the playoffs losing five of their final six games.
The lack of motion in their offense was also a detriment to the Eagles offense, as they were dead last in the NFL in pre-snap motion (25.7%) and motion at the snap, utilizing it at just a 10.9% clip, per ESPN Stats and Info. New offensive coordinator Kellen Moore should be able to increase the amount of big plays and use motion to be able to spring not just Goedert but A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith as well on an offense that became very stagnant as the season went on.
The pendulum has swung too far in the other direction regarding Goedert's fantasy value in 2024. You could make the argument that Goedert may have been too pricey in the last two seasons, but in 2024, he's looking like a screaming value. Goedert, Brown, and Smith combined for 65% of the targets last season for the Eagles, so we know this offense, like the Miami Dolphins and Cincinnati Bengals, is highly consolidated to a select few target-earners.
Getting Goedert at his current price in fantasy drafts as a key cog of an offense that can get back to being incredibly efficient is a huge win. I'd rather have Goedert than Jake Ferguson or David Njoku straight up as Goedert is typically drafted after both and is a much better bet on a team's sustainable offensive environment than Ferguson or Njoku on the Cowboys or Browns, respectively.
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