\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\nThe 49ers are never more than 2 minutes from a major drama. But Kittle is rarely at the heart of any of them. And there\u2019s no reason to believe they won\u2019t find themselves at the top of the NFC again next season, so he\u2019ll be an integral part of their offense.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nIn 2023 Kittle\u2019s fantasy points average of 12.7 per game was the fourth-highest average for a tight end. He had his first 1,000+ receiving yards season since 2019, but he only caught 6 touchdowns. Kittle\u2019s average of 15.5 yards per touch was his best since 2018. And he missed a game.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n6. David Njoku<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\nThere have been a few changes in Cleveland, as Alex Van Pelt left and became the Patriots\u2019 offensive coordinator. And it seems like they\u2019re committed to the Deshaun Watson experience, even if Joe Flacco threw more touchdowns last season. But whoever is throwing the passes Njoku is incredibly difficult to stop once he\u2019s caught a pass.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n7. Jake Ferguson<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\nThe Cowboys are the 49ers wannabes in the NFC. They\u2019ll brush most opponents away, but it all goes a bit sideways in the playoffs. And Ferguson is the Cowboys’ version of Kittle. Thankfully the postseason wobbles won\u2019t have any impact on his fantasy value. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nOnly CeeDee Lamb saw more targets for the Cowboys in 2023 and Ferguson hauled in 69.9% of the\u00a0102 passes\u00a0thrown in his direction. And his 23 red zone targets led all tight ends. It was the same number as Amon-Ra St Brown and D.K Metcalf saw. But Ferguson only caught 5 touchdowns. There\u2019s definite room for improvement even though he scored 177.4 fantasy points last season.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n8. Trey McBride<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\nThe Cardinals struggled to get McBride involved in the offense during his rookie season. But in his sophomore year, he was an integral part of the offense. And Kyler Murray seemed to particularly enjoy passing to a tight end who always finds the space in defenses.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nMcBride only started 12 games in 2023 but he still led the Cardinals with 106 targets and 81 receptions. The general consensus seems to be that the Cardinals will draft Marvin Harrison Jr. And while he may take some of McBride\u2019s target share, he will also open up even more spaces in defenses. So, McBride should still be a prominent part of the Cardinals passing game. \u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n9. Brock Bowers<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\nThe rookie out of Georgia seems destined to land in Cincinnati, so he\u2019ll be catching passes from Joe Burrow. And what\u2019s not to love about that?<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nHe scored 31 touchdowns in 3 seasons in Georgia. And 6 of those were rushing touchdowns. And he averaged 14.1 yards per touch during his college career. The step from college star to consistent NFL tight end isn\u2019t always an easy one though. But it\u2019s difficult to imagine Bowers won\u2019t be a serious red-zone threat for whoever drafts him.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n10. Taysom Hill<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\nHe\u2019s at tight end, right? Well, he is for fantasy purposes. Last season Hill was one of the bright spots of a clunky Saints offense. He scored four rushing touchdowns and caught two touchdown passes. And he threw two touchdown passes too.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nMain Photo Credit: Jay Biggerstaff-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tight end rankings depend on how a team uses their tight end. They don’t all catch passes regularly, but some offenses revolve around them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1277,"featured_media":138274,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[54,32631,59],"tags":[7811,9622,7004,294,1960,8880,7638,2269,339],"class_list":["post-162886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editorials","category-dynasty","category-fantasy","tag-chiefs-featured","tag-dalton-kincaid","tag-dalton-schultz","tag-fantasy-football","tag-george-kittle","tag-jake-ferguson","tag-ravens-featured","tag-tight-ends","tag-travis-kelce"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1277"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162886\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}