The Raiders have seven wins over the past two seasons combined and have posted just one winning campaign since going 12-4 in 2016 when they called Oakland home.
This franchise is struggling, but they’ve got some flashy pieces and are fresh off a draft that was universally praised. Rock bottom appears to be in the rearview mirror, and as progress becomes evident, everyone involved stands to gain value in the fantasy football world.
Should You Draft Brock Bowers in Fantasy Football?
The Bowers profile is beautiful in its simplicity. He missed five games last season and still led this team in catches (64) and touchdown receptions (seven). The team is building around him, but not in a particularly threatening way.
Jalen Nailor was brought over from Minnesota, and Mike Washington Jr. was drafted out of Arkansas, but neither poses a real threat to take food off the plate of one of the most involved young players we’ve seen in recent memory.
Active Players: Leaders in 5+ Catch Games Through 29 Career Contests
- Christian McCaffrey: 21
- Puka Nacua: 21
- Ja’Marr Chase: 20
- Chris Olave: 19
- Bowers: 19
Nailor is a fine player, but his next 30-catch season as a pro will be his first. Washington is an interesting prospect with an NFL-ready body, but the profile is underwhelming, he’s older than Ashton Jeanty, and the draft capital spent (pick #122) hardly demands the Raiders force him into more than a get-Jeanty-a-blow option.
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With Fernando Mendoza in town and those minor tweaks around the outskirts of this roster, there’s a glimmer of hope that an offense that scored 13.6% fewer points than anyone else in 2025 can put their All World tight end in a position to return value, even at an ADP that reflects just how special he is.
Try this one for size. Through two seasons, Bowers’ 17-game AVERAGE is 103 receptions for 1,099 yards and seven scores. That’s what he has taught us to expect from him should he go through a season from start to finish without injury.
That stat line has only been achieved seven times by a tight end during the 2000’s. Seven. And that’s closer to an expectation than an outlier for this machine out of Georgia.
Bowers’ Dynasty Fantasy Football Value
The 23-year-old has a resume that is second to none at this age at that position, and the team is actively trying to build around him. Whether you believe in Mendoza or not, rock bottom seems to be a thing of the past, and Bowers’ stock not only survived it, but it also flourished.
If you wanted to shoehorn him into the very end of the first round of a startup dynasty draft, you’d be able to justify it. Personally, I’d probably lean more into RB/WR at that point (the Drake Londons and De’Von Achanes of the world), but every league is different, and if you believe an elite tight end is your cleanest path to success, he’s in the TE1 conversation with Trey McBride.
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He’s three years younger than McBride and has a QB room with more long-term upside. That’s why he’s my TE1 in dynasty formats, and I feel reasonably good about it despite very much believing in what McBride brings to the table.
The case for him over an RB/WR at the turn is positional value. The league has devalued running backs forever, and it is starting to meaningfully prop up the value of receivers. The RB conversation will always revolve around shelf-life, and I think that’s largely the right approach.
The WR debate is a little more intricate. If the league is telling us that alpha receivers are becoming more important, does it not stand to reason that there will be more of them next year than this year? More in five years than next?
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That’s not to say that the players are getting better, rather that these offenses are more willing to load up their top target with volume. If that trend continues (16 different receivers have at least one 150-target season on their resume over the past three seasons), the top tier at the position in the fantasy world grows.
Supply and demand. As the supply grows, the demand lessens. McBride and Bowers are exceptions. They are part of that “alpha” tier that stands to benefit from this shift, but they play a position that lacks depth in that regard.
With game-breaking WRs being all the rage in the “real” game, these tight ends that can lap the field become more valuable to us, and Bowers’ stock is set to rise as a result. Think of him like Apple: if you refused to buy in because you weren’t getting in at a cheap number, how did that go for you?
