AJ Barner emerged as the Seattle Seahawks clear TE1 last season. While this didn’t translate into a weekly fantasy relevant role, he had sporadic moments that inspire some level of confidence going forward. Entering the 2026 season fully entrenched as the starting tight end, could Barner take a step forward into a weekly fantasy football starter?
Should You Draft AJ Barner in Fantasy Football?
Barner enters his third NFL season having improved significantly in between his first two. He went from a part time role as a rookie to the featured role as a sophomore. With it, he saw a spike in yardage from 245 to 519 and fantasy production from 4.6 fantasy points per game to 8.7 PPG. Although he only finished as the TE20, Barner was a little more than 1.0 PPG away from weekly streamer status.
On just a 15% target share while only earning a target on 17.1% of his routes run, Barner posted eight weeks of double digit fantasy points including an overall TE1 performance of 24.3 points in Week 5.
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Now, there were certainly some concerning metrics. Barner’s 1.3 yards per route run ranked 30th at the position. He was pretty much exclusively used as a checkdown option with a 4.4 aDOT.
With that said, Barner is still a very young player in just his third season. At 6’6″, 251 pounds, he’s an ideal target in the end zone, which is how he was able to score six touchdowns on just 52 receptions. There’s no reason to think he won’t continue to outperform his expected touchdown rate given his size and stature.
Barner’s Redraft Fantasy Football Value
Let’s start with the negative. No one should need to draft Barner to be their TE1. He has a TE24 ADP, which places him well outside the range of tight ends that are selected in fantasy drafts. But once you get past the clear weekly starters at the position, there’s not much separating the next dozen or so guys, which includes Barner.
By way of comparison, Dalton Kincaid is going off the board as the TE12. Yet, Barner had more usable weeks than him last year. The production gap is not reflected by the ADP gap.
The Seahawks do not have a clear second option in the passing game behind Jaxon Smith-Njigba. It will probably be Rashid Shaheed, but even if Barner can be the third option, that puts him ahead of plenty of tight ends going before him.
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I have Barner ranked as my T225, which is right around consensus. While I am optimistic on him outperforming his ADP expectation, the case for Barner is more that he’s no worse than the tight ends who are taken in every draft, not that he is any sort of difference maker. The point is Barner will be there on the waiver wire if you need him, which should give fantasy managers comfort in waiting until very late in drafts to take a tight end. But he is not someone you need to be drafting.
Barner’s Dynasty Fantasy Football Value
We should be a bit more bullish on Barner in dynasty. He’s only 24 years old and is on a clear upward trajectory. He’s already shown himself to be capable of elite TE1 weeks. There are plenty of tight ends who simply cannot do that.
Barner is tethered to a great offense with a young quarterback and smart head coach. His team just won the Super Bowl. His offense situation is excellent.
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We have Barner up at TE19 in our consensus dynasty rankings, significantly higher than where we have him in redraft. Barner is the type of player you can likely get thrown into a trade without much pushback who could end up being quite useful. He’s not someone you can rely on as your TE1, nor should be the centerpiece of any trade, but Barner is definitely more on the buy side in dynasty.
