Brock Bowers enters his third NFL season as the consensus top tight end in fantasy football. He has spent his first two years producing in some of the worst offensive conditions imaginable. Las Vegas has a new play-caller and an unsettled situation at quarterback. Should fantasy managers pay up for Bowers in 2026?
Should You Draft Brock Bowers in Fantasy Football?
Start with Bowers’ ADP in PFN’s Free Fantasy Mock Draft Simulator: 22.0. That is the latter portion of the 2nd round, around the 2-3 turn. He is our overall TE1 in the consensus rankings from me and my colleague Kyle Soppe. His projected fantasy points per game are 16.73.
I’m going to have to say it: that feels a bit low to me. I’m looking at his 2025 finish. He was the TE2 in fantasy points per game on an offense that was bottom five in PFN impact score. That has been the case in each of his two seasons, including his rookie year.
I am not one who likes to pay up for a tight end in drafts. In this case, you do have to do it. The reason is that if you take a tight end in the 2nd round, you’re putting yourself behind the eight ball at receiver and running back, because you can get a starting-caliber tight end in the last round or on the waiver wire. You can get 10 points per game from your tight end position just streaming it. Is Bowers better than that? Of course he’s better than that. He’s way better than that. But is he so much better that you’re passing on a running back or receiver? Usually no.
But I see a path this year for Bowers to truly break fantasy football. He posted top-three finishes in each of his first two seasons, at 15.5 and 14.7 fantasy points per game. He did it under less-than-ideal circumstances. Last year, he averaged a 23.6% target share and a 22.2% targets-per-route-run rate while dealing with a sprained PCL. As we’ve seen with plenty of other players like Ricky Pearsall, Dalton Kincaid, and Drake London, PCL injuries are no joke. They can derail an entire season, and they kind of did that with Bowers. Yet he still overcame it enough to come close to returning the cost that fantasy managers paid to draft him last year. All those numbers have room to grow.
This year, the whole situation is different. Last year, Bowers had to deal with abysmal quarterback play. I don’t think Geno Smith is as bad as he showed last year, but his play was not starting level at all. Then he had Chip Kelly as his offensive coordinator, who was so bad that, despite being the highest-paid OC in history, he was fired midseason. He couldn’t even make it through the year. Then, of course, Pete Carroll was supposed to be the reclamation project for this team. What happened? He was one and done.
Now, they’ve got Kirk Cousins at quarterback, who I expect to start Week 1 and then eventually give way to Fernando Mendoza. Both of them are upgrades over what the Raiders had last year. Of course, we have Klint Kubiak. The reason I’m really excited about Kubiak, aside from his being one of the brightest young offensive minds in the NFL, is that he has proven that he wants to hyper-target his top pass catcher. Last year, that was Jaxon Smith-Njigba in Seattle. This year, his de facto WR1 is Bowers.
Look at the other players catching passes on this team. Their wide receiver rotation consists of Tre Tucker, Jalen Nailor, Jack Bech, and Malik Benson. Are any of these guys a threat to Bowers? Absolutely not. Bowers is going to lead this team in targets by a mile.
In my bold predictions article, I claimed that Bowers will post the greatest season for a tight end we have ever seen in fantasy football. I stand by that. I’m still not going to take Bowers in the early part of the 2nd round, but if he falls to the back part of the 2nd round, I am absolutely willing to push the button on getting an elite WR1 at the tight end position.
FANTASY RANKINGS: PFN’s FREE Fantasy PPR, Half-PPR, and Non-PPR Rankings
Brock Bowers’ Week 1 Fantasy Outlook
Analysis provided by PFN Analyst Kyle Soppe.
If you need me to tell you to play Bowers with the utmost confidence, why did you draft him?
The DFS streets are a different animal with a price tag attached, but I still think you can feel fine about playing him. In 2025, the ‘Fins allowed a TE to score double-digit PPR points 11 times, a list that includes a TE that Baltimore didn’t want to keep in Charlie Kolar (41 targets earned in 47 career games) and a TE that couldn’t sway New York from spending up at the position in April.
Twice. Yes, Mason Taylor is on that list twice.
Bowers averages over 34 routes per game through two professional seasons and has earned at least a handful of targets in 86.2% of his games. He’s going to be on the field, he’s going to be heavily involved, and, for once, the Raiders have an implied point total over 20, something that is far from a lock to happen on a consistent basis.
Oh yeah, and Bowers had a cool 13-126-1 performance in Miami last November. That’s good for business, and while we can argue about the strategy of paying up for TE until the cows come home, this matchup figures to be a good one for the “pro” side of that debate.
START PREPARING: PFN’s FREE Fantasy Draft Simulator
Where Bowers Ranks Among 2026 Tight Ends
- Brock Bowers | LV
- Trey McBride | ARI
- Colston Loveland | CHI
- Tucker Kraft | GB
- Tyler Warren | IND
- Sam LaPorta | DET
- George Kittle | SF
- Harold Fannin Jr. | CLE
- Kyle Pitts Sr. | ATL
- Dalton Kincaid | BUF
- Isaiah Likely | NYG
Want more? PFN's 2026 PPR Rankings have 200+ players ranked.
