Tight end has quietly become one of the biggest swing spots in fantasy football, and Week 14 is no exception, with playoff races tightening up. Between ascending options in high-powered offenses and volume-driven streamers in messy situations, there are more viable paths to production than the waiver wire might suggest at first glance.
If you’re willing to live with a bit of volatility, this week’s slate offers several tight ends who can stabilize a fragile roster or give it just enough juice to steal a win.
AJ Barner | SEA (at ATL)
It’s not comfortable, but I think you can get away with AJ Barner this week and as a low-end TE1 the rest of the way.
One of every 6.3 routes run this season by the 23-year-old has resulted in a reception. While you can fight based on the value of those catches (9.7 yards per catch and held without a TD reception since Week 5), he’s an efficient and consistent player for a very good team, an environment that elevates him above the other names on your wire.
Barner has caught all 12 of his third-down targets this season and has nine rushing attempts, seven of which have come in the past six games. There might be 20 tight ends with a higher weekly ceiling than Barner, but I don’t think there are 12 with a better base projection, and that’s enough to stabilize a roster that is grasping for straws at the position.
Brenton Strange | JAX (vs IND)
Brenton Strange has now cleared 13 PPR points in consecutive games after missing more than a month, and with the Jaguars seemingly set to peak at the right time, why move on?
The 21-yard score last week was his first of the season, a well thought out seam route on their third drive (his first target of the week). There are a few mouths to feed in this passing game, and it’s fair to question how often Trevor Lawrence will keep them all happy. Still, there was a clear top-3 in terms of routes run (Strange, Jakobi Meyers, and Brian Thomas Jr. all ran over 25 while no other pass catcher touched 20), and if you’re buying what this franchise is selling, you could make the case to start any of them.
To keep it in the division, isn’t Strange essentially Dalton Schultz? An up-and-down QB with a pedigree that has two receivers he trusts, but the tight end as a safety valve ends up being appealing 4-7 times per game.
Schultz scored 12.5 points in this matchup last week (24.8% above his season average, the fourth time in six games that a TE has produced at least that far ahead of his season mark against Indy), and I think that’s a perfectly reasonable baseline here.
Strange enters Week 14 ranked as my TE7.
Brock Bowers | LV (vs DEN)
Brock Bowers’ first touchdown last week was a nice play design by interim OC Greg Olson that helped him uncover in the back of the end zone and the second one was just a great player making a great play.
It’s been a bumpy season for the consensus top TE entering this season, most of it not really his fault. The QB play has been subpar (yes, it’s the holiday season and I felt like being kind) and an injury cost him more than a month.
That said, if you’ve managed to navigate the position up to his point, you have an asset that ranks behind only Trey McBride moving forward.
He’s been worthy of your trust in three straight games following the bizarre one-catch, three-target showing against the Broncos and it’s safe to assume such production moving forward.
It’s never going to be comfortable betting on a Geno Smith target, but it’s scarier to fade a talent at the level of a Bowers.
Cade Otton | TB (vs NO)
The Bucs are getting healthy-ish and that means our dance with Cade Otton is coming to an end.
We’ve seen it for a few years now that whenever Baker Mayfield has other viable places to go with the ball, he does. There’s a reason why Otton has never reached 60 receptions, five touchdowns, or cleared 600 receiving yards in a season.
Chris Godwin’s Week 13 stat line won’t jump off the page at you, but he made a few splash plays and looked like 85% Chris Godwin, a great sign for this offense, but a damning one if you were banking on their TE to finish the fantasy season as an asset.
Cardio Cade turned 29 routes against the Cardinals into nine yards, and I think we see more of that than the 5-7 catch performances we were getting in the middle third of the season.
Chig Okonkwo | TEN (at CLE)
Chig Okonkwo might be an interesting piece for the Titans to hold onto during the Cam Ward developmental stage, but there’s no reason for fantasy managers to grin and bear it.
Despite being on the field plenty (25.5 routes run per game), Okonkwo has just one game with 60+ receiving yards and doesn’t have a touchdown this season (or even an end zone target for that matter). In a perfect situation, you’d have to work hard to sell me on a Titan and in a game that could be a race to 18 points, no chance.
Cole Kmet | CHI (at GB)
Cole Kmet’s touchdown on Thanksgiving helped put the game out of reach, a massive play for the Bears, but one not felt by many fantasy managers.
And I think that’s right.
He’s on the field plenty with Chicago, not afraid to run out two tight ends, but it’s clear who they value more as a receiver, and that was the case last week, even if Kmet was the one dancing in the end zone.
- Kmet: 68.2% snap share, targeted on 5.2% of snaps and 15.8% of routes
- Colston Loveland: 58.8% snap share, targeted on 12% of snaps and 24% of routes
Kmet still has just one game this season with more than five targets earned and this isn’t the type of offense built to sustain two at the position. He’s meant more to the Bears than to us for 13 weeks and I fully expect that to be the case for the remainder of this season.
Colston Loveland | CHI (at GB)
It’s been a bit of a slow burn for Colston Loveland managers, especially when you juxtapose his season with that of Tyler Warren.
Thanksgiving was more of the same: positive underlying trends, but limited production. The former Wolverine has cleared 55 receiving yards just once this season and has fallen into the “OK, I’m getting 3-4 catches for 40-50” bucket at the position.
That’s not the most fun, but it’s enough to keep Loveland on rosters with the weekly hope that Ben Johnson unlocks him in a specific matchup.
If he was a receiver with this production profile, we wouldn’t be waiting on the pedigree in this run-centric offense, but because he’s not, we are.
Dallas Goedert | PHI (at LAC)
I feel like I say it every week in this space, just using different numbers to illustrate the same point.
Dallas Goedert isn’t a viable fantasy tight end.
You’re chasing a touchdown in a run-based offense that is struggling to move the ball in any fashion. Goedert’s name is familiar, but with three straight two-catch performances, what exactly are you waiting for?
He’s not going to jump up the pecking order of this offense, and with under five targets in four of his past six, it’s clear that there simply isn’t a role to chase.
For the season, 27.3% of his receiving yards came in that big game against the Giants back in Week 6, a blowout home loss.
You can do better on the wire, even if you’re trading in more of a brand name for a lesser resume.
Dalton Kincaid | BUF (vs CIN)
It came down to the wire last week, but this hamstring injury was enough of a concern to Dalton Kincaid for one more week.
With him practicing ahead of Week 13, prevailing wisdom has him being active for this advantageous spot. If you’ve been waiting on Kincaid, that means you lack optionality at the position and are going to plug him in when given the opportunity to do so.
Cincinnati has proven allergic to guarding the position for two seasons now, and we know that Kincaid has TD equity at the very least (one of every nine targets this season has resulted in a score). The floor is low because the target earning skills are a work in progress (36 in eight games) and an injury like this could act up in-game, but he’s better than what is available in most leagues and that’s really all you’re looking for.
Dalton Schultz | HOU (at KC)
Nobody is going to fall in love with the upside of Dalton Schultz, but I encourage you to look at the position more than the boxscores.
Since the Week 6 bye, Schultz has been a TE1 in five of seven games, getting there almost solely based on volume 8+ targets in four of his past five games).
This offensive line struggles to run block, and with Jayden Higgins working his way into the WR2 role, the receivers C.J. Stroud is looking at most are vertical options. That means that Schultz is, in some capacity, their running game via short passes.
I wouldn’t bet “overs” on his yardage totals, but you don’t need the yards if the receptions are piling up as they have for him this season (5+ grabs in nine of his past 11).
The Chiefs are going to aim to pressure Stroud and take away Nico Collins: yes, their defense is talented, but isn’t that the perfect run out for a low aDOT TE like Schultz?
Darren Waller | MIA (at NYJ)
Darren Waller missed the required four games with the pectoral injury that landed him on IR in the middle of October, and he looked reasonably healthy against the Saints.
He tied with Malik Washington for the second most routes run on Sunday and we know what the Dolphins think of him: catch passes, don’t worry about blocking. That role works into our favor and I was encouraged to see him record Miami’s first catch of Week 13.
We even got a splashy play (34 yards) in the second quarter, though that was more a product of New Orleans going with the bold strategy of not guarding his side of the field.
He checked the boxes we needed, but Waller was shut out in the second half, and let’s not act like he was making fantasy waves earlier in the season because of his ability to earn looks (15 targets in his five games this season).
There was an end zone target sent his way as there always seems to be, but Tua Tagovailoa put a little too much on it, and Waller caught it out of bounds. For me, he’s still on the outside looking in when it comes to TEs. I feel reasonably good about streaming (give me Harold Fannin or Juwan Johnson this week if I get to choose), but last week inspired hope, and that’s the name of the game at the tight end position.
David Njoku | CLE (vs TEN)
With Harold Fannin popping up in the play-by-play a few times (TD, lost fumble, etc), I’ll admit it: I forgot that David Njoku was active on Sunday.
Through 11 weeks, he averaged 28.2 routes per game, but over the last two weeks he has totaled just 20 routes and gained just 4 yards.
We are done here and that’s been the case for a while. Even if he claws his way back into a split with Harold Fannin, something I’m not expecting, do you really want to start a committee member attached to this offense?
Easy pass for me.
Dawson Knox | BUF (vs CIN)
Dalton Kincaid has run hot with his touchdown rate, so it shouldn’t be shocking that his replacement has struggled.
Math suggests that Kincaid himself was going to have a hard time keeping up with the pace he had set for himself, thus making Dawson Knox a shaky investment at best.
In the three games that Buffalo’s TE1 has missed, Knox has earned a total of 11 targets and has not yet reached 30 receiving yards. Reports are trending in a positive direction for Kincaid, and we will have that conversation, but the idea of streaming Knox was a flawed one from the beginning, and it has borne out with his increased opportunity.
Evan Engram | DEN (at LV)
The beginning of Sunday Night Football was underwhelming to say the least. We had an Evan Engram dropped a pass in the early going and then Bo Nix decided that a bounce pass was the most efficient way to get his tight end the ball in another situation.
He was clearly schemed up by Sean Payton, but for whatever reason, the dots weren’t being connected.
Until they were.
He ended up setting a season high with six receptions (he hadn’t seen six targets in a game since mid-October) and looked like a fluid athlete in space, the exact profile that we drafted him for four months ago.
If you kept him through all the struggles, you’re a more patient person than I am.
Engram has an average depth of target of just 3.3 yards over the past two weeks, and while that’s boring, it’s helped him catch 10 passes over that stretch after hauling in just six in his previous three.
He gave us a dud performance in the first Raiders meeting, a thrilling 10-7 win for the Broncos, but my hopes are higher this time around. With the short-range role his to lose, I think we see 4-6 catches for 50-ish yard games with regularity moving forward.
That’s the farthest thing from exciting, and we know that Bo Nix can have peaks and valleys, but anything around 10 PPR points from the TE position is viable and will keep you afloat.
Harold Fannin Jr. | CLE (vs TEN)
This is Harold Fannin’s tight end room, and while that may not mean a ton, it gives us enough clarity in Cleveland to say that he is the streaming option out of an offense that is looking for answers.
His profile is a bit different than other fringy TEs. Personally, when I’m streaming, I view it as damage control. “Which of these players is least likely to lose me this week?”
Maybe you’re different from me. Maybe you want a week winner and are willing to absorb more risk than I am. Both can be right. Or wrong. That’s the nature of the TE streaming world.
Fanning hasn’t reached 45 receiving yards in a game since October, has another tight end at least sniffing around, and is playing in an offense with very much a work in progress under center.
All of that is true, but uncertainty can turn up some gems from time to time. His 34-yard touchdown to end the first half last week against the Niners was beautiful: he found the vacated spot in the zone at the same time Shedeur Sanders did, and the Dawg Pound got the first of what they hope is many scores from that connection.
Fannin did lose a fumble on a Tush Push scheme that never had a chance, but it does speak to their comfort level to have him handle those high-value snaps. He’s cleared eight PPR points in four of his past five and has seven straight games with at least five targets.
I can’t make the case for him being a “safe” play. Without the touchdown last week, he finishes with nine yards and you’re complaining. It’s a fine line at the tight end position, but this is about as well as you’ll see the Cleveland position project, and that’s why he slides just inside my top 12 at the position for this week.
Isaiah Likely | BAL (vs PIT)
We almost got Isaiah Likely into the painted area for the first time this season on Thursday night. Still, he lost a fumble at the last possible second, costing you eight fantasy points and, as it turns out, the Ravens’ playoff equity.
The one play is your lasting memory (stretching for an end zone that you’re about to fall into was an interesting choice), but he hit season highs in catches (five) and receiving yards (95) in the loss. The 25-year-old is pretty clearly the second most explosive pass catcher in this offense, and if this was a sign of things to come, a strong kick is possible given where Baltimore sits in the standings.
I’d love for that to be the case, but we have little proof that Todd Monken is in favor of that development, and his word matters just a little more than mine.
Likely again ran fewer routes than Mark Andrews, and if his opportunity count is going to be held in check, anything less than peak Lamar Jackson is going to make him a tough click.
I still favor him over Andrews when we are looking at projectable numbers, but it’s tight, and the floor is low for both. Likely is a perfectly viable streamer in this spot and most weeks, though he doesn’t appear destined to hold the “we need to hold him” designation in 2025.
Jonnu Smith | PIT (at BAL)
I’m done with everything touching Pittsburgh’s passing game.
We’ve been off the TE carousel for a while, but if you need the data, Jonnu Smith ran 13 routes over the weekend, four more than Pat Freiermuth and seven fewer than Darnell Washington.
Smith was schemed up at a low level to open the season, but he hasn’t caught more than three passes in a game since Week 2 and hasn’t had a 15-yard catch since Week 3.
There’s no quantity or quality to chase in this offense as a whole, and that especially holds true for a TE room that is splitting its reps three ways.
Juwan Johnson | NO (at TB)
This is a two-man passing attack for one of the worst teams in football.
Sold.
Chris Olave and Juwan Johnson are getting as much work as they can stomach as the Saints attempt to stay competitive for 60 minutes, and while the stat lines aren’t flashy, Johnson is getting the job done.
Active TE Streaks With 8.5+ PPR Points
1) Trey McBride: 14
2) Johnson: 6
3) George Kittle: 4
That’s not bad company, not bad company at all.
I’m obviously not ranking him among those two super stars, but he serves as a nice reminder that there can be value mined in some ugly situations.
The Buccaneers are a pass funnel defense that will score points: look for Tyler Shough to flirt with 40 pass attempts for a third straight week and land Johnson near, if not in, the top-12 at the position.
Kyle Pitts Sr. | ATL (vs SEA)
How many tight ends do you think have at least four games with 7+ receptions this season?
The answer is three.
Kyle Pitts is obviously on that list; otherwise, this would be an awfully weird spot to drop that fact, with Trey McBride and Jake Ferguson being the others.
The good weeks haven’t been the problem. Not this year and not since he was drafted. We know what Pitts can do when all the dots are connected, but we also know just how quickly things can go sideways and leave us feeling like Charlie Brown trying to kick a football.
He has seven games this season with under 40 receiving yards, and with him unable to offset the yardage risk with touchdown equity (his only touchdown this season came in September, and just one of his 75 targets has come with his feet in the end zone), the risk analysis conversation often skews in the negative direction.
There’s a time and place for Pitts. Maybe this is quietly one of them?
Seattle owns a great defense, that much we know. Great defenses, in 2025, aren’t great because they shut everything down (unless you’re playing the current version of the Vikings, then why not), but because they shut down what you want to rely on most.
I’m not sure Pitts is viewed as such. The Seahawks have seen a TE score at least 48% above his season average in four straight games, and if that trend continues, Pitts could finish inside the top 12 at the position in consecutive weeks and for the sixth time this season.
Luke Musgrave | GB (vs CHI)
There are a lot of similar tight ends in the free agent pool, and my eye, like yours, naturally gets drawn to those playing in offenses with the potential to score 30 points.
Process-wise, I think that’s sound, but Luke Musgrave earned just a single target on his 14 routes against the Lions last week and isn’t being asked to do Tucker Kraft things for this offense in the absence of the star tight end.
That’s now three straight games with only a single catch, and I don’t think his role is likely to change in a meaningful way any time soon. In the upset Thanksgiving Day victory, Musgrave was one of seven Packers to run at least 11 routes, this coming in a game played without Jayden Reed.
Good match and good offense, but not a good option for your fantasy roster until we see signs of life.
Mark Andrews | BAL (vs PIT)
Mark Andrews is more important to the Ravens than he is to your fantasy team; it really is that simple. Volume was once the name of the game, but he hasn’t caught more than four passes in a game since September and is splitting work with a much more explosive player in Isaiah Likely.
That said, he still led the way at the position on Thursday night with 26 routes to Likely’s 22, and they split 12 targets down the middle. In this era of tight end production, a handful of targets in an offense with top 10 upside is worthy of our attention.
Generally speaking, I look to avoid variance when setting my fantasy lineup, but that’s not the case at TE. It’s a wasteland for most and a strength for the others: if I airball on a streamer, I feel like I’m still alive, whereas that’s not the case at other positions. I have Likely ranked higher this week, and that’s my standard take as I’ll take his skill set over the hope that Andrews finds paydirt, something that has proven impossible next to Lamar Jackson over the past three weeks.
Mason Taylor | NYJ (vs MIA)
I can’t shake the feeling of Mason Taylor being a part of the long-term rebuild in New York, but he’s not someone you need to be banking on now.
Tyrod Taylor’s first two completions went to his rookie tight end last week in the win over the Falcons, hitting his quota early and moving on.
He was held without a reception for the remainder of the game and hasn’t reached 35 receiving yards in a contest since Week 5. This team needs offensive talent, and Taylor might well be a part of the vision, but for the 2025 stretch run, it’s tough to project much differently than what we saw over the weekend.
Mike Gesicki | CIN (at BUF)
Mike Gesicki moved the chains on a third down that felt important in the fourth quarter last week against the Ravens. Still, I was underwhelmed by his role in an offense welcoming back Joe Burrow and operating without Tee Higgins (concussion).
Cincinnati ran a tight end committee, and that’s a quick way to have me outright dismiss them as a team of interest in the never-ending search for streamers at the position. Three Bengal TEs ran 15-23 routes, and while they combined for 10 targets, the distribution was scattershot, and that only figures to get more difficult to predict with Higgins expected back.
I don’t expect to be interested in the TE position from this team moving forward, and that’s certainly not going to be the case against a Bills team whose struggles come in stopping the run more than the pass.
Oronde Gadsden | LAC (vs PHI)
I think it’s safe to say that the run of Tier 2 production from Oronde Gadsden is in the rearview, and the question now shifts to whether he is viable or not.
I’m skeptical at best.
He’s turned 13 targets into just six receptions over his past three games, and now we have this Justin Herbert hand injury to navigate. Against the Raiders, he ranked behind the three primary receivers in routes run and targets. They all got a touch in the red zone (and so did Tre Harris if you’re keeping track at home) while Gadsden did not, another strike against him in terms of paths to viability at the tight end position.
Of course, it takes relatively little to be in the mix for a top 15 grade at TE. His unique ability to make big plays (20+ yard grab in six of his past seven, 14,1 yards per catch this season) lands him as such, but I don’t think he’s realistically above the streaming tier for the remainder of the season.
- Week 14 vs. Eagles
- Week 15 at Chiefs
- Week 16 at Cowboys
- Week 17 vs. Texans
- Week 18 at Broncos
This offense as a whole could underwhelm, and that’s without penciling in limitations for Herbert. I think you can give him one more week with four teams on bye and a lack of stability in the TE8-TE15 range, but if he fails in this spot, I’d consider you among those streaming the position the rest of the way.
Pat Freiermuth | PIT (at BAL)
I’m going to stop including Pittsburgh tight ends in this article.
Pat Freiermuth ran nine routes on Sunday against the Bills, a game in which they were behind for the majority of the second half and pressed to open things up a bit.
He didn’t earn a single target, making it his fifth game this season with 0-1 receptions. For the year, 37.2% of his receiving yards came in that goofy game on Thursday night to open up Week 7 in Cincinnati.
There’s no way to chase volume in this TE room, and if you’re searching for a touchdown, Freiermuth isn’t even the Steeler tight end I’d target (Darnell Washington).
T.J. Hockenson | MIN (vs WAS)
The pass catcher in this Minnesota offense that we were most willing to give up on early is now their most efficient?
Sometimes, I hate this game.
TJ Hockenson caught all six of his targets over the weekend, the third time in four games where a ball thrown his way didn’t hit the turf, a feat that was even more impressive when you consider that Max Brosmer was 13-of-24 with four interceptions when throwing to players not named Hockenson in Seattle.
This feels like a red herring at the highest level. The efficiency is well above expectations, and with Jordan Addison/Justin Jefferson continuing to get looks, I’d expect natural regression to swing in their direction sooner than later.
Whether the WRs bounce back or not is one thing, but I’m not comfortable clicking Hockenson as a starter into critical matchups this week with “efficiency from Max Brosmer” being the leg I’m standing on.
Travis Kelce | KC (vs HOU)
Travis Kelce’s stock is on the rise despite Kansas City’s results trending in the other direction. While he doesn’t have the top producer at the position upside that we’ve had locked in for half a decade, he’s putting you ahead of your competition more often than not at the position.
The future Hall of Famer has a touchdown in three of his past five games and has a 20+ yard grab in five of six. His touchdown came on a fourth-down play to round out the first quarter, and it’s clear that his connection with Patrick Mahomes hasn’t faded in the least.
Rashee Rice is the primary option in this offense, and it’s not close. But Kelce has separated from Xavier Worthy as the clear-cut second option, and that’s enough to land him well within my circle of trust this week, even against one of the best defenses in the league.
Trey McBride | ARI (vs LAR)
The only thing stopping Trey McBride these days is the Cardinals.
I’m beginning to feel about him the way I did about peak Steph Curry: what if they just told him to shoot from every position? Even with the defense eventually catching on, wouldn’t that yield more expected points than running a traditional offense?
McBride has caught 27 of 30 targets over his past three games and has scored seven times in his last seven. That’s an incredible run without the context that this is the same player who had six TD receptions in his first three seasons, a run of 49 games and 292 targets.
READ MORE: Soppe’s Week 14 Fantasy Football Start ‘Em Sit ‘Em: Analysis for Every Player in Every Game
Michael Wilson was making history in Weeks 11-12, but it didn’t matter. Marvin Harrison returns to the lineup in Week 13 and looks solid, but it didn’t matter. The NFL is unaware of how to shut down McBride, and Jacoby Brissett is happy as a clam to funnel targets to his All-Pro.
You ended up on the very right side of the McBride vs. Brock Bowers drafting decision this summer, and I’d bet you have a real shot at winning your league because of it.
Tyler Warren | IND (at JAX)
The fall hasn’t been the same for Tyler Warren as it has for Emeka Egbuka when it comes to evaluating super prospects that came out of the gates flying. Still, it is worth noting that he’s failed to reach 55 receiving yards in four of five games and is coming off a season-low 22 against the Texans.
He scored, and that really solves any issues (I have no idea what you’re supposed to do when this offense is inside the 15-yard line and run Jonathan Taylor play-action). But the bumpy Daniel Jones experience has certainly impacted Warren’s production.
The creativity is still ther,e and that’s why I really don’t have any hesitations in starting him across all formats. The Colts are happy to run him in a variety of routes, and we know there is always the chance of a cheap Tush Push score, even if it didn’t work out over the weekend.
In this very critical game, I suspect that this coaching staff looks to punish the Jags’ aggression toward the run game with a few Warren chunk opportunities. He, of course, needs his QB to deliver the ball on time, but this profile still looks like that of a top 5 producer at the position in terms of stability, and that makes him an easy player to feel good about.
Zach Ertz | WAS (at MIN)
Zach Ertz had his best game of the season on Sunday night, and it could have been even bigger if not for a great defensive play that dislodged him from the ball on a chunk play attempt late.
Marcus Mariota looked the way of the veteran tight end to pick up a critical fourth down on the final drive of regulation, and he looked good across the entirety of the game.
I don’t think we see another 10-catch game any time soon, but 4-6 is a reasonable projection and, more often than not, enough to justify playing him. In five games with Terry McLaurin active this year, Ertz has reached double-digit PPR points three times, something that I don’t think is an accident.
The first two such performances came with Jayden Daniels at the controls, so I’m comfortable with him as a backend TE1 in week 14, regardless of who starts at QB.
