Noah Fant has been unable to capitalize on the first-round draft capital that was spent on him in 2019, and fantasy football managers are understandably skeptical about his 2025 prospects. He seemingly had a path to targets with the Seattle Seahawks, but elected to move on in July.
Now a member of the Cincinnati Bengals, should Fant have your interest in any way?
Noah Fant’s Fantasy Outlook
Did you know that Fant finished as a top-8 tight end in a higher rate of his games last season than T.J. Hockenson and Evan Engram?
I’m not using that arbitrary note to boost Fant up my ranks or to suggest that you should. I’m using it as more of a reminder to keep an open mind. As things stand now, he’s tethered to an explosive offense, but sits behind a receiver masked as a tight end in Mike Gesicki, and that makes any playing time he sees unlikely to be all that helpful to us.
The constant chess match between offense and defense perfectly explained by Cooper Kupp.
At this point if you arent playing some form of match coverage, you will get exposed on D.
Football is simply the greatest game. Constantly shifting and evolving. pic.twitter.com/dcawJUlZqL
— Anthony Amico (@amicsta) June 13, 2025
“In our game,” the running back and receiver positions carry plenty of weekly swings, but with 2-4 of them starting for you weekly, depending on your specific league structure, you have more decisions to make. More outs to consider. At a one-player position like tight end, you’re making one call a week and sticking with it, which is challenging if you don’t have one of the alphas at the position.
Case in point? Jonnu Smith finished the season as PPR TE5 and had one top-30 finish at the position through September. Mark Andrews? He was TE7 for the season despite not scoring a touchdown until the middle of October, not to mention a pair of consecutive zero-catch performances during that drought.
The case for Fant isn’t a case for Fant. It’s a case for randomness. We know that crazy things happen over the course of the season, that Fant has pedigree, and that this offense is going to put points on the board.
It’s unlikely that he will take over for Gesicki, but injuries happen, and being tied to an offense like this that will be asked to or in a great position to light up the scoreboard late in the season is at least worth noting.
- Week 13 at Baltimore Ravens
- Week 14 at Buffalo Bills
- Week 15 vs. Baltimore Ravens
- Week 16 at Miami Dolphins
- Week 17 vs. Arizona Cardinals
That’s not too intimidating, and I like the early bye (Week 8) when taking the position one week at a time. If we are nearing Halloween and Fant is still on your roster, then he’s doing something right, and you can add a replacement. If not, cut ties and move on.
Elijah Arroyo is the threat to Fant’s role mentioned above, and he’s an interesting prospect. Seattle made him a second-round pick in April (6’5”, 254 pounds) after averaging 16.9 yards per catch with a score once every five catches last season at Miami.
The rookie’s name is one to know, especially if you think that what we’ve seen from Fant dismisses him as having much upside. As much as I believe the streaming of Fant is logical, the opposite side of that argument is plenty reasonable.
Fant doesn’t yet have a season with 675 receiving yards or five scores. You’re banking on high-level efficiency (76.5% catch rate during his three seasons in town) sustaining despite a new quarterback and plenty of new pieces when it comes to the supporting cast.
MORE: Free Fantasy Football Mock Draft Simulator
To be clear, Fant needs to develop into a fantasy option. He can’t simply do what he’s done in the past and expect it to matter. Across his career, he’s only seen an end zone target in 24.2% of them, and the cleanest way to overachieve at the position is to score at a high rate.
Fantasy managers have been unwilling to roll the dice in any sort of consistent way, and I think that’s right. He’s not worth a look right now and doesn’t figure to be barring a change in how things are structured in Cincy (something I don’t expect given the money they’ve spent on keeping things status quo).
That said, the fantasy managers who have the most success enter the season with nothing truly crossed off. Fant is unlikely to offer you much, if anything, in 2025. If you refuse to at least keep tabs on him, however, you stand to lose ground on your competition.
