Fantasy Football: How to approach the tight end position for 2026, plus strategy for the new TE Premium format
All it took was one draft. I started playing fantasy football in my late 20s. Ray Rice was the first RB on my team. I had no clue what I was doing (still don't!). Anyway, after getting rolled by my leaguemates, there was only one thing to do. Build more teams!In a sense, it was an all-or-nothing proposition. I could've left it alone. Placing dead last in a work league happens to the best of us (right?). Clearly, there was no middle ground for me. And I'm willing to bet you have a similar feeling when it comes to selecting a player at one specific position.The TE role is one we hype up every year. It feels deep each offseason, and then we wind up with the same few players leading teams into the playoffs. The last six months have been no different. But I've still got some ideas on how to approach tight ends ahead of the 2026 season.Join or create a Yahoo Fantasy Football league for the 2026 NFL seasonWhat's this TE Premium Stuff About?So, you might've heard Yahoo is trying something different. We're adding Tight End Premium as a scoring mechanic to your league. The setting boosts the award for a reception by a TE to 1.0 (default is 0.5). And I'm guessing you have a few questions about the option to inject a bit more chaos into your league.Does TE Premium increase the value of the position?Yes. Without a doubt.By ratcheting up the benefit of catching the ball, we should expect to see more points from our TE1 on a weekly basis. But, more importantly, it brings the position more in line with the other designations.As you can see, TE Premium pushes tight ends points above replacement ahead of both RB and WR.TruMediaI built a points above replacement (PAR) model to measure how much value each position brings relative to its baseline or replacement level. Simply put, the model is a way to compare what you drafted to what you could've found on the waiver wire.Remember, we only start one TE at a time. However, multiple RBs and WRs have to be in our lineup. The disparity puts pressure on the "onesie" to add value not just give us a few points each week. That becomes more true the earlier we draft our starter. Regardless, two takeaways here.The first one is simple. A bonus for TE receptions raises the value of the position. They're generating more points, so no surprise here. The larger conclusion comes when weighing them against RBs and WRs. Because the scores are increasing, they're falling more in line with the point totals of RBs and WRs. Or, during some seasons, exceeding them. Accordingly, this opens up more viable draft strategies with TEs headlining fantasy rosters.How do I adjust tight end ADP for this scoring? Just move everybody up?Well, actually, no.Unfortunately, while every TE gets the boost, they don't all see the same bump in value. Let's first look at what metrics have the most impact on fantasy scoring.Target Share (2021-2025): 0.93 (r value)Route Rate: 0.89RZ Target Share: 0.86Over the last five seasons, tight ends that get more cardio than blocking reps and earn targets have received the nod from fantasy gamers. However, those guys get harder to find the deeper we get into a draft.Here's a look at how tight end workload declines fast as the draft progresses.FantasyPros ADP and TruMedia DataIntuitively, better players, or pass-catchers with secure workloads, are more expensive. If we knew a guy would be anywhere close to their team's leading receiver, they'd have an early-round price tag on them before you could utter "sleeper." However, because of positional scarcity (i.e., there are only so many worthwhile tight ends), we pull everyone forward.So, in reality, the elite TEs are the benefactors?Yep. The rich get richer.Think about it this way. Higher scores were the main driver for the increase in value over replacement for TEs. But those larger point totals only come from receiving the ball. We still need routes and targets. So, as target shares flatten out in the middle rounds, value takes a nosedive. Only the elite rounds gain value from TE Premium formats.FantasyPros ADP and TruMedia DataIn other words, if you're going to take advantage of TE Premium scoring, do it early. Clicking on Travis Kelce in the seventh round because you waited actually hurts your team. That's especially true when TEs with a similar range of outcomes are available later (e.g., Jake Ferguson, Dallas Goedert, Dalton Kincaid).However, if you want to find a guy with the potential to be this year's TE1, let's build a profile for an elite receiver.Subscribe to Fantasy Ultra to unlock our Strategy Lab, 150+ page Draft Playbook and more!Find the TE Cosplaying as a WRSo, we've established a basic analytical framework to screen TEs. Essentially, we want the pass-catchers with constant involvement in their team's passing game. But if we're swinging for the fences in the early rounds, only the best at the position will suffice. Luckily, we have an idea of what that looks like:Throwback Touchdown Jacoby Brissetts 18-Yard Passing Touchdown to Trey McBride against the Bengals in 2025!Video: NFL pic.twitter.com/0USORrnlP4 NFL Touchdowns (@TheNFLTouchdown) July 20, 2026Of course, the first social media clip I came across featuring last year's TE1 is against my Bengals. Anyway, Trey McBride's case for the fantasy MVP title was simple: he was the Cardinals' WR1. Marvin Harrison Jr. and Michael Wilson were just talking points for '26 and beyond. McBride's 27.9% target rate ranked seventh among all WRs. But we've seen players like him before at the top spot of the end-of-season standings.Here's a look at the top tight end in fantasy each season from 2021-2025.FantasyPros ADP and TruMedia DataSince 2021, the overall TE1 has either the top or secondary option on their squad. And none were surprises. All had the athletic traits and the collegiate production that pointed to a right-tail outcome if the stars aligned. And their intrinsic metrics match up with what we've seen out of them on the field. Correlation with TE fantasy football points per game.TruMedia DataI'll plug my friend Dwain McFarland and foot-stomp the notion of contextualized usage. Yes, watching your TE get peppered with targets is great. But could I interest you in a throw their way from inside the opponent's 20-yard line? How about the 10? Where those looks occur matters as much as (if not more than) how often. However, as a great philosopher once said, "Elite results reside at the intersection of talent and situation."Here's a look at correlation with team TE fantasy points per game.TruMedia DataOne thing to point out here is the drop in "r value." In other words, while a signal exists, the ecosystem measures that best tie to TE production are weaker when you contrast them with the player-related stats. Which is why the seven wins between Bowers' Raiders and McBride's Cardinals are the footnotes and not the main plot of their historic seasons. Still, because environment does have some effect, it's worth considering when trying to project future performance.Here's the predictive strength over time of a TE vs. their environment.TruMedia DataI took the five stats from each bucket and looked at their year-over-year stability. In short, good players tend to stay that way. As in real life, situations can change. New play-callers, starting QBs and surrounding personnel will alter the outlook of any player. But they all play a role, however minor. So, by weighting each metric, I combined them all into a single score to find which teams were likeliest to produce the TE1 in 2026.Here's a look at the best offensive ecosystems for tight ends in 2026.TruMedia DataTo be fair, this algorithm only uses past data to inform the present. Things like changes in personnel, coaching or strength of schedule are blind spots. Those differentiators would be tiebreakers. Factors that you could use to tip the scales in favor of your guy. But between the player and ecosystem measures, a few names floated to the top:Brock Bowers: 21 (ADP)Tyler Warren: 47.6Tucker Kraft: 61.8Before you cry "small sample size," believe me, I know. Tyler Warren only had about two and a half months before his QB's leg was kaput. Tucker Kraft had even less time to get going (eight games). But when their circumstances were normal, both were top 10 in routes. Even better, they were first and fifth in red-zone target rate through Week 8. Admittedly, extrapolating to a full year has its own risks. But if we're looking for guys who could be second- or third-round picks next season, those two fit the profile.Other Early-Round TE Targets: Colston Loveland, Harold Fannin Jr., George KittleIn Case of Emergency As I mentioned in the intro, the TE position can feel like an all-or-nothing proposition. Either you snag a guy early or wait until later in the draft. But "later" is a nebulous term. Let's see if we can narrow down a timeframe. Here's a look at how often tight ends hit in fantasy in the middle and late rounds.FantasyPros ADP and TruMedia DataUsing the same dataset as before, I isolated how often a tight end drafted in the "later" rounds finished inside the top 12 by season's end. Sure, it's an arbitrary threshold, but a viable starting point for the discussion. Regardless, the results are already giving us a boundary to work within.Now, we shouldn't interpret R9-12 having the highest hit rate in the literal sense. Let's add some uncertainty to the calculation. We could just say "the end of the middle rounds." Your league size or roster-building tendencies might differ. In either case, since we already highlighted that workloads fall by round, it stands to reason that hit rate would consolidate right before we get into the deepest part of the draft. Luckily, we already have a process of determining what matters in terms of TE usage.Here's a look at how to predict which tight ends will succeed in the middle and late rounds.FantasyPros ADP and TruMedia DataI added pre-snap formations as a metric of interest since multi-TE sets have become a larger topic in the NFL community this year. And yet, for our purposes, it doesn't matter. Earning targets carries more weight. Being on the field when your offense is in scoring position has more significance. So, let's sift through the middle and late rounds for realistic candidates:Isaiah Likely: 108.2 (ADP)Hunter Henry: 130.3Juwan Johnson: 136.2Dalton Schultz: 153.7Juwan Johnson and Hunter Henry have at least two WRs ahead of them in the pass-game pecking order. And maybe an RB or two, to boot. Their environment looks the least like the overall TE1s we discussed earlier. That leaves two options with clearer paths to ascend into the top 12 let's focus on one of them Isaiah Likely.Yes, he's with his former coach from Baltimore and got a hefty bag to move northeast. Better yet, after Malik Nabers, Jaxson Dart's best option will be 33-year-old Odell Beckham Jr., Darnell Mooney, Darius Slayton or Calvin Austin III. Oh, and I forgot JuJu Smith-Schuster. Anyway, the larger point is Likely's splits when the Ravens needed him to step into a larger role:Target Share (2022-2025): 15.9% (w/out Andrews), 9.8% (w/ Andrews)Route Rate: 78.7%, 47.1%Yards per Route Run: 1.59, 1.36RZ Target Share: 15.4%, 12.5%Every stat with a direct connection to fantasy scoring jumped when Likely had the job to himself. The talent alone puts him on a clear path to producing like a weekly starter. So while folks may use the Giants' underwhelming outlook as a negative, Likely's projected opportunity will be a value for savvy gamers with an eye for the right profile.Other Mid- and Late-Round TE Targets: George Kittle, Dalton Kincaid, Brenton Strange
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