Kate Magdziuk ranks the best tight ends in the NFL for the 2024 fantasy football season and examines some of her favorite late-round TE options.
Are you ready for the biggest fantasy football draft weekend of the year? If not, don’t worry. It’s SB Nation to the rescue with tight end rankings to guide you through your 2024 drafts!
Gone are the days when the only answer to, “Which tight end are you targeting in drafts this year?” was “Travis Kelce” or “Rob Gronkowski”. No. Now, fantasy football managers have a wealth of options to choose from in what appears to be a bright spot in the history of pass-catching tight ends to help lead you to fantasy glory.
Here, we’ll outline several late-round tight end sleepers to consider if you’re punting the position in drafts this year, as well as my 2024 TE rankings to set you up for a successful draft (or two, or three...).
I will continue banging the drum as loudly as possible for Saints TE/whatever-you-want-to-designate-him-as Taysom Hill. Sure, he may have just turned 34, but his fantasy prospects continue to be as ripe as ever, with the team continuing to design a nearly endless number of packages to get him involved at literally almost any position (RB, TE, QB, FB) that Klint Kubiak can think of. Hill was the TE12 and led all tight ends with 3.97 fantasy points per snap (0.33) just last season.
The trajectory of the offense for the New York Jets under Aaron Rodgers, a 40-year-old quarterback coming off a season-ending Achilles injury, remains a bit of a mystery. The one thing that isn’t a mystery, however, is how good (or not good) their depth is at wide receiver beyond Garrett Wilson. Though the team brought in Mike Williams as a free agent, he’s coming off a season-ending injury of his own and missed almost the entire offseason before finally returning to team drills. Beyond that, there’s not much else. That’s where TE Tyler Conklin could come into play.
Conklin has been the pinnacle of consistency (while lacking upside) as of late, with exactly 87 targets in each of the past three years and 550+ receiving yards in each of those showings. Unfortunately, he’s also played for the Jets over the past two seasons, which hasn’t been good for his touchdown production, mainly because they haven’t scored too many of those. Projecting an uptick in efficiency for the offense and more scoring opportunities, Conklin could have an opportunity to manage a rare age-29 breakout in fantasy coming off a year where he finished as the TE13 in full-PPR scoring formats.
It’s really quite scary for me to recommend any New York Giants pass-catcher as long as Daniel Jones is quarterback, but someone has to catch the footballs, right? Aside from No. 6 overall pick Malik Nabers, there’s not a ton of depth here in the Giants’ offense, which could provide rookie TE Theo Johnson an immediate pathway to targets out of the gate. HC Brian Daboll is absurdly high on the fourth-rounder out of Penn State, reportedly pulling him from team meetings at times just to show him Rob Gronkowski highlights — because that’s what they think his upside could be in this league. Johnson wasn’t overly productive in college, posting career highs in 2023 with a 34-341-7 stat line, but he’s absurdly athletic (especially considering his size at 6-foot-6 and 259 pounds) and could find himself the No. 2 receiving option for the G-men sooner rather than later.
Theo Johnson is a TE prospect in the 2024 draft class. He scored a 9.93 #RAS out of a possible 10.00. This ranked 9 out of 1141 TE from 1987 to 2024.https://t.co/sVZgB7wazA pic.twitter.com/w6G9FoVDVs
— Kent Lee Platte (@MathBomb) March 28, 2024
It’s been easy to forget Hunter Henry’s past as an uber-productive tight end in his former life as an LA Charger since he opted to join the New England Patriots as a free agent back in 2021. However, heading into his age-30 season, Henry has an opportunity to be a primary receiving option in a wide-open depth chart on an offense with a much improved quarterback situation, regardless of whether it’s Jacoby Brissett under center, having just been named the starter, or rookie Drake Maye, should he win the job outright later in the season.
Henry’s first season with the Patriots culminated with a TE9 finish courtesy of his 50-603-9 stat line, which might be a lofty goal (particularly in the touchdown department). However, if improved from last season, it seems reasonable to believe that a bump in offensive plays run could increase opportunity for volume.
| # | Player (Team/Bye) | vs. ECR | vs. ADP |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sam LaPorta DET (5) | 0 | +1 |
| 2 | Travis Kelce KC (6) | 0 | -1 |
| 3 | Dalton Kincaid BUF (12) | +2 | +2 |
| 4 | Mark Andrews BAL (14) | 0 | 0 |
| 5 | Trey McBride ARI (11) | -2 | -2 |
| 6 | Jake Ferguson DAL (7) | +3 | +4 |
| 7 | Evan Engram JAC (12) | -1 | +1 |
| 8 | George Kittle SF (9) | 0 | -2 |
| 9 | David Njoku CLE (10) | +1 | 0 |
| 10 | Kyle Pitts ATL (12) | -3 | -3 |
| 11 | Pat Freiermuth PIT (9) | +2 | +4 |
| 12 | Dallas Goedert PHI (5) | 0 | 0 |
| 13 | T.J. Hockenson MIN (6) | +2 | 0 |
| 14 | Taysom Hill NO (12) | +10 | +8 |
| 15 | Brock Bowers LV (10) | -4 | -4 |
| 16 | Cade Otton TB (11) | +4 | +11 |
| 17 | Dalton Schultz HOU (14) | -3 | -3 |
| 18 | Cole Kmet CHI (7) | -1 | -2 |
| 19 | Luke Musgrave GB (10) | -3 | -2 |
| 20 | Hunter Henry NE (14) | -2 | 0 |
| 21 | Chigoziem Okonkwo TEN (5) | 0 | +3 |
| 22 | Michael Mayer LV (10) | +7 | +15 |
| 23 | Tucker Kraft GB (10) | +5 | +15 |
| 24 | Jonnu Smith MIA (6) | +10 | -3 |
| 25 | Juwan Johnson NO (12) | -3 | +10 |
| 26 | Gerald Everett CHI (7) | +6 | +16 |
| 27 | Isaiah Likely BAL (14) | -1 | -9 |
| 28 | Greg Dulcich DEN (14) | +9 | +3 |
| 29 | Theo Johnson NYG (11) | +10 | +11 |
| 30 | Tyler Conklin NYJ (12) | -11 | -11 |
| 31 | Jelani Woods IND (14) | +2 | +13 |
| 32 | Noah Fant SEA (10) | -9 | -6 |
| 33 | Dawson Knox BUF (12) | -2 | -3 |
| 34 | Tyler Higbee LAR (6) | +2 | +9 |
| 35 | Ben Sinnott WAS (14) | -10 | -12 |
| 36 | Mike Gesicki CIN (12) | -9 | -11 |
| 37 | Ja'Tavion Sanders CAR (11) | -7 | -8 |
| 38 | Colby Parkinson LAR (6) | 0 | +1 |
Kate Magdziuk is an editor and contributor for Yahoo Fantasy and co-host of the Locked On Dynasty Football podcast. She is also the managing editor for Behind The Steel Curtain, SB Nation’s exclusive Pittsburgh Steelers blog. Her previous bylines include Pro Football Focus, NBC Sports Rotoworld and 4for4 Football, among others.
