Tight end is arguably the toughest position to draft in fantasy football. If you pay the premium for the elite tier, the opportunity is high because there are other great options at wide receiver and running back at that price. But if you wait until the end of your draft, you’re stuck trying to guess which tight end to start. Let’s look at a few fantasy football tight ends to avoid in 2025 drafts.
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Fantasy Football Tight Ends to Avoid
On this page, we’ll look at three tight ends to avoid for the 2025 fantasy football season. The most important factor will be average draft position (ADP), focusing on overpriced players.
We’ll use FantasyPros’ best ball ADP, which is an aggregate of player pricing from sites like Underdog, Drafters, RealTime Fantasy Sports and BestBall10s. This is a good idea because best ball is the most active format at this stage of the offseason. So, without further ado, here are my tight ends to avoid for 2025.
Remember, when we say “avoid,” we mean “at current price,” not a complete fade. If any of these players fall past ADP, you can feel free to pounce on them.
Brock Bowers (TE – LV) | ADP: TE1 (16 Overall)
Brock Bowers caught 112-of-153 targets for 1,194 yards and five touchdowns in what was arguably the best rookie tight end season in NFL history. This is a generational player who gets an upgrade at play-caller in Chip Kelly as well as a much better quarterback in Geno Smith.
The reason why I’m including Bowers as a tight end to avoid has nothing to do with the player and everything to do with his price. Even in a terrific rookie year, Bowers averaged 15.6 fantasy points per game in full-PPR formats. That ranked as TE3 behind George Kittle and Trey McBride. Despite this, Bowers is being drafted seven picks ahead of McBride and 39 picks earlier than Kittle.
I understand that Bowers is a truly unique talent, but there shouldn’t be this much of a gap.
On top of that, there’s a high opportunity cost with drafting Bowers at his current cost. The Raiders’ star is going ahead of Jonathan Taylor, Drake London, A.J. Brown, and Bucky Irving. You can easily take one of these players and just target Kittle a couple of rounds later.
Avoiding Bowers at ADP could burn you because he’s an elite talent, but I’d rather play it safe by looking at a running back or wide receiver at that price.
T.J. Hockenson (TE – MIN) | ADP: TE5 (77 Overall)
T.J. Hockenson put up 41 receptions for 455 yards and zero touchdowns in his first year coming off a torn ACL. Despite entering his age-28 season with a clean bill of health, I’m avoiding Hockenson at his current price.
For one, there are questions at quarterback with J.J. McCarthy stepping in as the Vikings’ starter. While I like McCarthy to become a solid starting QB, the jury is still out. There could be some growing pains after a redshirt rookie season.
But the main reason why I’m lower on Hockenson is because I prefer to wait on tight end if I miss out on Kittle, who is easily the best value at the position. You can still get players like RJ Harvey, Ricky Pearsall, and D’Andre Swift at Hockenson’s ADP.
Additionally, Hockenson has never been a big-play threat, relying more on volume. If I wanted a tight end with this archetype, I’d wait a few rounds and take Jake Ferguson.
The bottom line is that there’s probably not enough upside to justify paying up for Hockenson at a top-five cost at tight end.
Jonnu Smith (TE – MIA) | ADP: TE6 (92 Overall)
Jonnu Smith is coming off a career year where he caught 88-of-111 targets for 884 yards and eight touchdowns. With that said, I’m avoiding Smith at his TE6 cost because he’s never come close to this production in the past.
This is a 29-year-old who came into last year with a career-high of 582 yards, which was his only season where he eclipsed the 500-yard mark. It’s hard to rely on Smith coming close to this production again, and you’re paying a premium to find out.
While the bull case on Smith is that this was always a talented tight end who is finally being used properly by a talented play-caller in Mike McDaniel. But my counter to that is this looked like a broken offense last year, filled with checkdowns to Smith and De’Von Achane.
When this offense is functioning properly, targets are being funneled to Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle, with Achane running efficiently.
We should also note the opportunity cost. You can take a talented wideout like Brandon Aiyuk at this price. Even though Aiyuk is coming off a torn ACL, there’s still a lot of upside on him at this cost. Simply put, the cost on Smith is too high for a one-year wonder.
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