5 Tight Ends to Avoid (2025 Fantasy Football)

When preparing for your fantasy football drafts, knowing which players to target and others to avoid is important. The amount of information available can be overwhelming, so a great way to condense the data and determine players to draft and others to leave for your leaguemates is to use our expert consensus fantasy football rankings compared to fantasy football average draft position (ADP). In this way, you can identify players the experts are willing to reach for at ADP and others they are not drafting until much later than average. Let’s dive into a few notable fantasy football players I’m avoiding at their current draft cost.

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Fantasy Football Draft Advice: Players to Avoid

Let’s dive into the players I’m avoiding at ADP.

Colston Loveland (TE – CHI)

Loveland surprised some in the NFL Draft as the first tight end off the board. I’m not shocked by it, but I did think Warren would hear his name called first. Loveland’s top ten first-round capital is notable. Ben Johnson seemingly got his Sam LaPorta. I don’t think Loveland is on the same talent plane as LaPorta, and I don’t mean that as shade, but their skill sets are different. Loveland has stellar per-route efficiency and the route-running chops to match, but he isn’t the same mauler after the catch, with only eight missed tackles forced in his collegiate career (per PFF). I worry a tiny bit about Loveland’s weekly route share with Cole Kmet, who is still on this roster. Loveland should be the Week 1 starter, but don’t be shocked if Kmet can be enough of a thorn in his side (ala Dawson Knox) to hurt his ceiling and floor in 2025. I also haven’t even mentioned a crowded target hierarchy for this season with D.J. Moore, Rome Odunze, D’Andre Swift, and Luther Burden on the roster and Caleb Williams‘ worrisome 2024 play. Right now, Loveland is a bet on talent, and that is driving him up the target hierarchy. Across his final two collegiate seasons, he ranked fifth in yards per route run in both seasons and third and tenth in receiving grade. Loveland is a TE2 that could finish as a TE1 if everything breaks right in 2025.

Brenton Strange (TE – JAC)

Brenton Strange enters the 2025 season as the team’s undisputed starter after Evan Engram‘s departure. Last year, Strange had seven games in which he played at least 60% of the snaps, where he averaged 9.2 fantasy points per game. In those games, he also saw a 14.8% target share with a 17.3% first-read share while producing 1.39 yards per route run, 36.1 receiving yards per game, and 0.071 first downs per route run (per Fantasy Points Data). Those are pretty much TE2-worthy numbers across the board outside of the first-read share, which will decline some with Travis Hunter and Dyami Brown in town. If Hunter plays more defense than I’m currently projecting, Strange may have a Zach Ertz type of season where he racks up the volume because of a lack of receiving options and flirts with TE1 value.

Mike Gesicki (TE – CIN)

Gesicki should offer some streaming upside this season if Tee Higgins misses time. His splits were insane, with Higgins in and out of the lineup. Without Higgins on the field, Gesicki averaged 13.6 fantasy points per game with an 18.3% target share, 62.4 receiving yards per game, 2.40 yards per route run, a 22.6% first-read share, and 0.115 first downs per route run. Those are wonderful fantasy numbers, no matter how ya slice it. That points-per-game mark would have made him the TE4 in fantasy last year had he kept it up all year. With Higgins in the huddle, Gesicki’s fantasy points per game dropped to 6.2 as he had only a 10.1% target share, 29.4 receiving yards per game, 1.26 yards per route run, a 10.3% first-read share, and 0.082 first downs per route run (per Fantasy Points Data). Gesicki is an in-season streaming option only.

Jonnu Smith (TE – PIT)

Jonnu Smith‘s upside in fantasy was quickly vaporized for 2025 with his arrival in Pittsburgh. We’ve seen what this looks like before. In 2023, when Smith was with Atlanta, he was the TE20 in fantasy points per game despite logging five weeks as a TE1 in fantasy scoring. He had a 57.9% route share (26th), a 13% target share (21st), 34.2 receiving yards per game (17th), and 1.67 yards per route run (12th, per Fantasy Points Data). Smith is a nice real-life addition for the Steelers, but he will likely only serve as a streaming tight-end option for fantasy purposes in 2025.

Cade Otton (TE – TB)

Cade Otton had career marks nearly across the board in 2024, but it was a perfect storm for Tampa Bay’s dependable tight end. He logged three massive games without Chris Godwin and Mike Evans in the lineup that greatly boosted his season-ending stat lines. In Weeks 8-10, without Evans and Godwin, Otton had a 25.5% target share with 2.03 yards per route run, a 29.9% first-read share, 64.3 receiving yards per game, and 0.116 first downs per route run (per Fantasy Points Data). He averaged an astounding 19.8 PPR points per game. Outside of those three games, Otton had a 15.8% target share with 1.39 yards per route run, a 14.5% first-read share, 37 receiving yards per game, and 0.068 first downs per route run. With Evans and Godwin back and the addition of Emeka Egbuka to the fold, Otton’s 2025 season will closely resemble that last sample of production (maybe lower if Egbuka can cut into his work more than Jalen McMillan was able to). He’s a basement-level TE2.