Fantasy Football Cheat Sheet: TE Sleepers & Busts (2025)

Get ready for your fantasy football draft with our fantasy football draft day cheat sheets. Our analysts dive into their favorite fantasy football draft targets and sleepers, as well as overvalued players and busts they’re avoiding in drafts. Let us help you prepare for your fantasy football draft with our cheat sheets! And use our Fantasy Football Cheat Sheet Creator to create your cheat sheet using our expert rankings, notes, and player tags.

Fantasy Football Draft Cheat Sheet

Fitz’s Fantasy Football Cheat Sheet

Tight End Sleepers

Zach Ertz still appears to have gas left in the tank at age 34. He had 66 catches for 654 yards and seven touchdowns last season, finishing TE8 in half-point PPR scoring. After scoring only one touchdown over his first 10 games of 2024, Ertz scored six touchdowns over Washington’s last seven regular-season games. He scored another TD in the playoffs and went out with an 11-catch, 104-yard performance in the Commanders’ season ending loss to Ertz’s former team, the Eagles. After playing a full season for the first time since 2021, Ertz agreed to a one-year deal that will keep him in Washington. He and young QB Jayden Daniels developed strong chemistry. Despite his age, Ertz could be a sneaky-good late-round TE option in 2025.

Now that Evan Engram has gone from Jacksonville to Denver via free agency, former second-round draft pick Brenton Strange sits atop the Jaguars’ TE depth chart. Strange had 40 catches for 411 yards and two touchdowns last season. In the eight games that Engram missed, Strange averaged 3.6 receptions and 34.4 receiving yards. The possibility of an enhanced role makes the 24-year-old Strange an intriguing TE sleeper.

Tight End Busts

T.J. Hockenson missed seven games in 2024 while recovering from the devastating knee injury he sustained in December 2023. Upon his return, he had 41 catches for 455 yards in 10 games but didn’t score any touchdowns. Hockenson has been a trusted brand name at the TE position, but he’s entering his age-28 season and has missed 26 games over the last four seasons. Hockenson must share targets with Vikings WRs Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison, and those targets will be coming from a quarterback who’s never started an NFL game, top 2023 Minnesota draft pick J.J. McCarthy.

His first seven NFL seasons were unremarkable, but Jonnu Smith authored a stunning fantasy breakout in Year 8, establishing career highs in targets (111), catches (88), receiving yards (884) and touchdowns (8). Smith finished TE4 in overall PPR fantasy scoring and TE5 in fantasy points per game. Smith went nuclear late in the season, averaging 6.9 catches and 67.1 yards per game from Week 11 on. He scored seven TDs in those eight games and was TE1 in PPR fantasy scoring over that stretch, averaging 18.6 points per game. But a trade in late June sent Smith to the Steelers, where he’ll share TE targets with Pat Freiermuth. That isn’t necessarily a fantasy death sentence, since Steelers OC Arthur Smith loves using his tight ends, and the Steelers don’t have much firepower. Still, it’s hard to see a path for Smith to remain a top-10 fantasy tight end.

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