This is the third installment in a series looking back at the most (and least) consistent fantasy players at each position during the 2024 season. So far, I’ve taken a look at quarterbacks and running backs, with some surprising and some not-so-surprising conclusions. Today, we move to a position that is notorious for fantasy inconsistency: Tight end.
Traditional wisdom says that tight end fantasy production is touchdown-dependent — and therefore highly variable — on a week-to-week basis, with only the truly elite options providing an exception. Do the numbers back up this theory? Let’s find out.
- Fantasy Football Draft Kit
- 2025 Fantasy Football Expert Rankings
- Fantasy Football ADP
- Fantasy Football Trade Tools
Fantasy Football Consistency: Tight Ends
Methodology
As with running backs, I’m not setting a minimum snap rate for a given fantasy outing by a tight end to be included in my sample. Part of what makes tight end production so inconsistent is that not every pass-catching tight end plays an every-down role. Yes, this does mean my sample will include a few games where players exited early due to injury. But those games still count and, more importantly, we don’t want to exclude games in which a player didn’t play many snaps by design.
Next, let’s limit our sample of players. In the previous articles in this series, I included a minimum points per game. Unfortunately, some potential breakout tight ends were so thoroughly unproductive in 2025 (looking at you, Ja’Tavion Sanders) that any minimum threshold in points per game low enough to include them will also include names like Will Dissly and Jordan Akins. Instead, I will filter to include tight ends with a 2025 average draft position (ADP) inside the top 36 at the position who appeared in at least 10 games in 2024.
This gives us a list of 28 names, from Brock Bowers all the way down to Theo Johnson. To measure consistency, I calculated the variance for each of these 28 tight ends. As we will soon see, variance isn’t a perfect metric, but it’s a solid single-number representation of how consistent each player’s scoring was. A lower variance means more consistency, while a higher variance means less.
Of course, consistency on its own isn’t actually valuable — we want consistent points. With that in mind, I’ve added a few extra columns to the upcoming table. The first is simple: Good old-fashioned half-PPR points per game for each player, as well as their rank.
Next, I calculated the average score of each week of the season’s TE6, TE12 and TE24. This gives us thresholds to represent an elite TE1 outing (12.5 or more points), a normal TE1 outing (8.9 or more points) and a TE2-level outing (4.9 or more points). The remaining three columns tell us how often each player cleared those thresholds. If this isn’t making sense, take a look at the table, which should hopefully clear things up:
| Rank | Player | Games Played | Variance | PPG (Rank) | Elite Game Rate | TE1 Game Rate | TE2 Game Rate |
| 1 | Dalton Kincaid | 13 | 9.0 | 6.1 (19) | 0% | 15% | 62% |
| 2 | Dalton Schultz | 17 | 12.8 | 5.4 (23) | 12% | 12% | 41% |
| 3 | Ja’Tavion Sanders | 16 | 13.3 | 3.5 (28) | 0% | 13% | 38% |
| 4 | Jake Ferguson | 14 | 13.8 | 5.4 (23) | 7% | 21% | 43% |
| 5 | Theo Johnson | 12 | 13.8 | 4.5 (26) | 8% | 8% | 50% |
| 6 | Juwan Johnson | 17 | 15.1 | 5.8 (20) | 6% | 29% | 59% |
| 7 | Brenton Strange | 17 | 17.5 | 4.2 (27) | 6% | 12% | 35% |
| 8 | T.J. Hockenson | 10 | 17.6 | 6.6 (15) | 10% | 30% | 50% |
| 9 | Chig Okonkwo | 17 | 19.9 | 5.2 (25) | 12% | 18% | 41% |
| 10 | Hunter Henry | 16 | 21.8 | 7 (14) | 13% | 44% | 56% |
| 11 | Sam LaPorta | 16 | 22.3 | 9 (8) | 31% | 50% | 69% |
| 12 | Pat Freiermuth | 17 | 23.1 | 8 (12) | 18% | 35% | 71% |
| 13 | Zach Ertz | 17 | 32.2 | 8.5 (9) | 24% | 41% | 71% |
| 14 | Noah Gray | 17 | 32.8 | 5.5 (22) | 12% | 18% | 41% |
| 15 | Tucker Kraft | 17 | 32.9 | 8.1 (11) | 18% | 41% | 65% |
| 16 | Trey McBride | 16 | 33.2 | 12.1 (3) | 50% | 69% | 88% |
| 17 | Dallas Goedert | 10 | 34.1 | 8.3 (10) | 10% | 40% | 80% |
| 18 | Mark Andrews | 17 | 34.4 | 9.5 (6) | 41% | 59% | 71% |
| 19 | Isaiah Likely | 16 | 34.8 | 6.4 (16) | 13% | 25% | 50% |
| 20 | Travis Kelce | 16 | 35.3 | 9.2 (7) | 25% | 50% | 75% |
| 21 | George Kittle | 15 | 36.4 | 13.2 (1) | 67% | 73% | 87% |
| 22 | Kyle Pitts Sr. | 17 | 36.6 | 6.3 (18) | 6% | 29% | 47% |
| 23 | Mike Gesicki | 17 | 40.4 | 6.4 (16) | 18% | 24% | 53% |
| 24 | Brock Bowers | 17 | 41.6 | 12.2 (2) | 47% | 59% | 94% |
| 25 | Cole Kmet | 17 | 42.0 | 5.7 (21) | 12% | 18% | 41% |
| 26 | David Njoku | 11 | 42.6 | 10.6 (4) | 45% | 55% | 82% |
| 27 | Cade Otton | 14 | 45.8 | 7.9 (13) | 21% | 21% | 64% |
| 28 | Jonnu Smith | 17 | 48.4 | 10.5 (5) | 35% | 53% | 76% |
Most Consistent Fantasy Tight Ends
Immediately, we see the flaw with variance as a measure of consistency: It’s easier to be “consistent” when you just never score any points. Among the 10 tight ends with the lowest variances in 2024, Hunter Henry led the way with just seven fantasy points per game — that doesn’t even clear our 8.9-point threshold to be considered a TE1 outing.
Still, the top of this table has at least some interesting information. Dalton Kincaid leads the way with an impressively low 9.0 variance. He was one of only two players in this sample to not have a single outing above the “elite” threshold of 12.5 half-PPR points, but he finished above the TE2 threshold in 62% of his games, far more than we’d expect given his rank in points per game. That’s consistency, even if it didn’t really help fantasy managers.
In general, this “some floor, nonexistent ceiling” archetype describes the tight ends at the top of this list. In fact, Kincaid himself is a bit of an exception, given his split with Dawson Knox in Buffalo’s offense. The rest of the low-variance tight ends tend to be players who were their team’s clear lead tight end but also clearly not featured parts of their teams’ offensive game plans. With a solid 69% route participation rate but a miserable 1.00 yards per route run, Theo Johnson is a perfect example of this archetype.
In fact, even the actually productive low-variance tight ends tend to fit this mold, with a twist or two. Sam LaPorta, who has the lowest variance above the top 12 at his position in fantasy scoring, wasn’t exactly a featured part of the Lions’ offense with a 15% target share. Instead, his talent and the Lions’ overall offensive excellence allowed him to still provide decent numbers. It’s a similar story for T.J. Hockenson on the Vikings. Hunter Henry breaks this theory a bit by having led the Patriots in targets; his week-to-week ceiling was held back by New England’s overall offensive incompetence instead.
It’s also worth noting that, contrary to the stereotype, these low-variance tight ends are far more “consistent” than their counterparts at other positions. With a variance of 23.1, Pat Freiermuth ranks 12th-lowest in this table. That number would have made him the fifth-most consistent of 40 running backs and the third most consistent of 26 quarterbacks.
Unfortunately, this is almost certainly once again a reflection of the idea that it’s easy to be “consistent” when you never score any points. Borderline fantasy tight ends see low volume and don’t break explosive plays. This means they rarely have huge spike weeks, which in turn lowers their variance. But it doesn’t mean you actually want to have them in your fantasy lineup; if anything, it’s the opposite.
Least Consistent Fantasy Tight Ends
It shouldn’t surprise anyone that Jonnu Smith was the least consistent fantasy tight end in 2024. He started the season as another offensive afterthought tight end, playing fourth fiddle, at best, in Mike McDaniel’s offense. By the end of the year, as the Dolphins dealt with injuries to Tua Tagovailoa and a disastrous offensive line, Smith was racking up targets and elite fantasy outings as a safety valve. This tale of two seasons leaves him as our most inconsistent option.
We can tell similar tales about the next two players. Cade Otton played 15 full games, but 51% of his fantasy production came in Weeks 7-9… all three weeks in which Chris Godwin and Mike Evans both either left early or did not appear at all. David Njoku‘s variance is inflated by a few injury-shortened outings, but it’s also clear that his role changed with the departure of Amari Cooper and the insertion of Jameis Winston under center.
This is a trend with tight ends because, aside from a few truly elite options, most tight ends don’t enter the season projected to lead their team (or even rank second) in targets. But, as injuries strike at other positions, they step up. Mike Gesicki, Dallas Goedert and even George Kittle also experienced dramatic shifts in usage based on the availability of their teammates in 2024.
Speaking of Kittle, I should note that all of the big three elite tight ends in 2025 fantasy drafts technically ranked as inconsistent options in 2024. However, this is again the misleading impact of ceiling games. Although their variances were high, Kittle, Brock Bowers and Trey McBride were the top three players in each of elite game rate, TE1 game rate and TE2 game rate. They were consistent where it really mattered; they just also added ceiling games that increased their variances.
Going back to the question of whether tight ends are truly more inconsistent than other positions, the bottom of this list offers an answer: A resounding no. Smith’s position-leading variance of 48.4 looks positively stable compared to the running backs and quarterbacks we have already looked at. In fact, 48% of relevant running backs and a whopping 60% of quarterbacks had variances above that number.
Of course, this has a lot to do with the real reason fantasy managers think of tight ends as inconsistent: They simply don’t score that many points. An 8.9-point threshold to be a top-12 weekly option at the position is ugly, and a 4.9-point threshold to be top 24 is downright embarrassing. Tight ends aren’t featured parts of many NFL offenses, so they don’t see consistent volume and they don’t score many points. This is why they are viewed as inconsistent, and it’s what makes the few tight ends who do see consistent targets so incredibly valuable.
Subscribe: YouTube | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | iHeart | Castbox | Amazon Music | Podcast Addict | TuneIn
Ted Chmyz is a fantasy football contributor for FantasyPros.com. Find him on Twitter and Bluesky @Tchmyz for more fantasy content or to ask questions.
