TE-Premium Fantasy Football Draft Strategy & Targets (2026)

TE-Premium leagues can impact the way you approach fantasy football drafts. Juiced-up scoring for tight ends makes the position more valuable as a whole, but you shouldn’t just push every tight end up your board.

You still need to be strategic. Below, you’ll find my guide to TE-Premium formats, as I discuss who to target, different draft strategies and the dos and don’ts of playing in a league with this scoring setup.

Fantasy Football Draft Strategy & Targets: TE-Premium

If you played dynasty recently, chances are you’ve come across one of my favorite formats: TE-Premium. It helps make a vexing position more viable and significant by boosting reception points for tight ends.

It’s not quite mainstream yet in redraft or seasonal formats, but it’s starting to catch on, largely due to the Scott Fish Bowl implementing it.

What is TE-Premium?

TE-Premium, or sometimes called TE-Plus, is pretty straightforward: You give tight ends a bonus for each reception. For example, if you are using full PPR scoring where every player gets a point per reception, tight ends would get a bonus on top of that, typically another half-point or full point per reception.

There’s no right or wrong amount to add, and that’s the beauty of it. The higher the bonus you give to the position, the more important it becomes to your roster construction.

Make sure you review the league’s scoring system to get a firm grasp on how it will impact your draft and roster-building. A smaller bonus, like a quarter-point or half-point, makes the position more valuable, but it shouldn’t alter your approach a ton.

However, a full extra point per catch now means that tight ends get two fantasy points for just making a catch. Tight ends like Brock Bowers or Trey McBride could get 200-220 fantasy points just off that alone, making them almost priceless in TE-Premium leagues.

TE-Premium Targets

Here’s how I’d attack the position at the top of the draft if my league rewards extra points to the tight end position. The higher the bonus, the more aggressively I’d prioritize landing one. If the premium is 0.75 points or more, expect these tight ends to go about a round earlier than normal.

Rounds 1-2:

Brock Bowers (TE – LV)
Trey McBride (TE – ARI)

Rounds 3-4:

Colston Loveland (TE – CHI)
Tyler Warren (TE – IND)

Rounds 5-7:

Don’t go into your draft blind—unlock expert rankings, mock drafts, and cheat sheets in our Fantasy Football Draft Guide.

Draft Strategies for TE-Premium leagues

Pay up for Premier Players

There are a few different ways to attack your draft. The first one is simple: pony up for one of the elite tight ends. At the top, it’s Brock Bowers and Trey McBride; no one else should be particularly close to them.

As a rookie in 2024, Bowers was the TE1 in total fantasy points and ranked in the top 10 in nearly every important efficiency metric. His sophomore season was derailed in Week 1 with a knee injury, but he later returned and still finished 2025 as the TE2 in fantasy points per game (14.7).

In an offense devoid of playmakers at the receiver position, Bowers is as good a bet as anyone to finish as the top tight end in fantasy this year.

Meanwhile, Trey McBride is coming off a season in which he broke the NFL tight end record for most receptions in a single season. He was sensational, reeling in 126 catches for 1,239 yards and 11 touchdowns — all of which were career highs — and averaged 18.6 fantasy points per game in the process.

If you’re picking towards the back half of round one in this format, that’s when you can start looking at one of these players. And if you want to go wild, you could even double down with a Bully TE build, snagging both Bowers and McBride near the round one/round two turn. Seems aggressive, but in TE-Premium, it could pay off and crush your league mates.

Play the Value Game

Usually, you’ll find that most advice says to wait on tight end and just grab one or two upside options late. That might work in traditional leagues with no scoring bump at the position, but it could backfire on you in TE-Premium.

Still, there is something to zigging while everyone else zags, and you might be able to still find some quality tight ends in the double-digit rounds, even with this scoring setup. A few options to consider:

Dallas Goedert had 11 touchdowns in 2025 and has an average draft position (ADP) outside of the top 12.
Juwan Johnson was the TE11 in fantasy points per game (10.6) in 2025, but he’s the TE17 in ADP.
Chigoziem Okonkwo could be the No. 2 target for Jayden Daniels, giving him TE1 upside.
Hunter Henry is down at TE21 in ADP, but he was the TE9 in total fantasy points last year.

Safe & Speculative

Somewhere between grabbing one of the top tight ends and waiting until the later rounds is this approach. You take one of the tight ends in tier two or tier three as your Hero TE, and then select an upside option towards the end of the draft.

That could mean drafting a tight end like Tucker Kraft, who was in the top three in fantasy points per game last season before tearing his ACL, and pairing him with Brenton Strange, who had 560 receiving yards last season in an ascending Jacksonville offense.

Or maybe you lock in Kyle Pitts — last season’s TE2 in total fantasy points — and then take a swing on rookie Kenyon Sadiq, the 16th overall selection in the 2026 NFL Draft by the New York Jets. That gives you two athletic tight ends who could both go off in 2026.

Dos and Don’ts of TE-Premium Draft

D0 pay attention to your scoring settings. The larger the bonus to tight ends, the more you’ll want to secure one of the elite talents.

Don’t overdraft the position. You might be able to play two, maybe three at most, depending on how many FLEX positions you have. Still, you should prioritize top-notch running backs and receivers.

Do aim for tight ends who could be the first or second in targets on their own team. If they don’t have a path to meaningful opportunities, they won’t matter much for fantasy purposes, regardless of the bonus.

Don’t chase middling talent. Avoid passing on better receivers or running backs just to draft mediocre tight ends because of the scoring bonus.