Fantasy Football: 9 Tight End Sleepers (2026)

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 sleepers below. And check out all of the fantasy football sleepers experts love in our consensus sleeper rankings.

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Fantasy Football Sleepers Experts Draft

Here are fantasy football sleepers the experts love to target in drafts.

Who are Fantasy Football Sleepers?

Fantasy football sleepers are players who have a strong chance to exceed expectations and become surprise difference-makers for fantasy managers.

Fantasy Football Sleepers: Tight Ends

Greg Dulcich could be THE late-round tight end to draft in 2026. Last year, he was absolutely awesome when on the field. Among 59 qualifying tight ends, he was fifth in target-per-route-run rate (24%), second in yards per route run (2.64) and yards after the catch per reception (7.69), fifth in first downs per route run (0.110), and sixth in fantasy points per route run (0.50, per Fantasy Points Data). Miami is starved for capable pass catchers for Malik Willis, and with only Will Kacmarek, Seydou Traore, and Ben Sims behind him on the tight end depth chart, Dulcich should be the Dolphins’ every-down tight end. I won’t be surprised if he finishes the season as a TE1.

Terrance Ferguson, a second-round pick in last year’s NFL Draft, drew only 25 targets as a rookie and caught only 11 of them, but he averaged 21 yards per catch and 9.2 yards per target. Ferguson is an extraordinary physical specimen who ran a 4.63 and had a 39-inch vertical jump at last year’s combine at 6-foot-51/2, 247 pounds. But the Rams are log-jammed at tight end. They rotated four TEs last year – Ferguson, Colby Parkinson, Tyler Higbee and Davis Allen – and Ferguson averaged fewer snaps per game than the other three. The Rams have also added another TE, selecting Max Klare of Ohio State in the second round of this year’s draft. On the bright side, Rams head coach Sean McVay used 13 personnel, with three TEs on the field at once, on 30.5% of the Rams’ offensive snaps last season. No other team used 13 personnel on more than 14% of its plays. Rams tight ends combined for 150 targets, 103 catches, 1,128 yards and 17 touchdowns last season. Role ambiguity makes Ferguson undraftable in all but the deepest fantasy leagues, but his athleticism and the possibility that he earns a bigger role in a TE-friendly offense make him worth monitoring.

A.J. Barner got significantly more involved in the Seattle offense in his second NFL season after a quiet rookie year. Barner’s snap share increased from 45% in 2024 to 72% in 2025. He had 52 catches for 519 yards and six touchdowns last season after putting up 30-245-4 as a rookie. Barner also had 10 rushing attempts for 14 yards and a touchdown last year, and he had four catches for 54 yards and a touchdown in the Super Bowl. Barner had a 14.9% target share last season for a Seattle offense that had the fourth-fewest pass attempts in the league. The Seahawks didn’t add any pass catchers of note in the offseason, so if they either throw more frequently in 2026 or Barner carves out a bigger target share, Barner could take another step forward. Jaxon Smith-Njigba had an absurd 35.8% target share for the Seahawks last year, so it’s entirely possible that Barner’s target share could rise while JSN’s comes down. Consider Barner a midrange to low-end TE2 for 2026 fantasy drafts.