Brock Bowers and Trey McBride are great and all, but what if you're too cool to draft early-round tight ends? What if you can't be bothered to spend such a premium pick on such a peculiar position? What if you are so f*cking ahead of the game that you wait to spend a late-round pick on the position—and get a ton of production back anyway?

Presenting: A look at this year's top late-round tight end bets! We'll first take a moment to look back on common factors among the position's more surprising late-round booms over the years before utilizing Fantasy Life Projections and Fantasy Life Rankings to identify the top candidates ahead of 2026.

As always: It's a great day to be great.

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The History of Stud Late-Round TEs

Key word: Stud. Last season the difference between TE7 and TE16 was just 1.5 PPR points per game. We're not looking for average borderline TE1 options—those types are often readily available and replaceable on the ole waiver wire—but instead the sorts of talents that will get the kids barking about league-winning potential.

With this in mind: I found the 18 tight ends who managed to score 12+ PPR points per game (minimum 8 games) AND were drafted as the TE10 or later in fantasy drafts. ADP is from ESPN leagues since 2017 (as far back as I can find).

The results:

• New offense, new me: 5 of the 18 tight ends (28%) were in a new situation, whether that be a veteran joining a new team (2024 Jonnu Smith, 2018 Eric Ebron), a talented rookie (2023 Sam LaPorta, 2024 Brock Bowers) or in one strange case: Darren Waller changing positions to tight end after his initial season with the Raiders.
• High-scoring offense not required: The average scoring rank of the group's offense: 16. Median: 17.5. This lines up with previous research I've done that indicates high-end fantasy wide receivers and tight ends are far less reliant on being in a high-scoring offense than quarterbacks and running backs.
• Less competition, the better: Almost none of these guys had much WR pass-game competition to worry about. And if they did, it was usually just one high-end receiver. The only real exceptions were 2021 Gronk (Evans, Godwin, AB), 2019 Austin Hooper (Julio, Ridley), 2025 Dallas Goedert (AJB, DeVonta), 2024 Jonnu Smith (Tyreek, Waddle), and 2021 Dalton Schultz (CeeDee, Cooper).
• No country for old men: The average age: 26.7. Median: 25. This is the age range where we usually see the most top-performing fantasy tight ends, independent of this study. 2024 Taysom Hill (34), 2021 Gronk (32), 2018 Jared Cook (31) and 2025 Goedert (30) were the only 30-plus-year-olds to qualify.
• The outliers: The only four tight ends who weren't in a new offense AND had ample pass-game competition: 2019 Hooper, 2021 Schultz, 2021 Gronk and 2025 Goedert. The former three benefited from playing with immensely productive passing games led by longtime stud QBs, while the latter literally had some of the wildest fantasy-friendly goal-line usage that I've ever seen. I mean, look at this shit.

As with most things in life: There's not a singular one-size-fits-all rule here, but I do like the idea of focusing on the following factors when looking ahead to 2026:

• Must have demonstrated at least some level of receiving upside in their career, or be a fairly lauded draft prospect.
• Don't shy away from tight ends in new offenses.
• We don't need a super high-end scoring offense *IF* there isn't a lot of extra target competition.
• Ideally the tight end isn't too old. If they are, let's at least target ones who haven't shown decline in the YAC and efficiency departments in recent seasons.

The latter bullet excludes guys like Travis Kelce and Mark Andrews from consideration—they're also barely late-round tight ends considering their TE10 and TE12 ADP. I'm also going to eliminate 31-year-old Dallas Goedert, who failed to clear 10 yards per reception for the first time in his career and only somewhat boomed in 2025 because of his aforementioned borderline asinine goal-line usage.

Additionally, there's probably a bit too much target competition in meh-to-good offenses to feel too good about the upside scenario for guys like Oronde Gadsden, Kenyon Sadiq, Juwan Johnson, T.J. Hockenson, AJ Barner, Dalton Schultz, Cade Otton, Pat Freiermuth and Brenton Strange, among others. This isn't to suggest these dudes can't supply top-12 numbers—that'd make them pretty solid values at cost!--but again, we're big-game hunting today. Johnson (86), Schultz (82) and Sadiq (82) are the only members of that group projected for more than 80 targets, while Gadsden and Strange are the only two options in passing games that profile as strong contenders to REALLY go crazy.

This leaves us with seven tight ends presently going outside the top 10 rounds in fantasy drafts who have demonstrated some level of receiving upside during their career, aren't too old, and either have a path to a high-end target total OR function in the sort of high-octane passing game where they could make the most out of limited opportunities. In order of their present ADP …

• Cowboys TE Jake Ferguson (TE11 ADP, pick 125.9)
• Bills TE Dalton Kincaid (TE13, 130.8)
• Giants TE Isaiah Likely (TE14, 133.4)
• Patriots TE Hunter Henry (TE18, 150)
• Commanders TE Chig Okonkwo (TE19, 152.4)
• Titans TE Gunnar Helm (TE25, 179.9)
• Dolphins TE Greg Dulcich (TE32, 209.6)

Let's break down the contenders with a bull (good) case, bear (bad) case, and an ultimate verdict on how hard in the paint we want to go in drafts to acquire their services ahead of 2026.

TLDR: My top-3 favorite late-round tight ends ahead of 2026

1. Dalton Kincaid
2. Isaiah Likely
3. Chig Okonkwo

Hell yeah, brother.

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