Because guillotine leagues are so deep, with up to 18 teams, you need to be careful about your draft strategy for the tight end position. Many of those who've played in standard fantasy leagues are accustomed to sloughing tight ends, landing the 11th or 12th-best tight end.

But with 18 teams, sloughing tight ends could mean trying to survive with the 17th or 18th-best tight end, a far different result. That's the difference between Dallas Goedert and [gulp] Kyle Pitts. 

The only justification for sloughing tight ends is that, unique to guillotine leagues, you can make a waiver claim bid on another one every week—and it might even be a good one.  But that approach carries the downside of requiring an early-season FAAB spend.

With all that said, here are five tight ends that I wouldn't pay anywhere close to ADP to acquire.

TE Downgrades In 2025 Guillotine Leagues

Travis Kelce - Chiefs

– 14 spots lower than standard league consensus rankings

Travis Kelce is a perfect case study in how guillotine leagues are different from other leagues. We all know Kelce's production took a step backward last year, but he still finished as TE5 in PPR. Fifth! That makes Kelce sound safe, right? 

Or was he? Let's look at some 2024 full-season chop data: 

• Across all players, Kelce was the 11th most-chopped player.
• Across all players, Kelce was the most-chopped tight end.
• Top-10 most-chopped player: 4 different weeks (most among TEs)
• Top-25 most-chopped player: 7 different weeks (most among TEs)
• Top-50 most-chopped player: 11 different weeks (most among TEs)

Sobering, right? In fairness to Kelce, you need to be fairly good in order to get repeatedly chopped; otherwise, people wouldn't keep starting you. But still, those stats highlight his danger. 

Looking ahead to 2025, the outlook doesn't look any better for the 35-year-old. For the first time in years, Patrick Mahomes has a surplus of viable targets: Xavier Worthy, Hollywood Brown, Rashee Rice, and maybe even rookie Jalen Royals. There's a very real chance Kelce's target volume drops hard.

Mark Andrews - Ravens

- 20 spots lower than standard league consensus rankings

Maybe I'm still traumatized by Mark Andrews' opening month of last season, when he was the most chopped tight end in three of the first four weeks. At that point, it looked like Andrews had passed the torch to Isaiah Likely, or at a minimum, he was going to be stuck in a crippling time share. 

As it turned out, the first month was an inexplicable hoax, and Andrews scored in 10 of the final 12 games, handing out touchdowns like University of Phoenix diplomas. 

A year later, I'm nervous. 

At 29 years old, Andrews is still young enough to be a significant contributor, but we're only a few months removed from the team acknowledging that he's a trade candidate. In April, when asked about Andrews' future with the team, Ravens general manager Eric DeCosta said, "I never know what's going to happen."  That's not a ringing endorsement. 

Come on, Eric! How about something closer to, "Mark Andrews is a pivotal element to our passing game, and I'd love to see us target him 30 times in the end zone this year." That's what I'd like to hear from the Ravens front office.

You may recall, Andrews had a brutal game in the Ravens' playoff loss to the Bills with a fumble and a dropped game-tying reception.

Kyle Pitts - Falcons

- 11 spots lower than standard league consensus rankings

As I explained at the outset of this story, guillotine is not the format for sloughing the tight end position, like you can in a traditional league. With up to 18 teams, there aren't enough good tight ends to go around. 

Right now, guess who is TE18 in standard ADP? Yep, Kyle Pitts.

But at this point, why are we even talking about Pitts? I appreciate that there's something appealing about being the first person in your league history to not regret drafting Pitts. Maybe, just maybe, Pitts has always been a victim of bad quarterbacking, and Michael Penix is going to reverse the previous four years of inconsistency.

But that sounds like hope, not reality. We only saw Penix for three games, a small sample size, and two of those three were disastrous games for Pitts, 1-7-0 and 2-15-0.  And here's the thing: that's normal for Pitts. He's failed to hit double-digit PPR points in 20 of his last 28 games. 

The last time Pitts caught a pass from inside the 10-yard line? October 15th, 2023.

Colston Loveland - Bears

- 35 spots lower than standard league consensus rankings

Despite similar draft equity, let's not assume there's another Brock Bowers-type rookie year approaching for Colston Loveland. Bowers entered the league as a true unicorn, posting 175 receptions and 2,500 yards in three years at Georgia. That's 1,000 more yards than Loveland had in the same number of seasons at Michigan.

In Las Vegas, Bowers quickly emerged as the Alpha in an offense that couldn't do anything else competently. In Chicago, Loveland will compete for targets with DJ Moore and another first-rounder, Rome Odunze, who deserves more targets in his sophomore year. 

And let's not forget that Cole Kmet may not go quietly into retirement. Kmet's in the middle of a $50M contract and is still expected to have a significant role in the offense.

Even if Loveland turns out to be a very good player, the majority of rookies are plagued by inconsistency early in their careers. You may recall, Ben Johnson got a strong rookie season out of Sam LaPorta. But LaPorta's first six games averaged 2 catches for 37 yards and 0.16 touchdowns.

Tyler Warren - Colts

- 18 spots lower than standard league consensus rankings

Much of what I just said about Colston Loveland applies to Tyler Warren, except his overall offense and quarterback look far sketchier than Loveland's. And his ramp-up is likely to be slower. Warren wasn't a starter until his senior year of college—granted a terrific season, with a staggering 104 receptions, and 1,200 yards.

But still, that makes him awfully green.

Moreso than Loveland, Warren has a clear path to starting, needing only to overcome perpetual underproducers Mo Alle-Cox and Jelani Woods. That's helpful, but most rookies take a frustrating amount of time to develop, especially tight ends, one of the NFL's toughest roles to pick up quickly. 

In a guillotine league, we don't have the luxury of waiting for players to develop. In all likelihood, Warren won't be a reliable fantasy producer until November or December, at which point he'll have been on the waiver wire a half dozen times, available for nearly free.

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