• Jonnu Smith breaks out in Year 8: The 29-year-old tight end proves that tight ends can have value in Mike McDaniel’s offense.
• Dalton Kincaid’s sophomore slump leads to significant disappointment: Drafted as a top-five tight end, Kincaid fails to come anywhere close to returning that value in 2024.
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Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
Every NFL season is full of surprises, both good and bad, and 2024 was no exception. Plenty of fantasy assets emerged seemingly out of nowhere to become quality starting options, and others let us down, either due to injury, poor play and inefficiency or getting benched.
In this article, we’ll look at some of the pleasant surprises and surprise disappointments at tight end from 2024, leaving out players who missed significant chunks of time due to injury.
NOTE: Fantasy points/rankings are from Weeks 1-17
Pleasant surprise: Brock Bowers, Las Vegas Raiders
- Finish: TE1
- ADP: TE9
Bowers being an immediate threat in the NFL wasn’t a surprise considering his generational status as a prospect, but dominating the way he did on one of the league’s worst offenses while finishing as the PPR TE1 on the year and setting multiple rookie records along the way makes for the surprise coming out of Year 1. Bowers, like the rest of the Raiders offense, could have had an average and inconsistent season relative to their expectations, but he immediately hit the ground running as the focal point of the passing game, setting the record for most receptions by a rookie in a season and breaking Mike Ditka’s 63-year-old record of most receiving yards by a rookie tight end.
Bowers proved that there should never have been a concern with his landing spot, regardless of the quarterback's situation and the fact that he landed on a roster that had just spent a second-round pick on Michael Mayer in 2023. The Georgia product proved that he is very clearly a different breed and ready to be a long-time staple for fantasy purposes regardless of the team around him.
Pleasant surprise: Jonnu Smith, Miami Dolphins
- Finish: TE4
- ADP: TE29
Tight ends under Mike McDaniel in Miami have not been a very fantasy-relevant position, as no player had even exceeded 50 targets in a season nor cracked the top-20 PPR tight ends for a season, until now. Guessing that it would be the eight-year 29-year-old tight end that would break that trend should be considered an amazing call but for the majority of the fantasy community, this was a massive surprise, especially considering his draft capital of TE29.
Smith ultimately finished as the PPR TE4 on the year, finishing second on the team in targets (109) and receiving yards (886) while leading the team in receiving touchdowns (eight). These were all top-five marks for the position across the entire league as well. Smith really kicked things into high gear coming out of the team’s Week 6 bye, where from Week 7-on he ranked as the PPR TE1 over that span, finishing as a weekly top-five tight end five times over the final 11 games and stepping up as one of the best fantasy options at the position this season.
Pleasant surprise: Zach Ertz, Washington Commanders
- Finish: TE8
- ADP: TE37
Ertz was included as a sleeper tight end this offseason based on his very late ADP and the Commanders not having a true second option in the receiving game next to Terry McLaurin. This proved to be exactly the formula that led to Ertz finishing as the PPR TE8 on the season. Ertz stayed healthy and consistently found his way to targets all year long, putting up usable fantasy production on any given week, as he ranked among the top-10 at his position in targets (87), receptions (66), receiving yards (654) and touchdowns (seven).
Ertz was largely undrafted this offseason, coming off an injury and well into his 30s, so he was an easy player to ignore for fantasy, but he proved that he still had more gas left in the tank. He emerged as one of the better surprises of the 2024 season as a top-10 tight end.
Surprise disappointment: Dalton Kincaid, Buffalo Bills
- Finish: TE26
- ADP: TE5
With both Stefon Diggs and Gabe Davis gone, many thought Kincaid, who finished second on the team in targets (90) as a rookie, would be the obvious bet to step up and deliver as the top target this season and at least be a top-10 tight end on the year. However, even after finishing as TE11 in 2023 with tougher target competition, Kincaid came nowhere close to his TE5 ADP and let down fantasy managers in a big way, even considering he missed three games due to injury.
The good news for Kincaid was that he did come through with an elite 25.7% target rate, which led the team, and he even set a new career-high in yards per route run (1.55). The problem was that it wasn’t enough to manifest into weekly fantasy production as he managed just two top-10 weekly finishes across 13 games this season. Considering some of the more promising underlying metrics and injuries that he dealt with, Kincaid’s season could be considered a sophomore slump, as he has a chance to bounce back in 2025.
Surprise disappointment: Kyle Pitts, Atlanta Falcons
- Finish: TE15
- ADP: TE6
It happened again. Pitts found a new way to let down fantasy managers who believed in a breakout year thanks to so much of the circumstances around him improving, including a new coaching staff and a clear upgrade at quarterback. However, there were just too many down performances, especially in the second half of the season, to even be a trustworthy fantasy option, let alone a consistent top-six option he was drafted to be.
From Week 9-on, Pitts only managed one game of at least 50 receiving yards after doing so five times in the first eight games of the year. And through those first eight games, things were looking good as he was the PPR TE3 over that stretch, but because he was the PPR TE31 in his final eight games, that made for an ultimately disappointing season, as he disappeared when it mattered most. This will now be the third-straight season of Pitts finishing outside the top-12 PPR tight ends and it’s going to be difficult to consider him inside that range now heading into 2025, regardless of the situation around him.
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