Rankings
Top 20 Tight Ends: 2026 Season Projections
One player separates himself from the rest of the position. Behind him, a wave of second- and third-year tight ends is taking over starting jobs faster than the position usually allows.
By Kenny Flermoen · August 1, 2026
Tight end has one clear-cut No. 1 this year and then a long, tightly bunched field behind him. This ranks who scores the most half-PPR points in 2026 — a production forecast, not a trade-value list.
Top 20 TE — 2026 Projected Half-PPR Points
| Rank | Player | Team | Half-PPR FP | PPG |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Trey McBride | ARI | 215.9 | 12.7 |
| 2 | Brock Bowers | LV | 210.9 | 12.4 |
| 3 | George Kittle | SF | 200.3 | 11.8 |
| 4 | Sam LaPorta | DET | 185.7 | 10.9 |
| 5 | Tyler Warren | IND | 176.6 | 10.4 |
| 6 | Harold Fannin Jr. | CLE | 175.5 | 10.3 |
| 7 | Colston Loveland | CHI | 166.7 | 9.8 |
| 8 | Travis Kelce | KC | 163.5 | 9.6 |
| 9 | Tucker Kraft | GB | 157.6 | 9.3 |
| 10 | Kyle Pitts | ATL | 153.2 | 9.0 |
| 11 | Kenyon Sadiq | NYJ | 145.1 | 8.5 |
| 12 | Oronde Gadsden II | LAC | 141.7 | 8.3 |
| 13 | T.J. Hockenson | MIN | 137.6 | 8.1 |
| 14 | Dalton Schultz | HOU | 130.9 | 7.7 |
| 15 | Dallas Goedert | PHI | 129.7 | 7.6 |
| 16 | Jake Ferguson | DAL | 129.0 | 7.6 |
| 17 | Hunter Henry | NE | 128.0 | 7.5 |
| 18 | AJ Barner | SEA | 127.5 | 7.5 |
| 19 | Juwan Johnson | NO | 125.4 | 7.4 |
| 20 | Cade Otton | TB | 124.2 | 7.3 |
Ranked by projected half-PPR fantasy points for the 2026 season. This is a scoring projection, not a trade value ranking.
One player, a class apart
Trey McBride isn't just the position's top scorer — he's on a target pace almost no tight end has ever sustained, projected for nearly 150 looks in a passing game built around him. Last season he combined that volume with a 74.6% catch rate and positive yards after the catch, meaning he wasn't just getting the ball more than everyone else, he was doing more with it too. That's the rare combination that separates a true No. 1 tight end from a good one: most players at the position lean on either volume or efficiency. McBride has both.
Brock Bowers is five points back. George Kittle is third on a 14.7-game slate, not a veteran fading out of the ten. Sam LaPorta is fourth. After that the field bunches up fast: the gap from fourth to tenth is smaller than the old first-to-second gap used to be.
A rookie wave is taking starting jobs early
Four of the top seven tight ends here are still in their first two NFL seasons. Tyler Warren and Colston Loveland were both first-round picks in 2025 walking into Year 2 as their team's clear starter. Harold Fannin Jr. is even more notable — a third-round pick who took over Cleveland's starting job as a rookie after David Njoku's playing time dipped, and he's projected sixth here in just his second season.
The newest name in that group is Kenyon Sadiq, this year's first-round pick, who the Jets already have penciled in as the outright starter. He is 11th here with zero NFL snaps. Tight end has traditionally been a slow-developing position for rookies. This year's incoming class isn't waiting.
Kraft's ranking is a bet on a healthy return
Tucker Kraft tore his ACL in Week 9 last season while playing what was shaping up to be a career year — he'd already put up nearly 500 receiving yards and six touchdowns in eight games. He's since said he's on track for Week 1, though he wasn't fully practicing as of the start of camp. His NGS profile here is pulled from that healthy 2024 stretch rather than an injury-shortened 2025, and it's a strong one: the best separation and after-catch numbers of any tight end in this group. His ninth-place projection assumes that player shows up again. Worth checking his practice reports through August before locking him into a lineup.
The Chargers room is now a one-name story
Oronde Gadsden II is 12th — last year's breakout fifth-round rookie, and the Chargers tight end who still scores. David Njoku signed there as a free agent after Fannin took his job in Cleveland. Njoku is not on this board anymore. The model is treating Gadsden as the pass-catcher in that room, not a 1/1B split.
Hockenson is the points-board version of the same tax
T.J. Hockenson is 13th on an 8.1-point line. A 95-catch peak still lives in the trade-value companion. This board only cares what 2026 looks like, and last year's shoulder plus a thin Vikings passing attack left him outside the ten.
Model any of these players against your own roster on the Dynasty Trade Calculator — toggle PPR and TE Premium settings to match your league. For the shorter board, see our top 10 by position.
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FAQ
- How are these tight end rankings calculated?
- They're ranked by projected half-PPR fantasy points for the 2026 season — a pure scoring forecast, not a measure of trade or long-term dynasty value.
- What's the difference between this list and NextDyne's Dynasty Value rankings?
- This list ranks who scores the most points in 2026. Dynasty Value Score ranks who's worth the most in a trade, weighing age and career runway on top of next year's production — a meaningful gap at a position with this many young players still climbing the depth chart.
- Why is tight end so top-heavy compared to other positions?
- Very few NFL offenses feature more than one tight end as a real weekly target. That means the gap between a true No. 1 and everyone else tends to be larger here than at receiver or running back, where committees are more common.