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 | 220.3 | 13.5 |
| 2 | Brock Bowers | LV | 194.8 | 12.6 |
| 3 | Sam LaPorta | DET | 190.7 | 12.3 |
| 4 | Tyler Warren | IND | 181.8 | 11.0 |
| 5 | Harold Fannin Jr. | CLE | 179.0 | 11.3 |
| 6 | Tucker Kraft | GB | 178.6 | 11.5 |
| 7 | Colston Loveland | CHI | 168.5 | 10.7 |
| 8 | Travis Kelce | KC | 165.2 | 11.0 |
| 9 | George Kittle | SF | 159.6 | 10.6 |
| 10 | David Njoku | LAC | 152.7 | 9.9 |
| 11 | Kyle Pitts | ATL | 151.4 | 9.2 |
| 12 | Hunter Henry | NE | 149.7 | 9.5 |
| 13 | Juwan Johnson | NO | 148.1 | 9.6 |
| 14 | Dallas Goedert | PHI | 146.3 | 9.8 |
| 15 | Kenyon Sadiq | NYJ | 145.2 | 9.1 |
| 16 | Oronde Gadsden II | LAC | 140.7 | 9.4 |
| 17 | T.J. Hockenson | MIN | 140.5 | 9.4 |
| 18 | Jonnu Smith | FA | 139.2 | 8.4 |
| 19 | Mason Taylor | NYJ | 137.5 | 9.2 |
| 20 | Mark Andrews | BAL | 137.3 | 8.9 |
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 and Sam LaPorta are the only other tight ends projected within 30 points of McBride, and both post separation and catch-rate numbers close to his — this just isn't a three-horse race for volume. After that, the field bunches up fast: the gap from third to tenth is smaller than the gap from first to second.
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 fifth 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 ahead of Mason Taylor— himself a second-round pick from last year's draft. That's two straight top-50 picks New York has invested in the position in as many years, and the more recent one is already ahead on the depth chart. 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 sixth-place projection assumes that player shows up again. Worth checking his practice reports through August before locking him into a lineup.
The Chargers stacked a room the Browns just thinned
Los Angeles quietly built one of the deeper tight end rooms in the league this offseason, signing David Njoku as a free agent to pair with Oronde Gadsden II, last year's breakout fifth-round rookie. Njoku left Cleveland for a reason that connects directly back to the rookie wave above him on this board — Fannin's emergence as a rookie was exactly what pushed Njoku's snaps down in the first place. Now the Browns have their next tight end already in place, and the Chargers have two proven pass-catchers at the position that most teams are lucky to have one of.
One team listing here isn't real
Worth noting: Jonnu Smith is projected 18th here, but Pittsburgh released him back in March. He's been an unsigned free agent since, which is why the depth chart has no listing for him at all despite the projection catalog still carrying him at his old team. Treat his spot on this board as a "if he lands somewhere with a real role" placeholder rather than a real 2026 outlook, and we'll revisit it the moment he signs.
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.