While the 2022 NFL regular season ended, it’s never too early to look ahead to the 2023 campaign. That’s especially true when it comes to fantasy, which never sleeps!
Andrew Erickson, Pat Fitzmaurice, and Derek Brown check in to provide you with their early 2023 fantasy football draft rankings. Take a look at who falls into their consensus early top-10 rankings at the tight end position. We’ll provide player notes for each pick, and you can find our full early 2022 redraft fantasy football rankings below.
- Quarterback Rankings & Player Notes
- Running Back Rankings & Player Notes
- Wide Receiver Rankings & Player Notes
- Introduction to Best Ball Leagues
- Underdog Best Ball Strategy
- Erickson’s Best Ball Positional Primers
- Best Ball Roster Construction Strategy
Check out all of our 2023 NFL Draft Scouting Reports & Prospect Profiles 
2023 Fantasy Football Draft Rankings: Tight Ends
Check out our early consensus top 10 tight end rankings and player notes, courtesy of Pat Fitzmaurice.
All hail the king of tight ends! Travis Kelce has finished TE1 in PPR fantasy scoring in six of the last seven seasons, settling for a runner-up finish behind Mark Andrews in 2021. The gap between Kelce and all other tight ends was a vast chasm in 2022. Kelce averaged 19.2 PPR points; the next-closes tight end, T.J. Hockenson, averaged 13.3 fantasy points. Kelce has strung together seven consecutive 1,000-yard seasons, and he’s averaged 8.4 touchdowns per year over that span. In 2022, he had a career-high 110 catches for 1,338 yards and 12 touchdowns. Age is the only real concern for Kelce, who turns 34 in October. But he’s been indestructible for most of his career. He missed a game in 2020 due to COVID-19, but Kelce hasn’t missed a game due to injury over the last nine years. Kelce is a worth first-round pick in fantasy drafts, and you can make a strong case that he should be a top-five pick.
After catching 107 passes for 1,361 yards and nine touchdowns and leading all tight ends in fantasy scoring in 2021, Mark Andrews was off to a hot start in 2022 before his production fell off in October. Andrews had 39-455-5 over his first six games but then had 34-392-0 over his last nine games while dealing with knee and shoulder issues, along with the late-season absence of injured QB Lamar Jackson. The upside remains vast for the 27-year-old Andrews, who’s a worthy TE target if you miss out on Travis Kelce.
A midseason trade to the Vikings invigorated T.J. Hockenson in 2022. In seven games with the Lions, he averaged 6.1 targets and had 26 catches in seven games. After the trade, Hockenson averaged 8.6 targets in Minnesota and had 60 catches in 10 games. He also had 10 catches for 129 yards in the Vikings’ playoff loss to the Giants. Entering his age-26 season, Hockenson is in the prime of his career and is an attractive option at the TE position now that he’s with a team eager to leverage his pass-catching talents.
After becoming the first tight end in 50 seasons to have 1,000 receiving yards as a rookie, Kyle Pitts had a bitterly disappointing sophomore season, finishing with 28 catches for 356 yards and two touchdowns and missing the last six games of the season with a torn MCL. The 22-year-old Pitts is immensely talented and figures to be a top fantasy TE for many years to come. But can Pitts be a prolific fantasy scorer in 2023 with run-loving head coach Arthur Smith in charge of the Falcons’ offense and the Atlanta QB situation unsettled? Pitts will be a high-risk, high-reward fantasy option for 2023, but at least he’ll be cheaper in this year’s drafts than he was in 2022.
Over the last two years, Dallas Goedert has averaged 56.7 yards per game and a wildly efficient 10.6 yards per target. He finished fifth in fantasy points per game in 2022, missing five late-season games with a shoulder injury. The athletic Goedert is a playmaking tight end who’s averaged 13.8 yards per catch over the last two years. His target upside may be limited, however, since the Eagles were the fourth run-heaviest team in the league last season, and since Goedert has to share targets with WRs A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith. Goedert hasn’t scored more than five touchdowns in any of his five NFL seasons.
George Kittle remains one of the NFL’s most talented tight ends and is arguably the hardest to tackle. He’s coming off a strange season in which he scored a career-high 11 touchdowns but averaged 51 receiving yards per game – the fewest since his rookie year in 2017. Kittle has been remarkably efficient as a pass catcher, with a career average of 9.6 yards per target. The question is whether Kittle will be targeted often enough to suit his fantasy managers. The 49ers are in flux at the QB position, and Kittle will have to share targets with RB Christian McCaffrey and WRs Deebo Samuel and Brandon Aiyuk.
David Njoku‘s first five seasons in Cleveland were a mixed bag, but the uber-athletic tight end had a strong 2022 campaign, with 58 catches for 628 yards and four touchdowns in 14 games. Njoku hauled in 72.5% of his targets and averaged 44.9 yards per game. Although he’s been in the league since 2017, Njoku will only be entering his age-27 season, so he’s squarely in the prime of his career. With his massive wingspan and above-average speed, Njoku might still be able to take up his game another notch.
After a promising rookie season in which he had 60 catches for 497 yards and seven touchdowns, Pat Freiermuth scored only two TDs in 2022. But Freiermuth drew 98 targets in his second season and finished with 63 catches for 732 yards. The former second-round draft pick from Penn State offers a solid fantasy floor as a key component of the Pittsburgh passing game.
Evan Engram had a terrific rookie season for the Giants in 2017, then spent the next four years failing to live up to expectations. He signed a one-year deal with the Jaguars in 2022 and thrived in his new environment, catching 73 passes for 766 yards and four touchdowns. Engram also had 7-93-1 in the Jaguars epic come-from-behind playoff win vs. the Chargers. Engram is an unrestricted free agent, and if he lands in a good spot, he’ll likely be drafted as a midrange TE1 this summer.
Dalton Schultz is due to become an unrestricted free agent, and his 2023 fantasy value will largely depend on his landing spot. Schultz was TE3 in fantasy scoring in 2021, catching 78 passes for 808 yards and eight touchdowns. But his production tapered off in 2022. He finished with 57-577-5 and dealt with an early-season knee injury that cost him a pair of games. Schultz isn’t particularly athletic, and he’s averaged just 6.5 yards per target last season, suggesting that his 2021 numbers aren’t likely to be repeated.
Consensus 2023 Fantasy Football Draft Rankings
Beyond our fantasy football content, be sure to check out our award-winning slate of Fantasy Football Tools as you prepare for your draft this season. From our free mock Draft Simulator – which allows you to mock draft against realistic opponents – to our Draft Assistant – that optimizes your picks with expert advice – we’ve got you covered this fantasy football draft season.
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