Brock Bowers and Trey McBride are great and all, but what if you're too cool to draft early round tight ends? What if you can't be bothered to spend such a premium pick on such a peculiar position? What if you are so ahead of the game that you wait to spend a late-round pick on the position, and get a ton of production back anyway? Then you need a sleeper tight end.
Tight End Fantasy Football Sleepers
Presenting: This season's top tight end fantasy football sleepers! We'll first take a moment to look back on common factors among the position's more surprising late-round booms over the years before utilizing RotoWire Projections and RotoWire Rankings to identify the top tight end sleepers for the 2026 fantasy football season.
| TIGHT END | TEAM | ADP |
|---|---|---|
| Isaiah Likely | Giants | 14 |
| Dalton Kincaid | Bills | 17 |
| Chig Okonkwo | Commanders | 24 |
As always: It's a great day to be great.
History of Stud Late-Round Tight Ends
Key word: Stud. Last season, the difference between TE7 and TE16 was just 1.5 PPR points per game. We're not looking for average borderline TE1 options -- those types are often readily available and replaceable on the ole waiver wire -- but instead the sort of talent that will get
Brock Bowers and Trey McBride are great and all, but what if you're too cool to draft early round tight ends? What if you can't be bothered to spend such a premium pick on such a peculiar position? What if you are so ahead of the game that you wait to spend a late-round pick on the position, and get a ton of production back anyway? Then you need a sleeper tight end.
Tight End Fantasy Football Sleepers
Presenting: This season's top tight end fantasy football sleepers! We'll first take a moment to look back on common factors among the position's more surprising late-round booms over the years before utilizing RotoWire Projections and RotoWire Rankings to identify the top tight end sleepers for the 2026 fantasy football season.
| TIGHT END | TEAM | ADP |
|---|---|---|
| Isaiah Likely | Giants | 14 |
| Dalton Kincaid | Bills | 17 |
| Chig Okonkwo | Commanders | 24 |
As always: It's a great day to be great.
History of Stud Late-Round Tight Ends
Key word: Stud. Last season, the difference between TE7 and TE16 was just 1.5 PPR points per game. We're not looking for average borderline TE1 options -- those types are often readily available and replaceable on the ole waiver wire -- but instead the sort of talent that will get the kids barking about league-winning potential.
With this in mind: I found the 18 tight ends who managed to score at least 12 PPR points per game (minimum 8 games) AND were drafted as TE10 or later in fantasy drafts. ADP is from ESPN leagues since 2017 (as far back as I can find).
The results:
New offense, New Me: 5 of the 18 tight ends (28%) were in a new situation, whether that be a veteran joining a new team (2024 Jonnu Smith, 2018 Eric Ebron), a talented rookie (2023 Sam LaPorta, 2024 Brock Bowers), or in one strange case: Darren Waller changing positions to tight end after his initial season with the Raiders.
High-scoring Offense not Required: The average scoring rank of the group's offense: 16. Median: 17.5. This lines up with previous research I've done that indicates high-end fantasy wide receivers and tight ends are far less reliant on being in a high-scoring offense than quarterbacks and running backs.
Less Competition, the Better: Almost none of these guys had much WR pass-game competition to worry about. And if they did, it was usually just one high-end receiver. The only real exceptions were 2021 Gronk (Evans, Godwin, AB), 2019 Austin Hooper (Julio, Ridley), 2025 Dallas Goedert (AJB, DeVonta), 2024 Jonnu Smith (Tyreek, Waddle) and 2021 Dalton Schultz (CeeDee, Cooper).
No Country for Old Men: The average age of this group: 26.7. Median: 25. This is the age range where we usually see the most top-performing fantasy tight ends, independent of this study. 2024 Taysom Hill (34), 2021 Gronk (32), 2018 Jared Cook (31) and 2025 Goedert (30) were the only 30-plus-year-olds to qualify.
As with most things in life: There's not a singular one-size-fits-all rule here, but I do like the idea of focusing on the following factors when looking at 2026:
- The TE must have demonstrated at least some level of receiving upside in his career, or be a fairly lauded draft prospect.
- Don't shy away from tight ends in new offenses.
- We don't need a super high-end scoring offense *IF* there isn't a lot of extra target competition.
- Ideally, the tight end isn't too old. If he is, let's at least target one who hasn't shown decline in the YAC and efficiency departments in recent seasons.
The latter bullet excludes guys like Travis Kelce and Mark Andrews from consideration (they're also barely late-round tight ends considering their TE10 and TE13 ADP on ESPN, respectively). I'm also going to eliminate 31-year-old Dallas Goedert (TE9 ADP), who failed to clear 10 yards per reception for the first time in his career and only somewhat boomed in 2025 because of some borderline asinine goal-line usage.
Additionally, there's probably a bit too much target competition in meh-to-good offenses to feel too good about the upside scenario for guys like Hunter Henry, Oronde Gadsden, Kenyon Sadiq, Juwan Johnson, T.J. Hockenson, AJ Barner, Dalton Schultz, Cade Otton, Gunnar Helm, Pat Freiermuth and Brenton Strange, among others. I'm also not going to suggest putting all of our eggs in the Greg Dulcich basket in a regular 12-man home league, but keep an eye out for Miami's arguable No. 1 pass-game option on the Week 2 waiver wire!
Again: This isn't to suggest these dudes can't supply top-12 numbers (that'd make them pretty solid values at cost!), but we're big-game hunting today. None of these guys are projected for more than 85 targets, while Gadsden, Henry and Strange are the only two options in passing games that profile as strong contenders to REALLY go crazy.
This leaves us with three tight ends presently going outside the top-10 rounds in ESPN fantasy drafts who have demonstrated some level of receiving upside during their career, aren't too old and either have a path to a high-end target total OR function in the sort of high-octane passing game where they could make the most out of limited opportunities. In order of their present ESPN ADP:
- Giants TE Isaiah Likely - TE14, 126.8
- Bills TE Dalton Kincaid - TE17, 135.7
- Commanders TE Chig Okonkwo - TE24, 168.5
Let's break down the contenders with a bull (good) case, bear (bad) case, and an ultimate verdict on how hard in the paint we want to go in drafts to acquire their services for 2026.
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Isaiah Likely, Giants - ADP: TE14
- 2025 finish: 4.4 PPR points per game (TE43)
- Bull case: John Harbaugh unleashes his longtime No. 2 TE as THE clear-cut No. 2 pass-game option of a wide-open passing game that isn't even guaranteed to have No. 1 WR Malik Nabers during the early portions of the season.
- Bear case: More natural inline options Theo Johnson and Chris Manhertz prevent Likely from securing a true full-time role, and Jaxson Dart doesn't take a step forward in an offense that winds up running the ball at a near league-high rate.
Verdict: There's reason for optimism. A broken foot in August sabotaged his 2025 campaign, but when healthy: Likely has the sort of YAC ability to make the most out of any low-aDOT/screen targets thrown his way, and his penchant for getting open during the scramble drill could mesh pretty damn great with Jaxson Dart. Throw in the high-priced contract (one of only eight tight ends making at least $40M) and utter lack of target competition at TE and WR alike, and I have Likely ranked ahead of older, more expensive, and lamer options like Kelce, Ferguson and Andrews.
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Dalton Kincaid, Bills - ADP: TE17
- 2025 finish: 10.5 PPR points per game (TE14)
- Bull case: The Bills feel better than ever about Kincaid's health and fully lean into his standing as the best receiving threat on this offense. This leads to No. 1 pass-game treatment from Josh Allen.
- Bear case: The Bills, you know, do what they've always done with Kincaid: Split his reps far too much and render him as nothing more than a usage-based TE2 in fantasy land.
Verdict: Never surpassed a 55 percent snap rate at any point last season, but still managed to finish right around where he's being drafted thanks to easily being the league's most efficient player at the position on a per-route basis. Hell, even including wide receivers, only Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Puka Nacuaaveraged more yards per route run than Kincaid last year.
GM Joe Brady already hinted in March that more load management could be on the table ahead of next season. Still, Brady had good things to say about Kincaid more recently in May, a sentiment that was echoed by Kincaid himself, who noted this is "probably the best I've ever felt" entering 2026. Learned doctors believe there's reason for optimism here. More recent reports have also been encouraging.
You know what? I'm buying in. Kincaid is a talented, potential target hog in maybe the league's highest-scoring offense. Yes, you need to be on the football field to score fantasy points. Also yes, it sure sounds like the Bills WANT that to be the case, IF Kincaid is healthy enough to handle it, and at least for now it sounds like he is! We could be ranking Kincaid as high as the TE5 in the Week 2 ranks if we get a route rate of even 70 percent in Week 1. This is the definition of a player priced far closer to their floor than ceiling. Kincaid is a priority target for me in Round 12 and is my No. 1 late-round tight end pick among this group.
Chig Okonkwo, Commanders - ADP: 24
- 2025 finish: 7.3 PPR points per game (TE27)
- Bull case: The fun YAC beast works as Jayden Daniels' No. 2 pass-game option in an offense with basically nothing of substance behind soon-to-be 31-year-old WR1 Terry McLaurin.
- Bear case: More traditional inline options John Bates and Ben Sinnott hinder Chiggy's full-time role, and he winds up as one of many complementary pieces in a passing game that frankly wasn't very good in 2025.
Verdict: Okonkwo had an absurdly efficient rookie season in a part-time role and has continued to flash afterward. The man is a legit YAC threat out there.
Of course, Okonkwo is cheaper than every other option we've discussed so far, and does seem to profile as a similar commodity as Likely: Fun player in a new, fairly wide-open offense with a young QB we like alongside a potential newfound every-down role given the solid free-agency investment. Now, Chig's financial investment (3 years, $27 million) isn't quite on the same level as Likely, but still: There is a clear, rational path to Okonkwo smashing his current ADP. Still, he's my third favorite option of this group mostly due to the fact that I believe it's a matter of when, not if, the Commanders dip their toes into the free-agent WR waters and sign someone like Stefon Diggs.
