The tight end position is always a little volatile in fantasy football year over year. Once you get past the first few elite TEs in your draft, it’ll be mostly educated guesses to try to identify a player who can outperform their ADP.

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Prior to a season-ending injury, Packers’ Tucker Kraft was on pace to be one of the highest scoring tight ends in 2025. He finished with 32 catches for 489 yards and six TDs in just eight games, the TE3 in FPPG. So, how do we find lightning in a bottle in 2026?

Justin Boone was joined by Fantasy Life’s Dwain McFarland to discuss what the data is telling us when it comes to identifying hidden gems at TE in your draft.

McFarland points right to FPPG as the main indicator of success based on the previous season. Touchdowns can also tell us which players may have been producing over their heads a bit. From FPPG, you can then look at the secondary stats to see who can make the jump, McFarland says.

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But what happens if the data is aligned and all the top TEs are off the board early? That forces you to look at deeper options at the position. McFarland wants a TE who can boom at the position if given a larger role, which is exactly what happened with Kraft early on before his injury. He became a favorite target of QB Jordan Love and was making explosive plays in the open field.

Last season on Yahoo, Kraft had the TE10, being taken just inside the top-100 players overall in terms of ADP. Tight ends currently in that ADP range on Yahoo include Dalton Kincaid, Isaiah Likely, Kyle Pitts Sr. and Dallas Goedert.