We are in the middle of draft season now, when season-long redraft leagues and Best-Ball leagues are both in full force. We are also in Week 2 of the preseason, when we will likely see the most snaps for starters. Week 3 is usually reserved for final 53-man roster bubble battles, and we don’t see as many starters play, if at all.
This is peak chaos season for my process because everything overlaps at once: season-long rankings, preseason projections/betting, player props, podcasts, articles like this, and getting my Week 1 models ready. All of those things feed into each other, but that also means things are moving fast. So consider this more of a high-level snapshot of how I’m attacking TE right now, while my actual ranks/projections on the site are still the source of truth since those are updated daily.
Be sure to check out all the updates we made for the 2026-2027 NFL season to our Season-Long, Best Ball, and Survivor tools.
So in order to maximize the value I can provide, I’m going to give my full thoughts on TE tiers through both a Best Ball and season-long H2H lens. I’ll also point out that my projections are the same for every TE in every format. I simply attack the position differently depending on format.
It’s also important to remind readers that this article is meant for me to share my thoughts outside of my actual ranks/projections on the site. Those are 100% the reference to use when drafting because they are what I’m updating daily. This is a fixed written piece of content that I’m not looping back and updating. It’s more of a snapshot in time and the best way for me to convey how I’m approaching things at a high level.
The best way to view things in Best Ball is that I’m much more likely to follow my Best Ball overall rankings throughout the entire draft. Once you get through the first couple of rounds, you should be drafting based on need.
In season-long head-to-head formats, there are hundreds of different formats, settings, scoring systems, etc. I always talk from a 12-team, 0.5 PPR, 4 points for a passing TD league that starts QB/RB/RB/WR/WR/WR/Flex/K/DEF.
As you add wrinkles to that format, I would adjust my approach. 0 points for a reception? You can see how my ranks change for players. Derrick Henry is now much more valuable. Full PPR? Derrick Henry is now less valuable. 6 points for a passing TD? Dak Prescott is now much more valuable, while Malik Willis is much less valuable. Only start 2 WRs? Getting X number of WRs early on becomes much less urgent. 10 teams? Onesie positions like QB/TE become a bit less valuable because the waiver wire is going to be even more loaded, which is your asset if/when you punt a onesie position. 14+ teams? QB/TE becomes more valuable if you only draft one QB/TE, as the waiver wire starts to get thinner. Start 2QB? Well, QB becomes WAY more valuable.
Having said that, in a typical 12-team league, I typically try to get a top TE, which this year I would say is top 3-4, if they fall to me where I think it’s fair to take them. If not, I’m perfectly content taking a TE extremely late and planning to stream the position.
The position itself is getting deeper year after year, and I find myself finding league-winning waiver-wire TEs at a higher rate every season. Last year, I said if I missed out on Bowers/McBride/Kittle, I was content just taking Tyler Warren or Colston Loveland super late and/or just knowing there would be league winners available in-season. Sure enough, by Week 2, my waiver-wire article featured Harold Fannin Jr., who was only owned in 3% of Yahoo leagues. We had numerous other TEs pop up at times, like Oronde Gadsden, Darren Waller, etc., who were all excellent short-term adds.
My entire point is that if you don’t get a TE early, do not panic. You have to remember that you essentially get the entire waiver wire at your disposal if you punt the position.
Also, people who own Bowers/McBride or any of the other TEs inside, say, the top 10 aren’t really going to be that aggressive adding TEs from the waiver wire, especially early in the season. It’s not a position where people love having 2+ players on their team or having a TE sitting on their bench.
That’s why last year I was saying not to spend early draft capital to get the David Njoku/Evan Engram types inside the top 10. If you can believe it, both TEs went inside the top 10. Those who took them likely hung on waiting for them to cash out their ADP, which never happened, and probably missed out on adding league-winning TEs early on.
There’s nothing wrong with heading into the season just adding a Mark Andrews type as a flier to get you a low-end TE1 option for Week 1 and going from there. If he posts a top-5 week, great, you can roll with him until the wheels fall off. If he stinks and a shiny new object is sitting on the waiver wire heading into Week 2, swap Andrews for the potential league winner.
It pays to be flexible at TE early on, and when you spend little to no draft capital on the position, you will have that mindset going in.
Tier 1
- Brock Bowers
- Trey McBride
These are the true elite TE1 options who will give you a huge advantage over the rest of your league. I have both TEs projected nearly 40 points higher than the rest of the position. TEs are the lowest-scoring position and can be extremely volatile week to week, so getting consistent production from these two is another reason they are such valuable assets.
I think they should both go from the middle to the end of the 2nd round. While having either TE on your team does give you an edge, it also makes your team more fragile. If one of these two misses extended time, your expected win% likely takes a bigger hit. The good news is you will still have access to the waiver wire at the position, where the drop-off is less severe than at other positions.
Therefore, I have no problem drafting either TE where it makes sense. But in reality, it’s easier said than done because it really depends on where you are drafting. If you have, say, pick 10-12, it’s probably too early to take either TE, as that’s really the sweet spot to go RB/RB, and there’s almost a 0% chance either TE makes it back to you in Round 3.
Getting Bowers in the second half of Round 2 or McBride in the middle of Round 3 is the sweet spot to potentially land them.
Tier 2
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