Time is a flat circle. Season after season, we’ve seen certain players shockingly produce record-setting numbers in career years while others surprisingly disappoint due to one reason or another. The NFL is chaotic, and consequently, so is fantasy football.
Below, I’ve listed three tight ends with historical comps to a counterpart from a previous season for each player. To be clear, these are not exact historical comps based on projected 2024 stats but rather general excitement or concerns based on similar offseason trends by those players or their respective teams.
2024 Fantasy Football: Tight End Sleepers and Busts with Historical Comps
2024 Travis Kelce → 2013 Jason Witten
From 2007 to 2012, Jason Witten had a streak of six straight seasons of 900-plus receiving yards, including four seasons of 1,000-plus yards over that span. Then in 2013, Witten turned 31 years old. It wasn’t the end, but it was the beginning of the end. That year, his receiving yards dropped below 900, and his reception total dropped below 80. Both were seven-year lows, and Witten wouldn’t ever surpass those marks again in his career even though he played for another six seasons.
And though he remained a top target in Dallas that year, the 2013 season also marked the first time that Witten’s yards per game dropped below 60 since 2007. The silver lining was that Witten’s touchdown total rebounded from just three in 2012 back up to eight scores in 2013. That salvaged his fantasy season, allowing Witten to finish as the No. 6 tight end in PPR scoring and as the No. 10 tight end in PPR points per game (PPG), but it remained a disappointing season overall for fantasy GMs who had drafted him as the No. 4 tight end that preseason.
From 2016 to 2022, Travis Kelce had an incredible run of seven straight seasons of 1,000-plus receiving yards, three of which also included double-digit touchdowns. Let’s preface this by saying that Taylor Swift’s boyfriend is still very much one of the best tight ends in the league and far from washed. That said, Kelce himself admitted this offseason that “as much as he wants to be out there every single play, he understands that it’s for the betterment of the team when he’s not”. He played on just 77 percent of the offensive snaps last year, the lowest since his first season as a starter back in 2014. And with Kelce turning 35 years old in October, it wouldn’t be surprising if his snap share were to dip a bit more in 2024.
Still, Kelce projects for a second straight season of sub-100 receptions and less than 1,000 receiving yards. A slight bump in touchdowns likely won’t be enough to propel him back into elite weekly production to pay off his current ADP (TE2, 39.4 overall on Underdog and TE1, 37.0 overall on FantasyPros).
Again, to be clear, Kelce still very much projects as a strong mid-range TE1 option in fantasy, but his ADP as a top-two tight end right now is wishfully overpriced. With the additions of Hollywood Brown and Xavier Worthy this offseason, Mahomes will have better wide receivers than in 2023 and will be able to attack downfield more often. Kelce projects to continue being an efficient red-zone weapon for the Chiefs but not as the clear No. 1 target monster that he’s been for much of the last decade. He’s the No. 5 fantasy tight end in my 2024 rankings.
2024 Kyle Pitts → 2022 T.J. Hockenson
In 2022, life changed drastically for T.J. Hockenson. In a rare inter-divisional trade, Detroit sent him to Minnesota midseason, and Hockenson fit in seamlessly. He had already been off to a strong start to the year with the Lions, having averaged 3.7 receptions on 6.1 targets per week over the first seven games. That was good enough for 12.2 PPR points per game (PPG) as the No. 4 tight end in fantasy.
After having been traded to the Vikings, Kirk Cousins immediately targeted his new tight end. From Weeks 9 through 17, Hockenson’s per-game averages leapt up to 6.6 receptions on 9.4 targets. That was good enough for 14.1 PPR PPG as the No. 2 tight end in fantasy, pushing Hockenson into the elite fantasy tier.
With Cousins now in Atlanta, Kyle Pitts could finally have a reliable passer under center to get him the ball. Prior to injury last year, Cousins ranked second behind only Dak Prescott in completion percentage above expectation, and Cousins has also ranked top-15 in accuracy against both man and zone coverage in each of the last two seasons. While no one is confusing Cousins with a world-beater like Mahomes, he’s at the very least a major upgrade for Pitts over the likes of Desmond Ridder and Taylor Heinicke in 2023.
That should result in a tremendous increase in both receptions as well as yardage, as Pitts ranked first among all tight ends in unrealized air yards last season and just 37th in catchable target rate. And given the lack of reliable wide receiver depth behind Drake London, there’s a good chance for Pitts to become the No. 2 pass-catcher for Cousins and see triple-digit targets for the first time since his rookie season.
Now two years removed from his MCL tear, 2024 could be the season where Pitts’s playmaking ability finally intersects with high target volume. He has the potential to finish as the overall No. 1 tight end in fantasy this year and is incredibly mispriced at his current ADP (TE6, 60.1 overall on Underdog and TE6, 59.5 overall on FantasyPros). Pitts is the TE4 in my rankings over Kelce and Dalton Kincaid based on his projected targets and boost in quarterback play efficiency.
2024 Jonnu Smith → 2017 Vernon Davis
Back in 2017, Vernon Davis was an ancillary option in Washington’s passing offense. However, despite having logged just 43 receptions on only 69 targets that year, Davis was incredibly efficient on his limited opportunities. That season, he amassed 648 receiving yards on his 43 catches with an average of 7.1 yards after the catch per reception (YAC/R). In fact, after Jordan Reed suffered a season-ending injury that year, Davis was the No. 10 tight end in PPR scoring from Weeks 9 to 16 with four top-12 tight end weekly finishes over that span. His performance was in large part due to big plays as a result of his yards after the catch. Davis had 10 plays of 30-plus yards, which led all tight ends over even Rob Gronkowski and Travis Kelce.
Davis accomplished this with Matt Cavanaugh as his offensive coordinator, whose play-calling helped get Davis in space. Although Cavanaugh never worked directly with Kyle Shanahan, he’d served as Sean McVay’s quarterbacks coach during his tenure in Washington the two years prior in 2015 to 2016. And like McVay’s, Cavanaugh’s offense kept many of the elements that Shanahan had put into place during his tenure in Washington from 2010 to 2013.
Last year, Jonnu Smith ranked third among tight ends on YAC/R behind only David Njoku and George Kittle. Even more impressive, his 7.1 YAC/R ranked 24th among all players, just ahead of Nico Collins and Christian McCaffrey. In fact, Smith was one of only three tights ends who had a 60-plus yard play and one of only six tight ends who had more than one 50-plus yard play in 2023, and his seven total plays of 30-plus yards tied Sam LaPorta for fourth-most behind only Kittle and Njoku.
Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel, another coach from the Shanahan tree, has already hinted at giving Smith more opportunities this coming season due to his playmaking ability even though his offense historically hasn’t utilized tight ends much. Smith saw a career-high 70 targets in Atlanta last year, and it wouldn’t be a stretch to project him for similar target volume in 2024 after even Durham Smythe saw 43 targets as the starting tight end in Miami in 2023.
Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle remain the primary options in the passing game, but McDaniel’s scheme is sure to get Smith targets in space to create after the catch even if he doesn’t project for a ton of target volume. At his current ADP (TE23, 184.1 overall on Underdog and TE23, 184.5 overall on FantasyPros), Smith is practically free and is a high-upside TE2 in fantasy. In a hyper-efficient Miami offense, Smith could finish the 2024 season as a top-12 fantasy tight end with a few big plays even if his production may be volatile from week to week. He’s currently my TE16 ranked well ahead of ADP.
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