Let SB Nation help you dominate your fantasy drafts this season!
With the 2023 NFL season right around the corner, it’s almost time to begin everyone’s favorite pastime: fantasy football! The hours-long process of drafting players onto teams with hilarious names to compete against friends or in the workplace is all over the world, and this year SB Nation is going to help you out.
Today we have our list of top 20 tight ends to roster this year for your fantasy team, to help lead you to a title. Of course at the top is Chiefs star Travis Kelce, who despite being 33 years old is at the top of his game and will continue to be the primary receiving option for the reigning Super Bowl champions. How the rest of the list shakes out is interesting, with players now in new homes and under new coordinators. Here’s our top 20 fantasy football tight ends for 2023.
A new setting should help Darren Waller
Darren Waller was traded to the New York Giants from the Las Vegas Raiders this offseason, and it might help him when it comes to fantasy football. With Brian Daboll and Mike Kafka retaining their spots as head coach and offensive coordinator, the Giants offense should be an improvement from where it was in 2022. In addition, outside of Waller the Giants’ receiving options are dwindling and are more suited to complementary roles next to a star.
Waller is going to see a lot of targets in a passing offense that’ll be constructed around his strengths, and could potentially be a worthy pick in the second or third rounds of your fantasy drafts.
Hold the line on Kyle Pitts
Kyle Pitts truthers…this year might finally be the year for us. Since breaking the rookie TE receiving record in 2021, Pitts has been plagued by injury and poor QB play as a member of the Atlanta Falcons. However, this year finally feels like the year the Falcons have put it all together on the offensive side of the ball. Desmond Ridder remains a relative unknown at the QB spot, but with head coach Arthur Smith still helping to design the offense, Pitts should see more opportunities for catches in the offense.
The Atlanta Falcons feel like a team that has the pieces to be very fun for fantasy football players, and Pitts is among those guys. With all of the attention focused on stopping their potent ground game, Pitts should be able to put up large numbers again, and remind everyone why he was a high draft pick.
Where would you draft the rookies?
The rookie tight ends are an interesting case in the NFL this year. Only one rookie TE made our list to open the season, Detroit’s Sam LaPorta. With the dynamic run game, and Goff being able to work best in play-action situations, LaPorta can find soft spots in zones and use his YAC ability to get you points that way. He’s going to be in a committee, with the amount of heavy personnel the Lions play, but he’s worth a late-round flier.
On the flip side, Michael Mayer was the first TE selected in the draft, going to the Las Vegas Raiders. With their QB situation looking extremely murky, we left him off our list. But Mayer has the potential to be another guy who’s outside the top 20 who can be of great use when you need to fill out roster spots.
