2026 Risk Baked Into ADP: TEs (Fantasy Football)
Every fantasy draft begins with the same promise: this will be the year we do not hate our TE.
In 2026, there are four obvious ways to keep that promise. Brock Bowers, Trey McBride, Colston Loveland, and Tyler Warren have separated from the position, and the market is charging accordingly. After those four, the board becomes far less comfortable. There are talented players with uncertain QBs, veterans carrying age and injury concerns, and former breakout candidates who have already exhausted the patience of fantasy managers.
That discomfort is exactly what we are looking for here in the Risk Bakery. The goal of this series has never been to pretend risk does not exist. It is to determine whether the price already accounts for it. We are not trying to prove that these TEs are safe. We are trying to find out whether their downside has pushed them far enough down the board that the upside is worth chasing.
If you like drafting with a clear sense of the risks surrounding every player, don’t forget to check out the Fantasy Footballers UDK+, complete with rankings, projections, and a very useful Risk Meter beside every name.
Let’s turn the oven one last time this year to see which TEs have their risk baked into their ADP.
Scott Galvin-Imagn Images
Harold Fannin Jr. – Cleveland Browns
ADP
Overall
2025 Finish
TE7
67
TE6
The Cleveland Browns are not the type of offense fantasy managers usually want to invest in during the sixth round.
They finished 5-12 last season, hired a new head coach, and still do not have a settled QB. Deshaun Watson is attempting to return after multiple Achilles surgeries, while Shedeur Sanders threw seven TD and 10 interceptions as a rookie. Whoever wins the QB training camp competition will command an offense that gave us very little reason for optimism in 2025.
Fannin also has more target competition than he did last year. Cleveland added highly drafted WRs Denzel Boston and KC Concepcion, and both players could eat into the 19.4% target share and 22.3% first-read share Fannin earned as a rookie. A TE7 price is not free, so a meaningful reduction in volume would matter.
Those are legitimate risks. They are also mostly the same obstacles Fannin already overcame.
As a 21-year-old rookie from Bowling Green, Fannin caught 72 passes for 731 yards and six TDs on 107 targets. He finished fifth among TEs in target share, fourth in first-read share, and as the TE5 in fantasy scoring. He did all of that while sharing the field with David Njoku and catching passes from one of the league’s worst QB rooms. Njoku is gone now. At his own position, Fannin has less competition, not more. New head coach Todd Monken has historically featured TEs in the passing game, and Fannin could remain the favorite to lead Cleveland in targets even after the additions at WR.
Most importantly, his rookie production did not come out of nowhere. During his final college season, Fannin led all FBS pass catchers, not just TEs, with 117 receptions and 1,555 receiving yards. Cleveland did not manufacture a role for a random rookie. It discovered that the most productive receiver in college football could immediately command NFL targets. The QBÂ situation can limit the ceiling of the entire offense, but Fannin does not need Cleveland to become good. He was already good while Cleveland was terrible. If the offense improves at all and his role expands without Njoku, the 22-year-old has a realistic path to joining the four TEs currently being drafted ahead of him.
The Browns create the risk. Fannin creates the upside. At TE7, both are already reflected in the price.
Kyle Pitts – Atlanta Falcons
ADP
Overall
2025 Finish
TE8
75
TE2
Fantasy managers spent years paying for the Kyle Pitts breakout before it happened. Now that it finally did, no one seems interested in paying for it.
That skepticism did not appear out of nowhere. Following his 1,026-yard rookie season, Pitts went three consecutive years without reaching 700 yards. The player once described as a generational prospect became an annual exercise in explaining why this season would be different. By the time he actually delivered, most fantasy managers had already sworn never to draft him again.
Even the 2025 breakout comes with a few warning labels. Drake London missed five games, opening additional volume in the Atlanta passing game. Pitts also concentrated a meaningful portion of his production into one extraordinary performance: his 11-catch, 166-yard, three-TD game against Tampa Bay accounted for nearly 18% of his receiving yards and 60% of his TDs for the entire season. There is also another system and QB transition to navigate. Kevin Stefanski and Tommy Rees replace the previous coaching staff, while Tua Tagovailoa is competing with Michael Penix Jr., who is returning from a torn ACL. Pitts’ late-season surge coincided with Atlanta changing QBs, so we cannot automatically assume that everything that worked in December carries over unchanged.
But we should not allow four years of disappointment to erase what Pitts actually accomplished. He received 118 targets, caught 88 passes for 928 yards, and finished second among TEs in both receiving yards and Half-PPR fantasy points. A single spike week helped, but it did not create 118 targets.
Pitts is also only 25 years old and has now played 51 consecutive games. Atlanta reinforced its commitment by giving him a three-year extension worth up to $54 million with $36 million guaranteed. The new regime did not inherit Pitts and tolerate him; it evaluated him and made him one of the league’s highest-paid TEs. There may even be room for positive TD regression. Five scores on 118 targets is hardly an unsustainable rate. Unlike Dallas Goedert, Pitts does not need to replace a double-digit TD season to preserve his value. A modest improvement near the goal line could offset a reduction in total targets.
Pitts is being drafted as the TE8 one year after finishing as the TE2. The risk is that 2025 was inflated by London’s absence, QB changes, and one nuclear performance. The reward is that the former generational prospect may finally have become a very good NFL player just as fantasy managers stopped caring.
At 75th overall, I am willing to find out which explanation is correct.
Kyle Pitts had 11 receptions for 166 yards and 3 touchdowns against the Buccaneers. pic.twitter.com/3aiwFJub8O
— Nick Penticoff (@NickPenticoff) January 30, 2026
Isaiah Likely – New York Giants
ADP
Overall
2025 Finish
TE11
104
TE47
For four years, Isaiah Likely‘s fantasy appeal was built around a hypothetical: What would happen if Mark Andrews were no longer standing in his way?
We finally get the answer in 2026, although it arrives with a different team, QB, and offensive environment. Likely has never received more than 60 targets or reached 500 yards in a season. His opportunity in Baltimore was undeniably limited, but four seasons of flashes are not the same as a full-season breakout. He is also coming off the worst statistical year of his career. A broken bone in his foot cost him the first three games of 2025, and he never regained a meaningful role, finishing with 27 receptions, 307 yards, and one TD.
The move to New York introduces more uncertainty. Likely goes from Lamar Jackson to Jaxson Dart, and the Giants already have a capable TE in Theo Johnson. Johnson caught 45 passes for 528 yards and five TDs last season. New York can use both players together, but 12 personnel does not guarantee that Likely will dominate routes or targets. That matters because the market is not treating him like a completely free sleeper. At TE11, fantasy managers are already paying for some of the projected breakout. Still, this is easily the best opportunity of Likely’s career. The Giants gave him a three-year, $40 million contract and reunited him with John Harbaugh, the coach who knows his game better than anyone. That is not backup TE money. New York has also talked about using Likely as a featured piece rather than simply asking him to recreate his Baltimore role.
There is evidence that he can produce when given the opportunity. In nine career games without Andrews, Likely averaged 3.4 receptions, 50.3 receiving yards, and 10.8 Half-PPR points while scoring six TDs. Five of those nine games produced at least 10 Half-PPR points. The sample is small and spread across multiple seasons, but the ceiling is not theoretical. The surrounding target distribution is also favorable. Malik Nabers remains the clear first option when healthy, but he is returning from a torn ACL and the Giants lack proven difference-makers behind him. Likely has a plausible path to finishing second on the team in targets, particularly if Harbaugh builds the offense around multiple TE formations.
The risk is that four years of projection never become a full season of production, Theo Johnson remains heavily involved, and the move away from Jackson costs Likely efficiency. But the Giants did not pay $40 million to find out whether Likely could continue catching two passes per game. At TE11, neither do we.
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Dallas Goedert – Philadelphia Eagles
ADP
Overall
2025 Finish
TE14
119
TE4
Doubting Dallas Goedert does not require much imagination. Just look at the TD column.
Goedert caught 60 passes for 591 yards in 2025. Neither number was remarkable. He nevertheless finished as the TE4 because 11 of those receptions ended in the end zone. Before last season, Goedert had scored 24 receiving TDs across the first seven years of his career. He produced nearly half that total in one year. TDs accounted for 43% of his fantasy production. Regression is not merely possible; it should be expected. The rest of the profile adds more risk. Goedert will turn 32 during the season and has missed at least two games every year since 2019. Philadelphia is changing offensive coordinators again, and even if the passing offense improves under Sean Mannion, Jalen Hurts and Saquon Barkley will continue to command opportunities near the goal line.
If Goedert falls from 11 TDs to five or six without adding volume, he will not come close to repeating last year’s finish. Fortunately, fantasy managers are not drafting him anywhere near TE4. They are drafting him as the TE15. That price assumes the TD regression while leaving very little room for his role to grow after the departure of A.J. Brown. Brown leaves behind 121 targets from last season. DeVonta Smith should become Philadelphia’s clear WR1, but the second spot in the receiving hierarchy is wide open. Goedert does not need to absorb all of Brown’s volume to offset the TDs he is likely to lose.
There is at least some evidence that Jalen Hurts leans on him when Brown is unavailable. Goedert has played four games without Brown over the past two seasons and scored at least 9.5 Half-PPR points in three of them. It is a tiny sample, but it supports a very logical projection: remove an elite target earner, and the remaining established pass catchers become more involved. Goedert is old for a breakout candidate, but he does not need to break out. He can lose half of last year’s TDs and still beat his ADP by a wide margin if Brown’s departure pushes him toward 90 or 100 targets. The TD regression is obvious, but the 121 vacated targets are just as real. The market noticed the first part and appears to have forgotten the second.
Stephen Lew-Imagn Images
Juwan Johnson – New Orleans Saints
ADP
Overall
2025 Finish
TE20
157
TE10
Juwan Johnson might be the easiest selection in this entire article because the cost of being wrong is almost nothing.
The argument against him is straightforward. Johnson will turn 30 in September and is coming off career highs in targets, receptions, yards, and fantasy points. Before 2025, he had never reached 550 receiving yards. Last season he received 100 targets, ran 526 routes and turned them into 77 receptions for 889 yards. It is fair to wonder whether we just witnessed the best statistical season of his career. New Orleans also added competition. The Saints used the eighth overall pick on Jordyn Tyson and drafted TE Oscar Delp, while Noah Fant remains part of the depth chart. Tyson, in particular, was selected to command targets immediately alongside Chris Olave. Tyler Shough showed promise as a rookie, but he still enters the season with only nine NFL starts.
If Johnson loses routes and falls behind Olave, Tyson and the RBs in the target hierarchy, his 2025 volume will be difficult to repeat. That is the long-term risk, but the short-term picture just became more favorable. Tyson suffered a hamstring injury during a joint practice this week and is expected to miss approximately two months. He could miss the first five games, giving Johnson a chance to begin the season in the same prominent role he held last year. Even if Tyson eventually claims a large share of the offense, an early stretch without him could allow Johnson to keep building chemistry with Shough and give fantasy managers immediate usable weeks.
Johnson provided plenty of those in 2025. He finished third among TEs in receiving yards, fifth in receptions, and produced nine top-12 fantasy weeks, tied for the second-most at the position. His three TDs were modest relative to 889 yards, so he has a path to compensate for some lost volume with better scoring luck. Most importantly, he is being drafted as the TE20. Johnson does not have to repeat 100 targets or 889 yards to return value at that price. If he retains even 75% of last year’s role, he can outperform his ADP. If the volume disappears once Tyson returns, fantasy managers can move on without having sacrificed meaningful draft capital.
The risk is that 2025 was a hard-to-replicate career year for Johnson. The price treats it as though it never happened.