Draft Strategy: TE Premium Leagues

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0-dZsOskRo

Honestly, when you're drafting in a tight end premium league, your draft strategy shouldn't change all that much. We're not making a wild change to all of the positions—we are making a small change to just the tight end position. Quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers—they're not affected by this change. So, while it might push tight ends up a little bit in your draft, everything else will realistically be very close to any type of normal league that you would play in.

In a tight end premium league, tight ends are going to score 0.5 more fantasy points per reception than running backs and wide receivers. For instance, in a standard league where running backs and wide receivers would get zero points per reception, a tight end would get 0.5 per reception. In a half-PPR league where wide receivers and running backs get 0.5 points per reception, a tight end would get a full point per reception. And then in a full-PPR league, running backs and wide receivers, you guessed it, get a full point per reception, while a tight end would get 1.5 points per reception.

Here's the gist of what you need to know in a tight end premium league. Your top-tier tight ends—which there’s going to be three of them in 2025: George Kittle, Trey McBride, and Brock Bowers—all three of those tight ends will likely go in Round 1. There is the possibility, depending on the league mates that you have, that they slip into the very beginning of Round 2. But for a majority of tight end premium leagues, they're going to go in Round 1 or very early in Round 2.

Now, of course, that's where you need to make the decision—is it worth drafting one of those guys while giving up on a top running back or a top wide receiver? Realistically, you need to dive into the scoring of your league, run some numbers, and try to figure out if that half a point more per reception is really going to lead to the type of numbers that would catapult them above running backs and wide receivers.

Realistically, your Tier 2 tight ends will probably end up going in Rounds 3 and 4. People are going to jump pretty early for the top tight ends, then cool off a little bit, and they’ll probably end up coming back to them in those rounds. There might be a possibility that one of these guys—or maybe even two—sneak into the very back of Round 2, but I highly doubt it.

Tier 2 guys this year are going to be made up of several names: Sam LaPorta, Travis Kelce, T.J. Hockenson, Mark Andrews, Evan Engram, and David Njoku—kind of right on that Tier 2 area. Those are going to be the guys in Rounds 3 and 4 that’ll start coming off the board. And again, you have to do your calculations and a little bit of projection of what you think tight ends will score compared to running backs and wide receivers before entering any type of tight end premium draft. That way you can figure out whether or not it's actually worth drafting these guys a little bit earlier.

What could throw this off? Well, big play bonuses. If you're in a league that gives big play bonuses—so extra points for runs of 20 yards or receptions of 20 or 40 yards or whatever it may be—it may not be worth giving up those big play bonuses to get the extra half a point for these tight ends. That's where you need to do your homework, because all tight end premium leagues are just a little bit of a change compared to any normal standard league that you would play in. There's not a big difference in what you would do from a draft strategy perspective. Just make sure you do your homework, and you'll find out right away whether or not it's worth moving sooner on these guys.