Fantasy Football Tight End Busts of the Year - Biggest Disappointments of the 2025 Season

February 11, 2026

Nick's biggest fantasy football tight end busts of 2025. These players failed to deliver on their ADP and were major disappointments that lost leagues for fantasy managers.

Every year brings breakouts and busts, and this piece leaves me with the sad job of presenting the negative side of the coin at tight end. Let me get this out of the way now: A bust label does not mean the player is a bad person, will never make it in the NFL again, or is necessarily a bad pick for the 2026 season. This is a retrospective piece on the 2025 campaign, with each of these five TEs sinking ships for various reasons.

There will be plenty of time to get excited about sleepers and flag plant picks in the year to come, but we must be sure that we've learned our lesson from the year that was before we can move ahead. We'll utilize the consensus preseason ADP and analyze exactly how they fell short of expectations. Of course, we'll be sure to end with a note on how this player's stock is set in a preliminary 2026 outlook.

We'll ignore guys who outright missed half of the season or more, such as Sam LaPorta or Tucker Kraft. The TE position actually did a decent job at staying healthy, but injuries are an inevitable part of our game. Let's get to it.

Fantasy Football Busts of the Year - Tight Ends

Brock Bowers, Las Vegas Raiders

ADP - 22

It’ll be a full what-if offseason regarding Bowers, who suffered a bone bruise and PCL injury to his left knee in Week 1. The emerging star spent the next three games trying to push through it at less than 100%, but only logged 14 catches for 122 yards before finally resting from Week 5 through the Week 8 bye.

He made up for lost time with an eye-popping Week 9 (37.3 points!), only to fade with one catch against Denver in the following game. Bowers wound up being the TE3 on average in half-PPR scoring between Weeks 9-16, before he was shut down for the final two games.

Some will look at the beleaguered season for both Bowers and the Raiders as a whole and call that a win, but you can’t be drafted as the TE1 and fail to convert. Not only that, but playing hurt in September left fantasy teams stranded at sea. Those in active leagues may have missed a chance to add Harold Fannin Jr., Juwan Johnson, or Oronde Gadsden II, for instance.

This is one instance where I think we can be excited looking forward. A healthy Bowers performed well (albeit inconsistently) in the second half of the season and should get Fernando Mendoza at quarterback with Klint Kubiak as head coach.

What Klint Kubiak is expected to step into with the Las Vegas Raiders:

🏈The No. 1 overall pick, with a chance to select Heisman winner Fernando Mendoza.
🏈Offensive weapons including Ashton Jeanty and Brock Bowers.
🏈Projected $90M in cap space.
🏈Tom Brady as part of the… pic.twitter.com/XGxpcxuSaO

— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) February 1, 2026

Add in that Trey McBride needed a wild constellation of events to elevate his year, and Bowers remains a strong pick relative to the field. If Maxx Crosby's Raiders tenure is indeed no more, then a good offense could be tied to a horrid defense that leads to several shootout scripts.

T.J. Hockenson, Minnesota Vikings

ADP - 65

The hype around J.J. McCarthy and the Vikings offense had Hockenson neck-and-neck with Travis Kelce as the TE5 and TE6 on most platforms. He’d shown enough in the second half of 2024 to inspire drafters to believe that the major knee injury was behind him. Once the top TEs were off the board, Hock held the hopes of many.

But you know that Minnesota’s dreams did not come true in 2025, as inconsistency and injury defined the quarterback play. Hockenson played most of Week 16 but emerged with a shoulder injury that ended his season, having topped nine half-PPR points just once over 15 games (Week 3).

The good news is that he caught every target he saw inside the 10-yard line for a touchdown! The bad news is that there were only three of them all year. That’s fewer than the likes of Tanner Hudson and Darnell Washington.

His best game in Week 3 came with Carson Wentz in a 48-point outburst, but that was a drop in a very empty bucket en route to being the half-PPR TE21 on volume and TE22 on a per-game basis (min. 10 games). At least some busts still provide a few spikes to help carry a week, but we didn’t even get that. Sigh. I'm not inclined to buy moving forward, but the price should be low.

Mark Andrews, Baltimore Ravens

ADP - 73

Despite playing in all 17 games, Andrews finished as the 16th-best TE in half-PPR behind the likes of George Kittle, who missed six games and bageled in a seventh. The Raven’s 7.7 PPG was only good for 25th in half-PPR, and he had only three top-10 weekly finishes.

Your seventh-round pick, meant to give a robust chance at double-digit touchdowns, only had seven yards in his first two games. But all is forgiven when he explodes for 6-91-2 against Detroit, assuming you didn’t bench him after the invisible start.

We got a surge of midseason hope after Lamar Jackson returned to play, as Andrews scored four TDs between Weeks 9-11, but then he never topped seven fantasy points again. His ADP had him going around Rashee Rice and Chris Olave, so that stings.

Andrews will turn 31 as the 2026 season gears up in September and opened as the TE18 in Underdog's Pre-Draft Best Ball contest, which would make him a solid flier if redraft-managed leagues settle in a similar spot. Especially if they do more cool stuff like this:

MARK ANDREWS FAKES TUSH PUSH FOR 35-YARD TD RUN!

BALvsCLE on CBS/Paramount+https://t.co/HkKw7uXVnt pic.twitter.com/Nd8MTxntDP

— NFL (@NFL) November 17, 2025

Evan Engram, Denver Broncos

ADP - 82.3

Are you sensing a trend with what tier of TE draft pick leaves managers hungry for more? He was typically going off the board as the No. 8 TE heading into his first season as a Bronco, with many hoping that the 6-foot-3 veteran would finally eclipse his previous career-high of six TDs (as a rookie in 2017).

Alas, he did not emerge as the No. 2 receiver or take up the “Joker" role for head coach Sean Payton. Courtland Sutton predictably led the way while Troy Franklin and Pat Bryant traded the opposite starting role, with RJ Harvey making an impact through the air as well. Engram’s 51 touches were nearly identical to Marvin Mims Jr.'s 49 in the tertiary tier.

Engram didn’t make those catches particularly high value, either, catching only one TD. Will you recall our disappointment at Hockenson only seeing three targets inside the 10? Engram had none. Zero. Nada. Pain.

Denver signed him to a two-year deal before the 2025 season and will return to prove that this poor output does not define him. At present, it is difficult to see him emerging in '26.

The Broncos have several young offensive pieces without any clear vacancy that'll free up targets or create a change in offensive approach, especially in the red zone. The man is still talented and an athletic nightmare for most coverage setups, but will Denver get him the dang ball?

Evan Engram averaged 4.6 yards of separation from the nearest defender this year, per @ZebraTechnology.

That was tied for the most separation by any TE or WR this year. pic.twitter.com/CytN568kwv

— Zac Stevens (@ZacStevensDNVR) January 6, 2026

David Njoku, Cleveland Browns

ADP - 87

Sure, taking Njoku netted you more fantasy points than the guy going one pick ahead of him (Matthew Golden), but the 7.2 FPPG was waiver fodder. That’s barely inside the top 30 for TEs, while Fannin blew past him to secure an 11.7 FPPG tally for No. 8 on the leaderboard.

It’s no secret that Cleveland’s quarterback, offense, and overall team situation were turbulent, to be kind. But Fannin made it work, even out of the gate. In Week 1, Fannin saw nine targets on just 29 routes run, the majority of which were as the primary read, while Njoku only got five targets on 38 routes.

Things were already on thin ice, and then Njoku hyperextended his left knee in Week 6. The veteran would never surpass a 70% snap share after that. His season ended on a knee injury suffered during Week 14’s game against the Titans. We had high hopes for Fannin, but few envisioned such a quick gear switch.

It’s an uphill climb for anyone to be a fantasy-viable TE when you aren’t even the No. 1 on your own roster. When that’s Cleveland, it’s even more difficult. Njoku will be an unrestricted free agent in 2026, and this writer hasn't seen much regarding the Browns seeking to re-sign him. Let's see where he lands.

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