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Top 3 fantasy football tight end sleepers and draft targets for 2025. Draft these late-round TEs in fantasy leagues: Pat Freiermuth, Cole Kmet, and David Njoku.
Tight end is one of the most pivotal positions in fantasy football, and as the calendar shifts to 2025 fantasy drafts, the need for maximizing your draft picks is as essential as ever. You’ve got Brock Bowers and Trey McBride at the top of the tight-end position, but plenty of tight ends come up from lower in the rankings to vastly outperform their draft capital.
The top tight ends in 2025 fantasy football are not cheap, but if you use your early picks on other positions, finding usable starting tight ends later in drafts only helps solidify your roster.
We’re listing off some fantasy football tight ends later on in drafts who you’ll be able to get much better production from relative to their draft position. Let's dive in and name some of the early 2025 sleepers and draft targets at tight end.
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David Njoku, TE, Cleveland Browns
ADP – 106.3 (TE9)
David Njoku has found ways to thrive no matter how murky the quarterback situation gets in Cleveland. In 2023, Njoku was excellent from Week 7 to the end of the season as he led all tight ends in fantasy points and was TE2 only behind T.J. Hockenson.
Last season, Njoku played in Week 1, then missed three weeks and returned in Week 5. Before going on IR in Week 16, Njoku was the TE6 in fantasy points per game. Njoku just keeps on chugging.
For all we’ve talked about the Browns being a tire fire of a franchise, we’ll likely have a new quarterback for Cleveland this season and because of cap space restrictions -- *cough* Deshaun Watson -- and other factors, it’ll almost assuredly be a quarterback from the 2025 NFL Draft.
Njoku's production has trended up in the last three seasons from a slow career start in his early 20s. Another feather in Njoku's cap is that his pass blocking has fallen off tremendously from earlier in his career, which means he's almost always out running routes.
No matter who is throwing Njoku the ball, he’s been a target earner and compiler for the last few seasons with a legitimate ceiling. Somehow, that’s been undervalued relative to other tight ends in recent seasons, including this 2025 draft landscape with his placement as TE9 in early ADP.
Considering Njoku put up 8.2 targets per game last season and was tied for third among tight ends with Travis Kelce and only behind Brock Bowers and Trey McBride, that’s a pretty good list to be on.
Travis Kelce is a difference maker at 35 years old.
Zach Ertz led ALL receivers in the NFC Championship game at 34 years old.
David Njoku is 28 years old.
He's 1 year removed from career highs in damn near every stat.
Get a QB and watch 85 FLY. pic.twitter.com/P5T1n5YZm5
— Nick Karns (@karnsies817) January 28, 2025
With Amari Cooper traded in the middle of last season and Elijah Moore a free agent, it’s likely a three-way competition for the target lead for Cleveland and it’s anybody’s guess who leads the Browns in 2025 between Njoku, Jerry Jeudy, and Cedric Tillman.
At a TE9 price in the triple digits of ADP, that’s an excellent price for a heavily targeted tight end who will no doubt be a big factor in his team’s offense in 2025.
Pat Freiermuth, TE, Pittsburgh Steelers
ADP – 164.7 (TE20)
The Pittsburgh Steelers hired offensive coordinator Arthur Smith early in 2024, leading a shift to what we’ve seen in Atlanta over the last couple of seasons when Smith was head coach. Running the ball, plenty of personnel substitutions, and being vehemently afraid of a modern-style passing attack -- all hallmarks of a Smith-led offensive philosophy.
In the first season of the Smith-led Pittsburgh Steelers offense, the passing game worked out pretty much as predicted. To nobody’s surprise, George Pickens led the Steelers in targets despite a weird dalliance with “load management” early in the season and missing three games late in the season.
Pat Freiermuth was second in targets but was much more efficient than Pickens as he led the Steelers in receptions (65) in 2024. Of course, it’s hard to slam Pickens when Freiermuth’s aDOT was less than half (6.4 yards) of what Pickens’ aDOT (13.9 yards) was.
Throughout his four seasons, Freiermuth has been solid but not spectacular. Not much has really jumped out but he’s been a solid contributor to the Steelers’ effort. Last season was his best fantasy-scoring season and he finished as TE9 thanks to catching 65-of-74 passes and scoring seven touchdowns.
Most are not drafting Freiermuth for his upside even though he’s only 26, and that’s young in tight-end years. He’s been a steady presence and will find himself with yet another quarterback in 2025 after the team is unlikely to bring back Russell Wilson. However, he’s here for his current price -- TE20.
That’s far too low for a 65-600 line with five to seven touchdowns. He’s going BEHIND Kyle Pitts, Colston Loveland, and Isaiah Likely; Likely being not quite a TE2 but certainly NOT the TE1 on his team. Of the routes-based options at tight end like Cole Kmet, Cade Otton, Dalton Schultz, etc., Freiermuth might have the best upside of the group and still has some youth on his side to keep ascending.
The profile is pretty good if you want to pay down at tight end, but Freiermuth’s price feels like an overcorrection.
Cole Kmet, TE, Chicago Bears
Underdog ADP – 166.3 (TE21)
Cole Kmet took a weird backseat to Gerald Everett at the start of 2024 and was essentially the Chicago TE2 for "reasons." The same Everett who had been on a Seattle team with then-offensive coordinator Shane Waldron.
Perhaps that early season demotion for Kmet -- no matter how brief -- was a microcosm of the season he'd have as he would post the worst real-life and fantasy campaign in almost every aspect since his rookie season.
After a career-high 20.7 percent TPRR in 2023, Kmet almost chopped that percentage in half with just a 10.5 percent TPRR last season as 71 percent of the Bears’ targets were directed toward the wide receivers -- the third-highest percentage in the league.
The tight-end position saw just 13 percent of the team’s targets -- the second-lowest percentage in the NFL last season with the vast majority (55 of 68 total tight-end targets) going to Kmet.
To the shock of absolutely nobody, Shane Waldron was shown the door midway through the season, as was head coach Matt Eberflus, so quarterback and former No. 1 pick Caleb Williams will get his second regime in as many seasons in 2025.
Luckily, the head coach coming in is Ben Johnson, the much-hyped offensive mind who has been the architect of the Detroit Lions’ potent offensive attack for the past three seasons.
Surely, there should be some offensive improvement from the Bears in this upcoming season and Caleb Williams stands to benefit greatly under the mentorship of Johnson. Seeing Sam LaPorta's success in the last two seasons under Johnson should give some hope to Kmet going forward. Kmet is signed for the next three seasons after signing a four-year extension in the summer of 2023.
I said it on the pod today w/ @MarcasG & @MichaelFFlorio
With Ben Johnson in Chicago we might get the Cole Kmet breakout szn we deserve 🫡
I’m ready to start this hype train in January. 📈
— LaQuan Jones (@RealDealFantasy) January 21, 2025
Kmet turned in his best season in 2023 with career highs in fantasy points (181.1 -- TE8), yards per target (8.2), TPRR (20.7 percent), YPRR (1.69), and first downs per route run. He fell off dramatically as Kmet just didn’t feel like part of the offense with his first-read target rate plummeting to 9.2 percent after three seasons of 17 percent or higher. Kmet ran more route volume than he ever has in his career, yet he was targeted much less than he had been.
2025 represents a reset for Kmet under Johnson and new offensive coordinator Declan Doyle, the 28-year-old former tight ends coach from the Denver Broncos who has been heralded as another “wunderkind” in NFL coaching circles.
At TE21 in early best ball drafts, Kmet feels criminally mispriced right now, but a lot of that has to do with the Bears needing to add to the position following the release of Everett and 40-year-old Marcedes Lewis being a free agent.
Kmet is locked into the Bears’ plans for the next couple of seasons and could find his footing with Johnson’s offense. At such a reasonable price in Big Board drafts, I’m grabbing Kmet where I can if this current price holds into seasonal drafts.
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