In this installment of the touchdown trends series here at 4for4, we’ll be taking a look at the tight end position for fantasy football. As always, the data isn’t prophetic — and interpreting it isn’t a perfect science — but there’s merit in the investigation. Once again, similar to the WR article, the strategy is to evaluate touchdown rates (per target) from various field positions and to spotlight the outlier players on both sides of the sample. Here’s a look at the data from the last 10 years to set a baseline.
TD Rates by TEs. (Photo by 4for4.com)
With all this math in mind, here are two names to note coming off last season’s results and heading into 2025 fantasy drafts.
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T.J. Hockenson, Minnesota Vikings
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2024 Expected Total TDs – 4.6
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2024 Actual Total TDs – 0
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Total TDs Below Expectation – 4.6
Hockenson has never been a “Gronkian” tight end, who makes a living in the end zone; his career high for touchdowns in a season is just six (in 2020 and 2022, when he was traded midseason). Still, zero touchdowns on 62 targets in just 10 games … that’s just not right. Among the issues behind Hockenson’s 2024 goose egg: he saw just a single end-zone target (and didn’t catch it), after averaging seven such targets and more than three TDs per year in that area the prior four seasons. He also saw just eight red-zone targets in total, and (obviously) scored on none of his three receptions.
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It’s possible some of the ineffectiveness can be attributed to Hockenson’s recovery from the significant knee injury suffered at the end of the 2023 season, which kept him out until Week 9 last year. Year 2 coming off ACL (and MCL in Hockenson’s case) injuries tend to be the window where fantasy efficiency returns to normal levels. While the switch to “essentially-rookie” QB J.J. McCarthy does raise some question marks on this Minnesota offense, I’m confident in McCarthy’s profile and Kevin O’Connell’s coaching. With a fully healthy knee, a proper target share, a functional offense, and a mathematical bump, Hockenson could threaten for his career high in TDs again … and be a draft value at his current ADP in the 5th-6th rounds.
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Tucker Kraft, Green Bay Packers
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2024 Expected Total TDs – 3.7
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2024 Actual Total TDs – 7
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Total TDs Above Expectation – 3.3
I’m a pretty established “fader” of Tucker Kraft this season, as I believe the higher-drafted Luke Musgrave returns to threaten his upside, amid a densely overcrowded receiving corps that also includes Matthew Golden, Jayden Reed, Romeo Doubs, Dontayvion Wicks, some amount of Christian Watson and Josh Jacobs. Kraft saw 70 targets last season and scored on a whopping 10% of those targets — nearly double the league average and highest at the position by anyone with 70+ targets. And while it’s possible Kraft is just a great player — his 14.1 yards per reception were also elite last year — even great tight ends don’t score on 10% of their targets with regularity (excluding Rob Gronkowski, who’s several tiers above “great”).
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Target expectations for Kraft in 2025 vary wildly, but John Paulsen’s 4for4 projections have him for just 43 catches, which would equate to roughly 60 targets — fewer than he had last season and more or less what I’d expect in this offense. Even if we grant him an above-average touchdown rate — say 7% — that would drop his touchdown total down to four in 2025. Most of this is baked into his current ADP — TE11 — but just keep this in mind when people label him as a “sleeper” or “undervalued.”
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This story originally appeared in its full form on 4for4.com.
