Fantasy Football: 5 TE Breakouts for the 2024 Season

One way to get an edge on your fantasy football leaguemates? Draft players before their breakout seasons! Here, the Yahoo Fantasy team highlights five of their favorite TE breakout candidates to consider in drafts.

Yahoo Fantasy Roundtable: 5 Breakouts at QB | RB | WR | AT

It’s odd to predict a breakout from a tight end who’s already put up a 1,000-yard season, but we haven’t seen the best of Pitts, who has just 68 catches and one touchdown while topping 100 in targets in his rookie year. His 176.6 PPR points total was nothing special, as it paled in comparison to the 234.9 points Lions TE Sam LaPorta put up in his 2024 rookie season. And things only got worse for Pitts over the next two campaigns, as the combination of a lackluster offensive coordinator and dismal QB play made it impossible to showcase his skills.

Things are looking up now, though, as Kirk Cousins ​​continues to let his weapons shine, and Pitts, still just 23, joins Drake London and Bijan Robinson as a three-headed monster that should give defenses nightmares. Pitts is currently the seventh TE off the board in Yahoo! drafts, but could dominate his position by the end of the season. — Fred Zinkie

Ferguson is already a useful player, but there’s still a level of potential growth if he becomes more efficient around the goal line. Ferguson led the position in red-zone targets last year but had a slightly disappointing five touchdowns overall. If that conversion rate improves in 2024, Ferguson could easily be a top-five tight end this time around. Ferguson’s role in Dallas is secure, the second-priority target behind CeeDee Lamb. — Scott Pianowski

Isaiah Likely has finished as a top-five fantasy tight end three times in the last five weeks with Mark Andrews out last season. He was also the TE8 in Week 18 despite seeing just two targets as Baltimore rested many of its starters.

The Ravens have a glaring weakness at WR2 and use their tight ends in the red zone far more than any other team in the league, so Likely should see a bigger role this season even if Andrews stays healthy (Andrews has missed multiple games in three of the past four seasons). Reports suggest Likely could be Baltimore’s No. 2 receiving option in 2024, and he has top-three TE upside if Andrews goes down again. — Dalton Del Don

One trait I like to look for to increase my odds of landing a late-round breakout tight end is guys in good offenses without a clear No. 1 receiver. Packers tight end Luke Musgrave checks both boxes. While the Packers have a decently deep receiver room, none of their players stand out as clear target hogs. This paves the way for someone like Musgrave to make a splash and earn himself a bigger piece of the volume pie.

The Packers invested capital in the second round of last year’s draft to acquire Musgrave, and he’s been solid in his nine starts. If Musgrave can establish himself as a bigger red-zone threat than Jordan Love, who threw for 32 touchdowns last year, I expect him to be extremely valuable in fantasy given his current ADP of TE18. The Packers likely have too many mouths to feed for Musgrave to have a top-three season, but I can see him establishing himself above the streaming line as a consistent starter with high touchdown output. — Pranav Rajaram

Heading into 2024, there are a lot of questions surrounding the Steelers’ offense, both in terms of scheme and the quarterback options between Russell Wilson and Justin Fields. However, fantasy managers should keep in mind that Pat Freiermuth’s 2024 season can’t get any worse than the past two seasons, in which the Steelers have thrown a combined 25 regular-season passing touchdowns… combined.

Before a disastrous 2023 season, also scarred by injuries, Freiermuth was coming off a TE8 finish in fantasy despite only scoring two total touchdowns on the year. That was largely due to the fact that he ranked sixth among tight ends in both receptions (63) and receiving yards (732). Given the expectation of positive regression in passing touchdown production for the offense regardless of who’s under center, he could provide decent value based on his current ADP of TE13.

As the TE1 in Arthur Smith’s tight-end-friendly offense, averaging 7.3 targets per game per position over the past three years (third-highest rate over that span), Freiermuth is poised for his best campaign yet. If the Steelers don’t sign another receiver behind George Pickens, Freiermuth could reasonably be in line for a 120-plus target season as the offense’s second receiving option. — Kate Magdziuk