Can Tucker Kraft Continue to Produce in Fantasy Football With a Nominal Target Share?
A breakout sophomore season paired with five weeks of fantasy TE1 production should have a player flying off draft boards, but with Tucker Kraft, it just feels…different. As we head into Year 3 for the former South Dakota State Jackrabbit, there are questions about whether he has left his 2023 Draft class counterpart in the dust, in addition to a new wide receiver in town that demanded first-round Draft capital. Is this really a guy we can trust to deliver a top-10 season on a team loaded with pass-catching options? Let’s investigate.
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Tucker Kraft’s First Two Seasons
Things were looking dim for Tucker Kraft’s fantasy potential as we headed into the 2024 season, highlighted by a May torn pec that landed him on the PUP list leading up to training camp. Rumors were abound that he could very easily miss the first four games of the regular season, which would likely lead to fellow sophomore Luke Musgrave re-gaining the starting role on an offense that we expected to be explosive. That never happened.
Kraft entered Week 1 with a questionable tag and proceeded to out-snap his teammate 64-to-17, setting the tone for the rest of the season. Musgrave would end up dealing with an ankle injury throughout the entirety of the campaign, logging only seven games and failing to hit 20 yards receiving in any one of them. Meanwhile, Kraft finished second only to George Kittle in YACOE, or yards after catch over expected, continually taking short passes and turning them into big gains.
| Year | Targets | Target Share | YPRR | aDOT | YAC/rec | half-PPR TE Finish |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 39 | 6.9% | 1.20 | 5.0 | 7.5 | TE34 (3.7 PPG) |
| 2024 | 65 | 13.6% | 1.61 | 5.3 | 9.3 | TE12 (8.1 PPG) |
While his new usage as a prolific catch-and-run option was plenty enough to rack up the counting stats, Kraft was never quite useful enough to put up consistent week-altering stat lines. Though he did notch an overall TE1 finish (Week 5; 4-88-2), he was a top-12 option in only 29.4% of his 17 games, the 16th-highest mark at the position behind guys like Hunter Henry, Cade Otton, and Pat Freiermuth.
A lot of this has to do with that pedestrian 5.0 aDOT, which will limit upside, regardless of how efficient you are after the catch. To truly gobble up some more upside, we’ll need to see a shift in Kraft’s deployment, particularly if we end up seeing any sort of year-to-year touchdown regression.
The Packers Offense in 2025
The good news in Green Bay is the relative lack of change in offensive scenery that allowed Kraft to finish as fantasy’s TE12 in half-PPR points per game. Josh Jacobs is still in line to be the team’s workhorse, Jordan Love is still throwing the ball —and presumably healthier than last year— and Matt LaFleur is still calling the shots, with Adam Stenavich heading into his fourth season as the OC. On the flip side, the wide receiver room is still loaded with options after the team spent a first- and third-round selection on Matthew Golden and Savion Williams, respectively.
Luckily, there is room to grow in exactly how much the offense will move the ball through the air compared to last season. With Love battling injuries from the get-go, and Malik Willis finding the field in some capacity over seven games, it’s no wonder the team leaned on Jacobs and the rest of the backfield as much as they could. During the 2022 and 2023 seasons, the Packers finished in the middle of the pack in terms of neutral game script passing rate (56.5%, 14th). That would plummet all the way down to 47.8% last year, finishing in 31st, just barely over the Philadelphia Eagles (47.6%).
With a very good offensive line and a healthy Jacobs, it’s unlikely that they flip the script and become one of the more pass-heavy attacks in the league, but a return to league-average would make the team’s flat target share look a little more appealing.
Projecting the Packers' Pass-Catchers in Fantasy
While the selection of rookie Matthew Golden broke the decades-long streak of the Packers avoiding the position in the first round(s) of the NFL Draft, it’s also questionable if he’s going to operate as a “true” No. 1 option. It’s far more likely that Golden, Jayden Reed, and Romeo Doubs finish the year tightly packed in the good-not-great range of overall usage. Add in fellow rookie Savion Williams, Dontayvion Wicks, and a sprinkling of Christian Watson (when he returns) and Bo Melton, and we have one big pie cut into too many slices.
If we have 200-225 receptions going to the wide receiver position and another ~60 going to the running backs, how much volume can we confidently give to the tight ends?
The answer is grim, but we also have to take into account the fact that we can’t confidently say much of anything with the Green Bay pass-catching group. There are a number of different scenarios that can play out, and one of those possibilities can absolutely be Kraft straight up usurping some of his WR counterparts. The tight end had an outsized touchdown rate and an average depth of target that would make Jason Witten blush, but he was also arguably the most consistent option on a team flush with role players.
Adding Golden helps that issue, but we’ve also seen Jacobs sputter after logging a high-usage season in the past, Reed has gone missing for swaths of time through his first two seasons, and Wicks is coming off a season in which he dropped eight of his 74 opportunities.
Tucker Kraft has already proven that he has the chops to keep Luke Musgrave off the field, and his prosperous season as Love’s go-to underneath option gives him a fantasy floor that is hard to come by at the position. Like practically every other piece of this offense, it’ll be hard to pinpoint any “blow-up” games, but as a low-end TE1 and fantastic best ball option, he should be firmly on our radar as we head toward the double-digit rounds of our fantasy drafts.
Bottom Line
- After proving his per-target efficiency in spades last season, Tucker Kraft now holds the TE1 crown in Green Bay, regardless of Luke Musgrave’s health.
- Kraft’s touchdown rate from 2024 is due for some regression, but more raw targets can counterbalance some of that production in a more pass-heavy game plan.
- According to current Underdog ADP, Kraft is coming off boards as the TE11 in the 10th and 11th rounds. This is a perfectly reasonable price tag in both redraft and best ball, while stacking him with Love makes the most sense. His pass-catching competition puts any sort of consistent ceiling at major risk, but spike weeks are very much in play.
