4 Fantasy Football TEs Whose Touchdowns Are Trending Up & Down
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In this third installment of the touchdown trends series here at 4for4, we'll be taking a look at the tight end position. As always, the data is just that. Data. And interpreting it isn't a perfect science ... but there is usually merit in the investigation, if evaluated correctly. In last year's column, for example, Trey McBride and T.J. Hockenson both scored more in 2025 than they had in 2024 — with McBride jumping from two scores to 11 (tied for most at the position). Mark Andrews was also an accurate regression call, as he dropped from 11 scores to five, while Tucker Kraft was on pace to improve his touchdown total before injury.
More Outlier TD Pieces: QB | RB | WR
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 ten years to set a baseline.
| Line of Scrimmage | TD Rate, Targets |
|---|---|
| Ten Zone (Opponent 1-10) | 42.10% |
| Red Zone (Opponent 1-19) | 29.80% |
| Opponent Territory (Opponent 1-49) | 12.10% |
| Midfield Plus (Own 1 - Midfield) | 0.22% |
| Total | 5.40% |
With all this math in mind, here are four names to note coming off last season's results and heading into 2026 fantasy drafts.
Which Tight Ends Should Score More in 2026?
Tyler Warren, Indianapolis Colts
- 2025 Expected TDs - 6.0
- 2025 Actual TDs - 4
- TDs Below Expectation - 2.0
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Tyler Warren was a rookie tight end whose quarterback suffered a season-ending injury with four games left to play. It should not come as a surprise, then, that we're projecting him for more scores in 2026. For starters, over the past decade, first-round tight ends moving from year one to year two have experienced a bump of 0.8% to their touchdown rate purely off that one year of development. That may not sound like much, but over, say, 125 targets ... that's one extra touchdown all on its own. Then you've got the fact that Warren scored once every 21 targets with Daniel Jones at QB and did not score on a single one of his 28 targets after Jones went down for the season. That's arguably another extra TD, assuming Jones is healthy.
And of course, wideout Michael Pittman Jr. accounted for seven touchdowns and 12 red-zone targets in Indy last year, but has now departed for Pittsburgh. Warren was actually the team leader with 19 red-zone targets and scored on a slightly underwhelming 21% of those targets — give him several more in Pittman's absence and a slight bump in efficiency, and you're adding another couple of touchdowns to the total. All told, between natural development, opportunity, and positive regression, plus a prospective boost in total volume as well, Warren could easily double his rookie touchdown total (of four) and potentially even push for double digits if the cards fall right.
Chig Okonkwo, Washington Commanders
- 2025 Expected TDs - 4.3
- 2025 Actual TDs - 2
- TDs Below Expectation - 2.3
New Commanders tight end Chig Okonkwo might not be quite as exciting as Warren — he's going roughly 100 spots later in current ADP — but he might be the value bin version. Hear me out. Playing with rookie QB Cam Ward and his league-low 2.8% touchdown rate last year, Okonkwo scored just two touchdowns on 79 targets. He hadn't done much better either of the years prior, but did score twice on just 30 targets from Ryan Tannehill as a rookie in 2022. Now, Okonkwo has made his way to Washington, where Jayden Daniels has sported a much stronger 4.9% career TD rate and where the target options outside Terry McLaurin are quite thin.
Daniels is easily the best quarterback Okonkwo has ever played with and the Washington passing attack should have plenty of available targets. Heck, over the last two seasons, the 34-to-35-year-old version of Zach Ertz saw 163 targets and scored 11 touchdowns. Yes, Chig has been a popular breakout pick a couple years running now. And yes, he's largely disappointed. But in new digs, with a new dealer, I think the math starts falling Okonkwo's way. He's a sleeper TE1 that you can take with your very last pick.
Which Tight Ends Should Score Less in 2026?
Dallas Goedert, Philadelphia Eagles
- 2025 Expected TDs - 4.4
- 2025 Actual TDs - 11
- TDs Above Expectation - 6.6
Dallas Goedert's expected and actual touchdown numbers look almost exactly like Mark Andrews' did in this column last year. Andrews saw his touchdown total sliced in half, from 11 to five, in 2025. That's exactly what I'd expect for Goedert. Consider the numbers. Over his first seven seasons, Goedert scored once every 19.8 targets on average, and had scored once every 23 targets in 2022, 28 in 2023, and 26 in 2024. In 2025, he scored once every 7.5 targets — that's simply not happening again next season.
The Philadelphia offense will likely change quite a bit with the move from Kevin Patullo to Sean Mannion at OC, as well as the departure of A.J. Brown and the addition of Makai Lemon. Whether or not that's good for the Eagles on the whole remains to be seen, but the likelihood that Goedert finds paydirt 11 times — or even encroaches on double digits — is next to nonexistent. He's going as the TE12 in ADP, but would have been the TE14 with just four fewer touchdowns last season. I'd much rather take an elite option in the first few rounds or target a sleeper like Isiah Likely or Okonkwo (see above) a little later.
George Kittle, San Francisco 49ers
- 2025 Expected TDs - 3.7
- 2025 Actual TDs - 7
- TDs Above Expectation - 3.3
As with Goedert in 2025 and Andrews in 2024, George Kittle posted the exact same expected and actual TD numbers in 2025 as Tucker Kraft did when he made this column following the 2024 season. And admittedly, just like Kraft, Kittle does have the explosive talent to break the math. With that disclaimer aside, Kittle is still due for some per-game regression entering next season. He scored four touchdowns from outside the 10-yard line — only Trey McBride had more last year — and found the end zone once every 9.9 targets in 2025, while only playing 11 games. It doesn't hurt that Brock Purdy has one of the highest touchdown rates in the NFL, but it does hurt that Kittle will be 33 years old in October and seems to battle injuries of varying severity almost every single season.
Honestly, a safer name here would have been someone like Colby Parkinson or Darren Waller, who will almost certainly score less in 2026, but those guys don't matter for fantasy drafts. Kittle is so unique and so transcendent for his position that he could end up denying the mathematical regression in 2026 (if healthy). And I'd assess that his current TE9 ADP does account for the potential drop in scoring. Just know that if you're taking him in the ninth or 10th round, you're accepting quite a bit more risk than you might get elsewhere.
