Tight end rankings for 2021 fantasy football before March free agency

Last season was a poor one for fantasy tight ends, as Travis Kelce was head and shoulders above the rest and Darren Waller was far ahead of the rest of the riff-raff. George Kittle’s injury made the position even more undesirable throughout the season. Could things turn around this year, or should we take Kelce in the first round and move on with our lives?

Here are my pre-draft and -free agency tight end rankings:

Tier 1

Kelce, Kittle and Waller make up the top tier with Kelce being the clear No. 1. Kittle has the ability to take that spot as long as he can stay healthy, but you can’t get past Kelce’s consistency.

Waller’s value isn’t quite up there with Kelce and Kittle, but if the Raiders continue to have trouble finding that tru No. 1 receiver, Waller will continue to have enough targets to be near the top of the fantasy standings at the end of the season.

Tier 2

We keep waiting for more of these talented tight ends to push their way closer to Tier 1, but none of them are getting the targets to do so. Mark Andrews, T.J. Hockenson, Noah Fant, Hunter Henry, Dallas Goedert, Mike Gesicki, Robert Tonyan, Evan Engram and Logan Thomas all have the potential to be consistent fantasy players, but the likelihood they will get the workload to make a big leap isn’t high.