Fantasy Football Tight Ends Busts to Avoid in 2025: Travis Kelce on Downturn

Michael Fabiano | Aug 13, 2025

Chiefs TE Travis Kelce scored fewer than 200 fantasy points last season for the first time since 2015. / Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images

Finding a fantasy football bust at tight end can often be like finding a needle in a haystack.

Why, you might ask?

Well, the position just isn’t valued as much as the other offensive skill spots in most drafts. If you look at current average draft position (ADP) data, there’s only four tight ends who are being picked in the top 54! Heck, even Travis Kelce and T.J. Hockenson are barely in the top 70. Everyone else is at No. 80 (Mark Andrews) or lower, so most fans aren’t sinking a high draft pick into the position. As a result, there are only a few players who can truly be busts.

Last year, Dalton Kincaid and Evan Engram were both top-seven picks at tight end and are perfect examples of busts. Kincaid missed time due to injuries and finished an awful 30th at the position, while Engram was also hurt and saw a massive decline compared to his 2023 totals. You could also throw Kyle Pitts in the bust ring, as he was drafted at 63.0 overall but was once again unable to secure a top-12 finish. He ranked as the TE15 with 131.2 points.

He’s been so bad, people I can’t even list him as a bust anymore (he clearly has been).  

So, let’s get into some of the tight ends who are being drafted as fantasy starters who could fail to meet expectations. I’m ignoring ADP to a degree here, because as I said there are so few tight ends being drafted prominently … and I don’t see someone like Brock Bowers, Trey McBride or George Kittle busting outside of suffering from a long-term injury.

All Busts: QBs | RBs | WRs

2025 Fantasy Football TE Busts to Avoid Drafting

Travis Kelce, Chiefs: Kelce is coming off a subpar season by his high standards, but he did catch 97 passes in the Chiefs offense. That’s the most of any tight end in the Super Bowl era who was age-35 or older during a single season. Kelce, who will turn 36 in October, will have to make history to duplicate those 97 catches again. In fact, just one tight end (Tony Gonzalez – 2012) has had more than 90 catches at the age of 36 or older. He’s also the only tight end to have more than 63 catches based on those age parameters. Kelce will remain a No. 1 fantasy tight end, but his days of scoring over 200 fantasy points are all but over.

Mark Andrews, TE, Ravens: Andrews produced a career-best 11 touchdown catches last season, which made him only the 12th tight end to hit that mark in a single season in the Super Bowl era. Of the first 11 tight ends, only one (Julius Thomas) reached that same mark the following year. The average drop in touchdowns is nearly six, and the average drop in fantasy points is 82.5. That doesn’t bode well for the soon-to-be 30-year-old tight end. As a result, don’t be surprised if Andrews isn’t the most reliable option with regression coming.

David Njoku Browns: I am a big fan of Njoku and would not be surprised if he finished in the top 12 among tight ends this season. However, I do wonder about his quarterback situation, not to mention the Browns drafted another tight end, Harold Fannin Jr., in the offseason. Njoku's ADP is reasonable (107.0) so there's no harm in drafting him, but a regression in his points-per-game average looms.

Jonnu Smith, Steelers: Smith is coming off a breakout season, as he finished fourth in PPR points among tight ends. However, he did most of his damage in the second half. Over the first 10 weeks, Smith was the TE16 and averaged a nondescript 8.2 points per game. Smith went off after that, leading all tight ends with 148.7 points. That stretch of eight games had five with 19-plus fantasy points. That won’t happen again, especially now that he’s been traded to the Steelers. At TE12 based on average draft position, I’m passing on Smith.