2026 Fantasy Football: Heath Cummings' Breakouts 1.0 headline breakout TEs in evolving offenses

Before Petzing helped turn McBride into a star, he spent nine years working with Kevin Stefanski (three in Cleveland, six in Minnesota). I bring that up because Stefanski's offense has been every bit as tight end centric as Petzing's. Over the past three seasons, Stefanski's Browns have thrown 27.2% of their passes to tight ends (167 targets per season). This past offseason, Stefanski joined the Atlanta Falcons, where I anticipate he leads 25-year-old Kyle Pitts to a career year. Pitts is viewed as a disappointment by many but that has as much to do with the expectations we put on him as anything. He's battled injuries and struggled to get into the end zone, but his 3,579 receiving yards rank fourth amongst all tight ends since he was drafted. Pitts doesn't have quite the same touchdown upside as LaPorta because of the quality of their offense, but if he stays healthy, I expect him to top 1,000 receiving yards and finish as a top-five tight end.

Isaiah Likely's case is easier to make. He isn't blocked by Mark Andrews anymore. He followed Head Coach John Harbaugh to New York and has a chance to be the number two target for Jaxson Dart. Dart threw 22% of his passes to Theo Johnson and Daniel Bellinger last year, and Likely is a better target than either. For what it's worth, the Giants' new offensive coordinator, Matt Nagy comes from the Chiefs system that has posted a 29% tight end target rate over the last three seasons. Likely averaged an elite 1.96 FP/target in Baltimore and could easily see 100 targets in his first year in New York.

In our mock drafts, it is rare for LaPorta, Pitts, or Likely to be drafted before Round 7, and one of them, sometimes two, generally fall to Round 8 or later. That's not just four-plus rounds later than the elite tight ends; it is generally two to three rounds after Tyler Warren and Tucker Kraft. If you agree with me on any of these guys, you can build a much better team focusing on running backs and receivers early in the draft and drafting one of these breakout tight ends later. Pair them with my favorite sleeper tight end this year, Travis Kelce, who is almost always available after Round 9.

Here are six more breakout candidates for 2026:

Heath's Breakouts 1.0

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