a top-five tight-end rate with Daniel Jones (12.4 PPR per game) dragged to TE4 by four quarterback-less games. Elite, sticky rookie volume; the touchdowns owe him.
Tyler Warren 2026 Season Preview — a top-5 TE rate hiding behind a torn Achilles
Show notes & transcript▾
Tyler Warren set a Colts rookie tight-end receiving record last season — and his per-game line looks merely okay, because his quarterback tore his Achilles in December and the bottom fell out. Split the season at that injury and you find a top-five tight end inside a TE4 price. The Muffed 2026 preview.
The full-season line was a strong rookie year: seventy-six catches on a hundred twelve targets, eight hundred seventeen yards, four touchdowns — eleven-one a game, the number-ten tight end per game, fourth in total points. Elite volume for a rookie at the position. But the shape is the story, and here's the split nobody runs. Daniel Jones started thirteen games before his Achilles; in those, Warren caught sixty balls for six hundred ninety-nine yards and averaged twelve-four a game — a top-five tight-end rate. In the four games after, with the backups, he managed sixteen catches for a hundred eighteen yards and seven points a game. Same player, two quarterbacks, two completely different tight ends.
The arc is one rookie season, so we won't sell you a year-two leap as fact. But we don't need a leap here — we need the quarterback back. The volume Warren commanded with Jones, a hundred-plus-target pace, is the stickiest thing a tight end can have, and it was already there as a rookie.
What repeats: the target role, which is real and large. His touchdown share was a low sixteen percent — four scores on that volume is starved, the kind of number that tends to climb, not fall. There's no luck to give back here; if anything, the touchdowns owe him.
The situation, per the reports, is the unlock: Daniel Jones re-signed and is recovering ahead of schedule from the Achilles, on track for Week 1, and the Jones-Warren connection was one of the league's best before the injury. A healthy Jones turns Warren's TE4 price into a discount on his with-Jones rate.
The price: pick sixty-five, the fourth tight end. Verdict: LEAN — underpriced. His full-season finish was dragged down by four quarterback-less games; his real rate with Jones was a top-five tight end, the volume is elite and sticky, and the touchdowns should climb. The counter: it hinges on Jones's Achilles holding up, and rookie tight ends don't always carry their volume forward. But you're buying the with-Jones version at the full-season price.
September watch: Jones's health and the target share — the with-Jones rate is the bet; and the red-zone role, where four touchdowns has room to grow. Your guys, every week. Next preview's queued.
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2025: 76 catches for 817 yards, 4 TDs on 112 targets; 8 rushing yards, 1 rushing TDs (17 games)
More episodes
2025 ReviewMay 11, 2026Tyler Warren 2025 Season in Review
TE4 on the season — 17 games, 11.1 PPR/game
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Tyler Warren 2025 Season in Review
TE4 on the season — 17 games, 11.1 PPR/game
Show notes & transcript
Tyler Warren finished his rookie year as the number 4 tight end in total PPR scoring and the number 10 tight end in PPR per game. That headline tells you everything about how the Colts deployed him: a high-volume, every-down rookie who soaked up targets from day one. Warren walked into Indianapolis and immediately became a featured piece of an offense that ranked top ten in total offensive expected points added. He wasn't an efficiency monster or a touchdown machine — he was a workhorse pass-catcher at a position where workhorses are rare. That's why he finished a top-five fantasy tight end by total points despite a team that collapsed down the stretch.
Now let's get into the numbers. Warren caught 76 passes on 112 targets for 817 yards and 4 receiving touchdowns across all 17 games, with a 22 percent average target share — genuinely elite usage for a rookie tight end. He averaged 11.1 PPR points per game, but the consistency story is a tale of two halves. Through the Colts' 7-and-2 start in weeks 1 through 9, Warren cleared double-digit PPR in six of nine games and topped 14 points five times, including 18.3 against the Rams and 18.3 against the Cardinals. Once Indianapolis went 1-and-7 from week 10 through 18, his ceiling vanished — double digits just twice in those final eight games, with four games under 8 PPR. Steady-floor tight end with weekly upside when the offense hummed; touchdown-dependent asset once it cratered. And the 4 receiving touchdowns is the obvious limiter — for a player commanding a 22 percent target share, that's a thin red-zone return.
The play that captures the year best came in week 4 against the Rams: fourth-and-1 from the 2-yard line, tie game, second quarter. Warren took a handoff up the middle and walked in for the touchdown — a tight end as the short-yardage hammer on a critical fourth down. That's exactly how Indianapolis treated him all year. Trusted in the run game, trusted on fourth down, trusted in the red zone. The fantasy production followed the role, and the role was real.
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