Welcome back to the 2025 Dynasty Rookie Rankings Battle. Last week, we compared the headliners of this cycle’s tight-end class, Tyler Warren and Colston Loveland, and today, it’s time to look at the best of the rest.
Tight ends such as Harold Fannin Jr., Elijah Arroyo, Mason Taylor, Gunnar Helm, Terrance Ferguson, and Oronde Gadsden II will jockey for position on days two and three of the NFL draft. Evaluating these prospects is far from trivial since this is a high-variance position where draft capital can deceive just as much as it can enlighten.
Without knowing anything about draft capital, here is my tiering of each player based specifically on their tape, testing, and profile to an NFL role.
This article will rate each player using the categories in the Get Better at Dynasty Series, copied here for your convenience. Recall that the template highlighting reflects each trait's relative importance, whereas the actual prospect report represents how strong they are in that skill.
Gunnar Helm
Texas
6’5” 241 lbs
Let’s get a couple of things out of the way. I know Helm ran a 4.84 in the 40-yard dash and sprained his ankle on a false start before his first run. Regardless, his straight-line speed is still the slowest of this group, and it shows on tape.
That being said, while the lack of athletic ability may cap his overall upside, Helm is still an effective athlete on the football field who gets where he needs to go. He’s an NFL player all day.
Receiving
While he’s not all that fast, Helm is capable after the catch, where he uses a mean stiff arm and also the occasional hurdle, somewhat surprisingly. He can’t get upfield quickly, but he’s not a plodder and isn’t a “catch and fall down” guy.
Texas actually even used him on screens a fair bit, and he made the first man miss more often than you’d expect. All this is to say he won’t be a genuine run-after-catch guy at the NFL level, but he won’t be a dink-and-dunk inefficient scorer.
Helm was solid in the endzone for Texas, especially in contested catch situations. He high points the ball tremendously and makes catches over contesting defenders.
Against zone coverage, he’s generally capable but is missing a couple of nuances that would make him better in these situations. Namely, he’s too willing to let the ball come into his body, particularly with his back to the defense. This gives defenders too much opportunity to play the ball.
Helm’s biggest weakness is that he’s not the kind of mover to rack up high-value catches. While he’s decently physical at the top of his stem, defenders can make up ground on him or carry him down the seam. He did show strong ability in contested situations, at least.
Blocking
Helm is the most experienced pass blocker of the tight ends I’ve scouted in his cycle, as he was used as an additional pass protector frequently by Texas. He has a decent anchor and mirroring ability but isn’t elite.
When pass blocking, his biggest weakness is that he lets defenders land a punch and get optimal hand placement against him. However, he makes second efforts to adjust and get his weight squarely between the defender and the QB, and he gets lower in order to get more push with his legs.
Sometimes, though Helm does lead with his shoulder and miss in run-blocking assignments, he will let edge rushers initiate contact against him and drive him back. His play strength is acceptable, but more prominent defenders can sometimes overpower him.
Between his size and experience at Texas, Helm projects favorably to an inline role.
Profile
He is a jack-of-all-trades starting tight end and third option in his team’s passing offense. I don’t think Helm has the movement skills or raw talent to be featured as a team’s premier passing weapon, but he could return TE2 seasons as a reliable underneath target, with just a little more juice than most players in that segment.
Best Case
While not a star player, Helm develops an understanding with his quarterback and routinely puts up safe TE2 seasons, or even low-end TE1 seasons, due to the scarcity of consistent production.
Worst Case
Helm is more of a backup due to a lack of special movement traits or a nominal starter who fails to earn targets.
Mason Taylor
LSU
6’5” 251 lbs
Mason Taylor is likely the prospect for whom I disagree the most with the hype train. Draftniks and the media are majorly wishing to cast him into something he’s not, and I need to pour some cold water on this.
First off, I completely understand why people are getting excited about him. He has prototypical size and outstanding fluidity for the tight-end position, coupled with natural, soft hands. All it took was this gauntlet drill to confirm what everybody already wanted to believe: that he’s a gem.
My issue with him is that when you roll the tape, he leaves you wanting more in areas that don’t show up at the NFL combine. To put it bluntly, he doesn’t get enough out of his size and strength when the pads come on. To elaborate on this point, I’m going to highlight how this shows up while route running and then while blocking.
Receiving
While running routes, Taylor is rarely physical at the top of his stem, which is generally how tight ends most reliably get open on in-breaking and out-breaking routes. Disrupting the coverage defender is a major asset to tight ends, but it's not part of Taylor's game right now. I’m not sure if he doesn’t like playing through contact or if nobody has coached him to do it, but he doesn’t actually use his strength to uncover down the field.
Yes, Taylor is fluid and fast for his size, but when he’s running routes against players who are usually smaller and faster than him, being fast relative to his size doesn’t help if he isn’t actually using his size against players who are faster than him in non-relative terms.
Combine that with the fact that he frequently rounds his routes in the intermediate part of the field, and you’re left with somebody who was mostly not productive beyond the short areas of the field. Don’t believe me? His yards per reception were the lowest of anybody mentioned in this article.
Throw on the tape, and you’ll see that for the most part Taylor is catching the ball on shallow crossers and designed late releases, the occassional highlight play notwithstanding. He’s a long way from being a receiving weapon who creates an advantage for your offense.
Blocking
While blocking, again, I think people are squinting to see a more impactful player than he is. His hand placement is highly ineffective, i.e., he sticks his palms to the outside of his assignment’s shoulder pads.
From that position, you can’t generate any push, and you can’t mirror your assignment without holding. The end result was that Taylor’s assigned lineman/linebacker made plays on the ball carrier far too frequently.
These two deficiencies could be easy fixes with some coaching; it’s possible he just needs to tweak his technique to unlock a Pro Bowl-caliber tight end. However, I worry because I see him step gingerly into contact enough times that he might just be averse to physicality.
When he was asked to pull, or generally when he had a head of steam, he wouldn’t deliver a blow. Instead, he’d sit back and let the defender initiate forceful contact. To some extent, I worry that this is a mindset problem.
Profile
Deficiencies notwithstanding, Taylor at least profiles as a full-service tight end who plays in-line, executes the full range of blocking assignments and gets down the field on routes. He’s just much farther away from actually accomplishing any of those things than the hype train is pretending. However, he has an okay floor thanks to his movement skills, size, and hands, which accompany a sky-high ceiling.
Best Case
A true difference-maker at the position, both in real life and in fantasy. There is nothing missing from Taylor’s profile in terms of raw talent, size, movement skills, or hands.
If he gets draft capital and good coaching, I’ll be cautiously optimistic about him. But odds are he’ll get drafted before I’m willing to take the plunge, and I’ll end up with very few shares.
Worst Case
A career backup who can do a little of enough things to always have a roster spot but who doesn’t earn a starter-level workload. This is likely if the physicality issue is more related to his mindset than to coaching.
Harold Fannin Jr
Bowling Green
6’3” 241 lbs
Before I even dive into the Harold Fannin Jr. breakdown, I need to highlight that he is easily the most confusing prospect I’ve had to evaluate this cycle. Harold Fannin Jr’s athleticism shouldn’t work, but there’s something about it that somehow does, to the tune of an absolutely massive 1,500 receiving yards this past season.
Fannin has some of the worst reactive athleticism I’ve ever seen, but decent proactive athleticism. The poor reactive athleticism shows up when he’s trying (and failing) to mirror in pass pro or block in space. He’s extremely stiff-hipped, and to top it off, he has a really weird gait. When he runs, it looks like there are weights in his shoes.
Receiving
Fannin's stiff movement ability shows up a lot in run-after-catch situations, where it takes a few false steps for him to throttle up and down, and his change of direction to evade tacklers is lacking. Overall, it just takes him a while to get going.
However, something about his game just works. He has enough proactive athleticism that when he forces the issue, i.e., when running a route, he gets open. His routes are crisp, he runs by people, and he separates. I somehow even gave him a good score for fluidity because his footwork is solid on his routes, resulting in efficient movement.
Looking at Fannin’s combine performance, his athletic testing was technically above average. Despite how stiff Fannin is, he did well in the three-cone drill, he did well in the three-cone drill. But at the end of the day, undersized tight ends have to be special athletes who move extremely well. Fannin, instead, will enter the league as one of the least dynamic athletes in the NFL, testing numbers be damned.
Blocking
Let’s talk about Fannin's blocking, which I consider the death knell of his profile. While he's not bad in a scrum, Fannin struggles immensely with mirroring in pass protection, and he can’t square up his assignment when run-blocking in space. For this reason, Bowling Green had him out on routes on most run plays.
The one bright spot in Fannin’s blocking is that when he’s on the line of scrimmage and in a scrum, he blocks with a lot of effort and gets some push. So, there is some potential for him in line. It's a reason for hope when projecting him to an NFL role.
Profile
Ideally, Fannin is utilized more as a big slot and pass-game weapon than a true tight end. This profile doesn’t work in every offense, so he’ll need to be drafted to a team that has a customized game plan for him. Players like Mike Gesicki and Jonnu Smith occupy these roles, but both were phenomenal athletes coming out of college.
Overall, we’re dealing with an undersized tight-end prospect with major deficiencies in blocking. He is incredibly stiff and throttles poorly. I don’t see this profile working out in the NFL.
However, a part of me wants to believe in Fannin, and if he gets fascinating draft capital, I might splurge on a couple of shares. Maybe he’s just an extremely unorthodox athlete, and the testing and production are signs he can continue overcoming it at the NFL level.
Best Case
Fannin defies the odds and shows he can just as easily overcome the stiff reactive athleticism at the NFL level as he did in college. He becomes a top-two option in his team's passing game, continuing to separate against NFL linebackers with crisp route-running and unorthodox but surprisingly effective athletic ability. He becomes a PPR cheat code, albeit not as efficient as the upper echelon of tight ends. The reliability is not always there.
Worst Case
Fannin could jump around practice squads, never being fantasy-relevant but always intriguing fans, if the lack of reactive athleticism means a coaching staff gives up on him early.
Elijah Arroyo
Miami
6’5” 250 lbs
Receiving
Elijah Arroyo is the fastest pure athlete of this bunch in the open field, but he doesn’t typically reach his full play speed in the game. However, plays like his house call against Georgia Tech will have scouts salivating over his potential.
Having to cut and navigate through traffic slows Arroyo down significantly, so he doesn’t look as explosive in his routes as Colston Loveland, for example, even if Arroyo would probably run a faster 40-yard dash.
Between a lack of fluidity in his routes and run-after-catch situations, raw instincts vs zone and ineffective physicality against man coverage, Arroyo got open less frequently than you might expect, given his pure athletic traits. He’s best when stretching the seam or running away from a defender on crossing routes.
Likewise, Arroyo’s run-after-catch is excellent in the open field but lacking when he needs to evade tacklers. He tends not to change direction well, especially since he’s a long strider and runs upright, which means he is too easy to bring to the ground. Combine all these elements, and you get a less efficient player than your typical highly athletic tight end.
Arroyo does have great hands, making catches away from his frame and making late adjustments to the ball. However, he was not challenged much in contested catch situations, so it’s hard to judge how he might fare at hanging on through contact at the NFL level.
Blocking
As far as blocking, Arroyo’s technique is very lacking. He tends to push with his arms instead of engaging his legs or core and plays with a high pad level. Consequently, he rarely gets pushed while blocking. Instead, Miami usually just asked him to seal off smaller players who were physically outmatched against him.
Additionally, Arroyo is too willing to throw a shoulder, often missing and letting his assignment run free. Arroyo mirrors pretty well in pass protection but wasn’t usually asked to pass protect.
Arroyo was lined up frequently as either an H-back or in the slot and is currently hard to project to a full-time in-line role at the NFL level. He looks a bit lankier out there and doesn’t have the blocking technique to handle it.
Profile
Arroyo profiles as a slow-burn athletic prospect who hopefully returns a low-end TE1 season by the end of his rookie contract. Arroyo doesn’t beat coverage often enough for me to consider him a priority in his passing offense, and he doesn’t block well enough to project to a large snap share. His more mature, potent version could eventually reach that level in both facets.
Best Case
Arroyo develops quickly and flashes at the end of his rookie season, resulting in a strong sophomore year that puts him on the map as an ascending tight end.
Worst Case
Arroyo flashes when he makes a big play but is not reliably startable in your fantasy lineups.
Terrance Ferguson
Oregon
6’5” 247 lbs
Receiving
Ferguson's athleticism is the tightest end to test at the combine, and it shows up more in run-after-catch situations than in routes. When he has the ball in his hands, he has more wiggle than most tight ends, particularly managing to throttle down and let tacklers overrun him.
Ferguson eats up ground quickly on designed plays such as screens and late releases. While his downfield route running is highly raw, this at least gives him some hope for an early role.
Regarding route running, Ferguson can get down the seam quickly and moves pretty well. However, his route running is not crisp, and he rounds out-breaking routes exceptionally early. Additionally, while he admirably tries to play through physicality, he doesn’t dish it out himself.
These traits mean that his early production will be limited to design concepts that exploit his athleticism. However, he’ll need to develop dramatically at earning targets to return value for fantasy.
Blocking
I’m just going to say it: I think Ferguson is a better blocker than most are giving him credit for. Coming into this, I was reading that he was a bad blocker lacking in play strength. Granted, he isn’t the most potent blocker and won’t move a defensive end off the ball.
However, Ferguson has excellent movement skills that allow him to make blocks downfield. He also stays engaged with his assignment and makes second and third efforts, getting low and driving his legs if needed. So no, he didn’t do great trying to block a bigger J.T. Tuimoloau at the goal line, but he can make blocks in schemes that require movement ability, and if he ends up in that kind of offense, he’ll be an asset.
Profile
Early on, the hope is that Ferguson fits perfectly into a blocking scheme that requires movement ability and downfield blocks. Then, Ferguson needs to flash on screen and design targets, plus the occasional explosive grab down the seam.
Given his athletic ability, if these indicators start positively in his rookie year, we could hope for development and a significant fantasy asset.
Best Case
Fantasy relevance is sustained by run-after-catch ability while slowly gaining route-running nuance.
Worst Case
Ferguson rarely earns targets beyond designed concepts, but it isn’t an important enough part of his offense to get touches dialed up.
Oronde Gadsden II
Syracuse
6’5” 243 lbs
Gadsden is more akin to a wide receiver than a tight end, so he breaks my grading table. His skill tree is highly skewed towards the receiver skills, but at the NFL level, we need the traditional tight-end skills to have a fantasy asset.
Despite being a good pass catcher for the tight end position, Gadsden is a classic tweener. This honestly isn’t a profile that does well at the NFL level. We’re hoping for Mike Gesicki, but Mike Gesicki put up sporadic athletic testing and never became a great fantasy asset anyway.
Meanwhile, Gadsden didn’t run at the combine, presumably because he was too busy packing on weight to get over 240 lbs. On tape, Gadsden is slimmer than an NFL tight end, and he was hidden from blocking assignments on the line of scrimmage while at Syracuse. To his credit, Gadsden did block with effort in cases where he was asked to block defensive backs, but he does not project to a full-time role at the NFL level.
The intrigue is that Gadsden is an excellent pass catcher for the tight end position. He makes tough catches away from his frame and has impressive focus when bringing the ball in through traffic. He’s much more fluid than an NFL tight end in his routes and has much better run-after-catch ability than most tight ends.
I might be tempted to take a flier on him, but Gadsden would be a significant outlier if he became a fantasy asset. I can’t rank this kind of tweener profile any higher in my 2025 NFL draft rookie rankings. Gadsden is not the worst football player in his position group, not by a mile, but I struggle to project out a productive fantasy role in the NFL.