The 10 Best NFL Tight Ends of the 2000s, Updated for 2026

We first ranked these in 2022 and put Rob Gronkowski at number one. Four years later the order at the top has changed, one of the names below has gone into the Hall of Fame, and the man we had third has rewritten most of the position's postseason record book. Here's the list as it stands after the 2025 season.

10. Vernon Davis

The athletic testing coming out of Maryland was the stuff of legend, and while the career never quite matched the hype, it was still a good one. He finished just outside the top ten among tight ends in receiving yards and sixth in receiving touchdowns.

9. Greg Olsen

Started in Chicago, found his level in Carolina. Three straight 1,000-yard seasons from 2014 to 2016 made him the first tight end in NFL history to manage it, and he has since built a second career as one of the better analysts on television.

8. Jimmy Graham

A college basketball player who took up football late and was posting 99 catches for 1,300 yards by his second season in New Orleans. Four seasons of double-digit touchdowns across a twelve-year career, and a reminder that the best route to this position often starts on a basketball court.

7. George Kittle

New to this list, and overdue. Kittle is the most complete tight end of his era: a genuine number one receiving option who also blocks like an extra tackle, which is a combination almost nobody else on this page can claim. The 2018 season, 1,377 receiving yards, was the most by a tight end in a single year until Kelce broke it two years later.

6. Shannon Sharpe

A seventh-round pick who retired as the all-time leader among tight ends in both receiving yards and touchdowns, with three Super Bowl rings across Denver and Baltimore. Those records have since been passed, which says more about how the position has grown than about him. Hall of Fame, class of 2011.

5. Jason Witten

Eleven Pro Bowls, more than 13,000 receiving yards, and 1,228 catches, which is second only to Tony Gonzalez among tight ends for receptions. He played sixteen seasons in Dallas, took a detour through a broadcast booth and then Oakland, and was about as reliable as the position has ever produced.

4. Antonio Gates

An undrafted basketball player from Kent State who never played college football and finished with 116 receiving touchdowns, still the record for a tight end. He went into the Hall of Fame with the class of 2025, which felt overdue the moment it happened.

3. Rob Gronkowski

He was our number one in 2022 and the case for him hasn't weakened, it's just been overtaken. Nobody at this position combined catching, blocking and open-field damage the way Gronk did, and four Super Bowl rings across two franchises is its own argument. What keeps him third now is availability: injuries cost him whole seasons that the two men above him spent playing.

2. Tony Gonzalez

Still the holder of the two records that matter most at the position: 1,325 receptions and 15,127 receiving yards, both by distance. Seventeen seasons, fourteen Pro Bowls, and a first-ballot Hall of Famer in 2019. The knock was always blocking, and it's the only reason he isn't first.

1. Travis Kelce

In 2022 we wrote that he was the only man on this list with a clear path to several more monster seasons and that he could be the greatest of all time when it was over. He took the path.

Since then he has won two more Super Bowls, passed Jason Witten for second among tight ends in career receiving yards, and taken ownership of the postseason: he's the NFL's all-time leader in playoff receptions and holds the record for Super Bowl receptions, having passed Jerry Rice. He's also Kansas City's all-time leader in receptions, receiving yards and touchdowns, and he came back for a fourteenth season rather than walk away.

Gonzalez still owns the counting stats and probably always will. Kelce owns January, and at this position that's the tiebreaker.

Who just missed

Heath Miller drops off this version, which feels harsh for a player whose blocking made a decade of Pittsburgh running backs look better than they were. Mark Andrews and Zach Ertz both have cases. So does Brock Bowers, who caught 112 passes as a rookie in 2024, the most by any rookie at any position in NFL history, and broke Mike Ditka's 63-year-old rookie record for receiving yards by a tight end on the way. Ask again in five years.

The cheapest Hall of Fame signatures in football

Here's the part worth knowing if you collect rather than just argue. Tight end is the most undervalued position in signed football memorabilia, and it isn't close.

As of September 2026 our shelves hold signed Antonio Gates from about 129 dollars, Jason Witten from 139, Shannon Sharpe from 199, George Kittle from 219 and Tony Gonzalez from 419. Those are Hall of Famers and record holders at the price of a mid-tier current receiver. A signed Gates costs less than a tenth of what a comparable quarterback resume would.

The reason is demand rather than quality. Collectors chase quarterbacks first and skill-position stars second, and tight ends sit behind both no matter what the record book says. We explain how that gap works in sports memorabilia versus stocks and bonds, and you can see the same pattern in what the top NFL autographs actually cost.

Have a look through our signed football jerseys, signed helmets and mini helmets, and run the five checks we use before you buy anything.