Jake Tonges

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• 2026 PreviewJul 4, 2026

  Jake Tonges 2026 Season Preview — what repeats, what doesn't

  Tonges finished TE31 across 10 games with a 7.6 half-PPR average, production that arrived almost entirely because George Kittle missed time rather than because Tonges carved out a defined role of his own. That kind of opportunity — borrowed from injury rather than built into the offense — is among the least repeatable inputs a season can rest on.

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  Show notes & transcript

  Jake Tonges caught five touchdowns last season as a backup tight end — and the reason he is worth an episode at pick two-30 is that the man in front of him is coming off a torn Achilles. Tight end 35: a backup's price on a player who might open the season starting. This episode is about a red-zone role, a fluky touchdown rate, and a January injury that swings the whole thing.

  The season: 10 games with a stat line, 34 catches on 46 targets for 293 yards and five scores. On Half-PPR scoring that is 7.6 points a game — 20-first among tight ends per game, 30-first in total. 13 percent of the Niners' targets in his games, rotational usage that spiked whenever San Francisco's banged-up pass-catchers sat. The shape is a receiving tight end who found the end zone often: five touchdowns on 34 catches, a touchdown share of point-three-two, which is the number to handle with care.

  The career arc is barely a season of real snaps — an undrafted tight end who stuck, then got his chance when injuries opened one. We say only what one season says: a red-zone connection and reliable hands, nothing yet about a full-time workload across 16 or 17 games.

  The pattern beat aims a caution at the touchdowns. Tight end targets are among the stickiest things our library tracks — replication of point-seven-two before 20-21 and point-eight-oh since, across 251 238 seasons — but the stickiness lives in the targets, not the scores. Five touchdowns on 34 catches is the weather, not the climate; the volume that carries year to year is a rotational 13 percent target share, not a starter's number.

  The situation is one body away from real. George Kittle tore his Achilles in the January playoff loss, per the club, and the timeline is truly contested — the optimistic read has him chasing week one, the cautious read has him missing a month or more of the season. San Francisco re-signed Tonges to a two-year deal, per the reporting, and he enters as the clear next man up at the position. Kyle Shanahan still runs the offense with Klay Kubiak coordinating; it is the scheme that has made tight ends fantasy-relevant for a decade. So the whole episode hinges on one recovery: if Kittle opens the year on the shelf, Tonges is a streaming tight end with a red-zone role in a great system; if Kittle beats the odds to week one, Tonges is back to a low-volume backup.

  The price: tight end 35 at pick two-30. The slot pays 4.9 a game; he produced 7.6 in his 10, on a touchdown rate that will not fully repeat. Our verdict: watchlist. The per-game line looks like a value until you notice it was built on five touchdowns and Kittle's absences — and the case for a share is not the tape, it is the Achilles in front of him. The caveat runs both ways: if Kittle misses the month the cautious timeline suggests, two-30 buys a starting tight end for September in Shanahan's offense — and if Kittle is ready week one, this is a backup at a backup-plus price whose touchdowns regress toward the mean.

  Watch Kittle's Achilles updates through training camp above everything else — that is the switch — then, if Kittle sits, whether Tonges holds the receiving-tight-end job over the rest of the room, then his target share against that 13 percent baseline. The role is real in the margins; the size of it belongs to another man's rehab. He's one of your guys? This show covers your whole roster — every player, every week, all season.