Jake Ferguson Fantasy 2026: Is the Cowboys TE a Value at TE11?

Jake Ferguson was a full-time tight end in a pass-heavy offense last season, and the counting line shows it. He drew 102 targets, caught 82 of them for 600 yards, and scored 8 touchdowns across a full 17 games, playing 67 percent of the snaps. That worked out to 11.1 PPR points per game, a TE10 per-game finish, and he is being drafted right in line with it at a TE11 price, overall PPR ADP of 114. The role is not in question. What the price is really asking is whether a tight end behind two 100-target receivers can hold this volume.

He owns the tight-end job, cleanly

Start with the part that is settled. Ferguson is the only tight end in Dallas who matters. His 102 targets dwarfed the next Cowboys tight end (Luke Schoonmaker at 23), so there is no committee at his own position eating into his snaps or his looks. He is also a real red-zone weapon: 23 red-zone targets, 12 touches inside the 10, and 8 goal-line-range touches, which is how a 4.66-aDOT underneath tight end still finished with 8 touchdowns. For a position where most starters split time or run a route on a third of the snaps, an uncontested 102-target role with red-zone equity is exactly the volume you want at a TE11 price.

The two alphas ahead of him

Here is the two-sided part, and it is the whole competitor check. Ferguson catches passes underneath two of the best target-earners in football. CeeDee Lamb commanded 117 targets for 1,077 yards on a 28.5 percent air-yards share, and George Pickens, who earned all of his 2025 production in Dallas, went for 137 targets, 1,429 yards and 9 touchdowns on a team-leading 31.4 percent air-yards share. Between them, those two receivers own about 60 percent of the Cowboys' air yards, which leaves Ferguson as the possession and red-zone outlet rather than a downfield weapon. His 9.6 percent air-yards share and 4.66 aDOT confirm the role. That is not a knock on his floor, a 102-target underneath tight end is a stable PPR piece, but it caps his ceiling and it makes his 8 touchdowns the swing factor, because the yards were never going to be a WR1-sized number.

The quarterback keeps it a floor play

The reason the volume holds up is the passer. Dak Prescott threw a full 597 attempts at an 8.06 aDOT last season, a high-volume, intermediate-depth passer who feeds the middle of the field where a tight end lives. That is the tailwind under Ferguson's target count. The mild caution is scoring: 8 touchdowns on 23 red-zone targets is a healthy but not automatic rate, and in a red zone that also has to feed Lamb and Pickens, a dip from 8 scores to 5 or 6 is the difference between a low-end TE1 and a streamer. The volume is the floor. The touchdowns are the variance.

The receipts, week by week

Usage sets the range. Our graded start/sit calls test whether we read the individual weeks right, on the record. Those calls on Ferguson graded out at 11 of 17 (65 percent) in 2025, while across his full two-season graded history we sit at 17 of 31 (55 percent), a boom-or-bust record that fits a tight end whose weekly line rides on whether the touchdown came. That is the honest shape of a volume-and-scores tight end: the targets give him a real floor, and the ceiling weeks arrive when he finds the end zone. Every call and every result is on his player page.

What it means for his 2026 price

Ferguson is a fair-value floor pick at tight end, not a league-winner. The case for him is clean: an uncontested 102-target role, red-zone usage, a high-volume quarterback, and a TE11 tag that matches his TE10 per-game finish. The case against paying up is the ceiling: two 100-target receivers own the air yards, so his value leans on touchdowns, and the graded record says the weekly outcome is bumpy. At TE11 you are buying a stable starter at a stable price. That is a perfectly good pick if you want to wait on the position, just do not expect the two alphas ahead of him to leave room for a top-five ceiling.