Brock Bowers’ 4-yard touchdown catch from Kirk Cousins in the fourth quarter of the Las Vegas Raiders’ win over the New Orleans Saints on Sunday didn’t just help decide a game. It also pushed the NFL into the record book.
That score was the sixth touchdown by a tight end in the game, tying a league mark. Then the Denver Broncos and Los Angeles Rams added two more tight end touchdowns later that night, and Sunday finished with 20 tight end scores overall - the most ever in a single day.
That kind of explosion isn’t an outlier anymore. It’s part of the way the league is tilting.
In 2024, tight ends accounted for 178 touchdown catches, which was about 22% of the NFL’s 809 receiving touchdowns. In 2025, that number jumped to 231, or 28.5% of the league total.
And through three weeks of 2026, tight ends already have 51 touchdowns, good for nearly a third of the 158 passing touchdowns thrown so far this season.
The list of names tells the story too. Young tight ends like Kenyon Sadiq and Harold Fannin are finding space, while veterans such as Travis Kelce and George Kittle are still doing damage. The position that was once squeezed by the league’s obsession with speed is suddenly thriving because of that same trend.
Not long ago, offenses were living in three-wide sets. Five years ago, NFL teams used three receivers on the field 63% of the time, which helped push defenses toward lighter, faster looks.
Nickel cornerbacks stopped being just specialists and started functioning like starters while linebackers got pushed to the margins. Offenses have answered by getting bigger.
According to Sharp Football Analysis, three-wide-receiver formations are down to 58% this season, while two or more tight ends are on the field 34% of the time.
That shift hasn’t completely rewritten offensive football, but it has opened the door for tight ends to matter more, and teams are leaning into it in different ways.
No team has pushed that trend harder than the Rams. They line up in 13 personnel - one running back and three tight ends - more than anyone else in the league. Tyler Higbee and Terrance Ferguson have each caught a touchdown, while Colby Parkinson and Davis Allen have also made their presence felt.
“We can move those guys all around the field,” Rams offensive coordinator Nate Scheelhaase said in August. “They all can do so much, both in the run game and the pass game, that you're excited just based on a game plan.
You don't know who ends up popping and making a play in the pass game. You don't know who ends up being at the point of attack in the run game.”
The payoff has shown up on the ground as well. The Rams averaged 4.6 yards per rushing attempt last season, which ranked sixth in the NFL, and they’re up to 5.0 yards per carry so far in 2026.
Eventually, the league may swing back again. Athletic rookie linebackers such as the Washington Commanders’ Sonny Styles, Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ Josiah Trotter and Miami Dolphins’ Jacob Rodriguez are already making an impact in coverage. Teams will keep looking for players like them to handle the problems tight ends create.
But right now, there still aren’t enough of those answers to slow what has become a full-blown tight end surge.
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