Who Should I Start? AJ Barner or Jared Wiley

Monday, January 26, 12:57 PM

Seattle Seahawks tight end AJ Barner has been very quiet in the team's two playoff wins, as he caught just two of his three targets for 13 yards in Sunday's 31-27 win over the division-rival Los Angeles Rams in the NFC Championship. It was better than Barner's donut for fantasy managers in the blowout win over the San Francisco 49ers in the Divisional Round, but it still was a disappointment. Quarterback Sam Darnold targeted Barner only three times among his 36 pass attempts on the day in a game that featured plenty of offense on both sides. The 23-year-old second-year tight end was the TE14 in half-PPR scoring during the regular season, catching 52 of his 68 targets for 519 yards and six touchdowns, and he remains mostly reliant on finding the end zone for fantasy production. For the Super Bowl in two weeks, Barner could face competition for targets from rookie Elijah Arroyo, who was a healthy scratch on Sunday after coming off Injured Reserve last week.

Wednesday, June 18, 12:52 PM

Kansas City Chiefs tight end Jared Wiley (knee) is participating in individual drills at mandatory minicamp this week while wearing a brace on his surgically-repaired right knee. The fact that Wiley is even taking part in offseason workouts at all is pretty impressive after he suffered a torn ACL last November. The 24-year-old is doing well in his recovery, but he still may not be fully ready for training camp this summer or the start of the 2025 regular season in September. The former fourth-rounder (131st overall) last year will merely be competing for the No. 3 tight end spot with Robert Tonyan when he's fully healthy as depth behind Travis Kelce and Noah Gray. In his first year in the NFL with the Chiefs in 2024, Wiley only appeared in seven regular-season games (two starts) and caught his only target for seven yards. He's nowhere near the fantasy radar.