Before a torn ACL against the Panthers ended his 2025 season in November, Tucker Kraft was quietly having one of the best stretches a Packers tight end has ever put together. Through 7 games he had 32 catches for 489 yards and 6 touchdowns, a pace that projected out to over 1,100 yards and 14 scores across a full 17-game slate. He also finished 2nd in the NFL among tight ends in yards per route run, which is about as good a proxy as there is for pure efficiency at the position.
Now the sample size is showing up again, just in camp form. Hayden Winks flagged a stat line that sounds almost fake: Kraft's average depth of target sitting at 4.5 yards paired with an average of 11.4 yards per target. That gap between where the ball is thrown and how far it actually travels after the catch is the calling card of a guy who turns short, easy throws into chunk plays, and it's exactly the profile that made him a breakout name last year before the injury.
A breakdown of Kraft's camp explosiveness numbers, with a warning that the small sample could be a regression candidate.
That regression caveat is worth sitting with. Camp reps and shorthand efficiency stats can inflate fast on a handful of plays, and analysts are right to flag it before anyone crowns Kraft a top-5 fantasy tight end off a few practices. But the health piece is the bigger story right now. Kraft tore his ACL on November 2 and was activated off the PUP list during camp, with Kraft himself saying doctors told him the knee 'looks spectacular.' Packers GM Brian Gutekunst has also said he expects a contract extension to get done before the season, which tells you the front office isn't hedging on Kraft's role going forward.
The buzz isn't happening in a vacuum, either. Kraft's name is popping up in the same camp-hype conversations as guys like Luther Burden and Bhayshul Tuten, part of a broader wave of skill-position players getting talked up before a snap of preseason football has been played.
Ben Johnson can’t stop gassing up Luther Burden Bhayshul Tuten wants 1500 rushing yards Drew Allar is lighting up training camp Jordyn Tyson looks SMOOTH Cyrus Allen is Randy Moss Shaheed/Darnold connection “is growing” Tucker Kraft is almost healthy We’re so back
That kind of list is the definition of camp optimism season, where every beat writer's guy sounds like a future All-Pro. The difference with Kraft is he already has 7 games of real, elite production on tape from last year, not just glowing practice reports. If the knee holds up the way early camp signs suggest, PFF's No. 7 tight end ranking heading into 2026 might already be underselling him.
For fantasy purposes, that puts Kraft in a genuinely interesting bucket: a player who was performing like a top-3 tight end before he got hurt, now working his way back to full speed with a Green Bay offense that clearly trusts him. The extension talk, the PUP activation, and the camp stat lines are all pointing the same direction. The only thing left to see is whether it holds up once the pads come on for real.