Gunnar Helm

Nova has Gunnar Helm 168th overall, dead last tier among fantasy-relevant tight ends, Tier 6, with a -40.9 VORP that puts him below replacement level in every format. There's no market ADP on him yet, so there's no room to argue with here; this is Nova's number standing alone against a wave of beat-writer optimism calling his 2026 role a breakout waiting to happen. The gap between those two readings, a model that barely sees him as droppable-league relevant and a Titans beat that keeps using the word "breakout", is the whole profile.

Where He's Expected to Land

Nova projects about 98 points this season, 6.16 per game, which is streaming-TE territory, not starter territory. His likely finish range is TE20-TE44 in PPR, outside the top 20 far more often than inside it. That holds across formats: TE22-45 in Half-PPR, TE25-47 in Standard, right back to TE20-44 in 2QB/Superflex where tight end scarcity usually helps borderline guys. It doesn't move the needle here.

The Only NFL Season on the Board

Helm isn't a rookie this year, but he's close to it in sample size, 2025 is his entire NFL résumé. Drafted in the fourth round (No. 120 overall) out of Texas, the 6-foot-5, 241-pound in-line tight end played all 16 games with 10 starts as a rookie, catching 44 passes for 357 yards and 2 touchdowns (8.1 yards per catch). Per ESPN's Turron Davenport (Feb. 10, 2026), those 44 receptions set a single-season franchise record for a rookie tight end in Nashville, a real marker, even if the raw yardage (357) says the role was still check-down heavy. He ranked fourth on the team in catches as a rookie, which tells you the passing offense found him but never fed him.

What Changed for Him This Offseason

Nothing changed about Helm's contract or draft stock, he's still on his rookie deal with two years of team control left. What changed is his mindset and his opportunity. In a June 11 OTA media session (via Titans.com's Jim Wyatt), Helm described taking a "nothing to lose" approach into Year 2, treating it like he's a rookie all over again. That's a player who knows last year's role was limited and is angling for more, and the roster moves around him back that up.

What Changed Around Him

This is where the profile gets interesting, and where Nova's skepticism and the beat's optimism start to diverge. Tennessee fired Brian Callahan six games into 2025 (1-5 start) and hired Robert Saleh as its 22nd head coach. Saleh brought in Brian Daboll, fired as Giants head coach in 2025, as offensive coordinator. Daboll's arrival matters specifically for Helm: the Titans let receiving-TE competitor Chig Okonkwo leave for Washington in free agency, then signed Daniel Bellinger, Daboll's blocking tight end from New York, to a three-year, $24 million deal. Per Titans Wire (May 31, 2026), Bellinger arrives "impressed by" Helm's rookie flashes and is ticketed for early-down blocking work, which, if it holds, hands Helm the receiving-TE role outright rather than splitting it with Okonkwo. ESPN's Bill Barnwell flagged exactly this dynamic (via A to Z Sports, June 25, 2026): a clearer role, not a new one, is what's supposed to unlock the breakout.

The bigger variable is at quarterback. Cam Ward, the No. 1 overall pick in the same 2025 draft class as Helm's rookie season, is throwing to him in an offense that's completely new on paper. But Ward has drawn multiple reports of accuracy concerns through 2026 OTAs (NFL.com, June 17; The Tennessean, June 11) even as Saleh has publicly defended him. A second-year quarterback learning a new playbook while dealing with early accuracy questions is not a stable foundation to bank a tight-end breakout on, and Nova's tier and VORP numbers reflect exactly that caution.

What They're Saying

The Titans beat is notably more bullish than Nova. Footballguys' July underrated-players piece and multiple camp previews frame Helm as a name to know entering camp. Turron Davenport's reporting on the Daboll hire specifically cites early OTA reps of Ward finding Helm down the seam as a sign of things to come. The throughline across the coverage: role clarity (Bellinger blocks, Helm catches) plus a full offseason in a new scheme is the bull case. None of it, notably, comes with a target-share number or a red-zone-role promise attached, it's optimism about opportunity, not about proven production.

The Buzz

Social sentiment has run ahead of both the model and the beat. Fan accounts on Instagram and X have started naming Ward-to-Helm as a marquee 2026 connection, with at least one post slotting both onto an "All-Breakout Offense" list. There's also a visible strain of fan frustration with how the previous coaching staff used him, a common refrain is that Callahan "didn't have a clue how to inject him into the offense." That's crowd mood, not data, but it's instructive: the crowd has already priced in a new-coach bump that Nova, working off a 44-catch, 357-yard rookie season and zero proven target share under Daboll, has not.

Swing Factors

• Okonkwo's departure (+size, uncapped): if Bellinger is purely a blocker, Helm inherits every receiving-TE snap, the single biggest lever here.
• Cam Ward's accuracy (±large): a shaky Year 2 for Ward caps every pass-catcher on this roster, Helm included.
• Daboll's tight-end usage history (+moderate): New York's offense under Daboll leaned on its move tight end in the passing game; if that carries over, Helm's target share rises with it.
• Red-zone role (+moderate): 2 touchdowns on 44 catches as a rookie is a low conversion rate that has real room to improve with better shot volume.

If Everything Goes Right / If Everything Goes Wrong

If everything goes right, Okonkwo's exit clears the field, Ward's accuracy stabilizes by Week 4, and Daboll schemes Helm into the same seam-and-slot role his tight ends got in New York. That's the 90th-percentile outcome Nova's sim already has on the board: roughly 163 points, a real TE1-caliber week-to-week weapon, and a tier-1 season Nova prices at 5%.

If everything goes wrong, Ward's OTA accuracy issues bleed into the regular season, Bellinger's blocking snaps eat into Helm's overall usage more than advertised, and Helm's ceiling collapses to the floor of his range: around 37 points on the season, an every-week streaming afterthought. Nova's per-game distribution says that's the far more likely week: an 83% bust rate (under 10 PPR points), 17% solid weeks, and a 0% boom rate in the model's current read. The 5% tier-1 shot is real, but it's the long tail, not the base case.

Nova's Edge

There's no ADP to argue with yet, that absence is itself the signal. Every other outlet writing about Helm right now is pricing in the story (new OC, cleared role, extra offseason) without a model that stress-tests it against a real 16-game, 44-catch sample. Nova's read is the only quantified pushback on the breakout narrative: a Tier 6 asset with a -40.9 VORP and a 0% boom rate isn't a name to chase in redraft leagues off vibes and OTA highlight clips.

The Bottom Line

Helm is a late-round dart, not a draft-day target, a fine TE2/streamer in deep or TE-premium formats once Cam Ward's early accuracy questions get answered in real games, and a bench stash at best everywhere else. Don't pay a meaningful pick for the breakout the beat is selling; let the first month of Daboll's offense tell you whether Okonkwo's vacated targets actually land in Helm's hands before moving him up a board. If Nova's still showing him Tier 6 in September with a real target-share number behind it, that's the signal to finally believe the beat writers were right.