Isaiah Likely

Where He's Expected to Land

Nova projects roughly 93 points this season, 6.68 per game, good for Tier 6 at the position across formats (T6 in PPR and Half-PPR, T7 in Standard, T8 in 2QB/Superflex). The likely-finish range is TE22–TE46, with a DNA grade of H (high variance) attached. His schedule is unremarkable on both ends: an early-season slate (Weeks 1-4) that grades tougher than average (20.2) and a playoff stretch (Weeks 15-17) that grades about average (14.7), with a Week 8 bye.

The Last Three Seasons

The trend line points up through 2024, a career-high six touchdowns, a 60% snap share, and the best target rate of his career behind Mark Andrews, then collapses in 2025. Likely fractured a bone in his foot in Ravens training camp last summer, needed surgery, and was projected to miss roughly six weeks; he didn't debut until Week 5 and finished with a career-low one touchdown on 27 catches. The table hides the injury; the injury is most of the story.

What Changed for Him This Offseason

Everything. Likely hit free agency in March and signed a three-year deal with the Giants worth up to $40 million, including $20.5 million fully guaranteed, top-15 cap-charge money on New York's active roster. After four years split behind Mark Andrews in Baltimore, this is the first contract of his career that reads like a team betting on him as a starter, not a complement.

What Changed Around Him

Coaching: John Harbaugh, Likely's only NFL head coach, left Baltimore to take over the Giants in January and immediately targeted his former tight end in free agency. New OC Matt Nagy, hired to develop second-year QB Jaxson Dart with an eye toward the scheme concepts he ran with Patrick Mahomes in Kansas City, is the one calling the plays now.

Teammates: The receiver room Likely is walking into is thinner than the one he left. Malik Nabers, New York's clear No. 1 target, tore his ACL in Week 4 last season and is expected to open training camp on the PUP list with his Week 1 status unresolved (Patricia Traina, New York Giants On SI, June 29, 2026). Slot man Wan'Dale Robinson departed in free agency. That leaves Likely and holdover Theo Johnson, a 2024 fourth-rounder who saw his targets jump to 74 last year, to sort out a two-tight-end rotation in what's expected to be a heavier 12-personnel offense.

What They're Saying

Likely, for his part, is bought in on the quarterback. "Man, Jaxson [is] a great quarterback, a great young quarterback," he said. "Excited to get out there and play with him. When you watch him, you see the type of drive he has to win any game by any means necessary." (Isaiah Likely, via Giants.com's Dan Salomone, March 12, 2026.)

On the target math, SI's Michael Haney notes Likely's 60.9% career contested-catch rate, 66.7% last season, "is better than any of the Giants' 2025 receiving options who logged a minimum of 25 pass targets," and projects a realistic path to double his 2025 target count (Michael Haney, New York Giants On SI, June 28, 2026). But Haney's own follow-up piece on Theo Johnson complicates the target math: Johnson isn't expected to "simply disappear from the receiving game," and he's still ticketed for the red-zone and seam work that produced four of his six touchdowns in 2025 (Michael Haney, New York Giants On SI, July 8, 2026). RotoBaller's Will Brady sums up the industry's bull case bluntly: Likely "certainly has the potential to vastly outproduce his current redraft ADP of TE11" (Will Brady, RotoBaller, July 7, 2026).

Reconciling the chatter with the model: Nova already has some of this priced in, that's why the market (ADP 138.7) sits ahead of Nova's own rank (173). What the model isn't pricing in is a true target monopoly. A shared 12-personnel role with Johnson caps the target-share ceiling Likely needs to justify TE11 helium.

The Buzz

The crowd is well ahead of Nova here. Dynasty and redraft writers alike are circling Likely as the year's TE breakout name, headlines calling him a player who "carries significant dynasty upside" are common across the fantasy trade press this offseason. That optimism is built on a real thesis (new contract, new play-caller, thin WR room) but it assumes he wins a target battle Nova's usage-based model doesn't yet see him winning outright.

Swing Factors

• Malik Nabers' recovery pace (+30 pts): every week Nabers stays on PUP or on a snap count, targets flow toward Likely and Johnson instead.
• Theo Johnson target overlap (−25 pts): Johnson's red-zone and seam role isn't going away; a true 50/50 split caps Likely's target share well below what a "new TE1" price implies.
• Foot durability (−20 pts): he's a year removed from a surgically repaired foot fracture that cost him six-plus weeks; camp reports on his practice load matter more than any offseason quote.
• Scheme fit (+15 pts): Harbaugh and Nagy specifically pursued Likely to expand him beyond the 27.7% in-line, big-slot usage that boxed him in behind Andrews.
• No Vegas board yet: Nova hasn't captured season prop lines for Likely, there's no DraftKings cross-check available this cycle, an honest gap rather than a signal.

If Everything Goes Right / If Everything Goes Wrong

If everything goes right: Nabers' return slips further into September, Johnson's drop issues (10 over two seasons) push snaps Likely's way, and Dart leans on the big-slot matchup Harbaugh brought him in to create. Nova's ceiling has him at 157 points, a legitimate weekly-startable tight end. The model gives that tier-1 outcome just 4%.

If everything goes wrong: the foot niggles again in camp, or the Likely/Johnson rotation splits the way Likely/Andrews did in Baltimore, and he drifts toward the 35-point floor of the sim. That's not a hypothetical tail, a 66% weekly bust rate (sub-10 PPR points) is already baked into his median projection, the highest bust rate of any TE worth rostering in shallow leagues.

Nova's Edge

The edge is a rank-vs-market call layered on a distribution flag. The redraft and dynasty crowd is bidding Likely up to TE11 on the "finally out from Andrews' shadow" story. Nova's simulation, anchored to the 56% snap share, 12% target share, and 0.264 WOPR he actually posted last season, not the role he's promised, has him closer to TE22-46, a -25 rank edge against the market. And the shape of the outcome matters as much as the median: an H-grade DNA with only a 1% weekly boom rate is about as volatile and unreliable as a fantasy-relevant tight end gets, worse than his overall rank alone suggests.

The Bottom Line

Treat Likely as a late-round tight end flier, not the TE11 the industry consensus has stamped on him, Nova's math says that price already outran the target competition he still has to win in camp. He's a fine bench stash if beat coverage out of Giants camp starts showing him ahead of Theo Johnson in two-tight-end personnel, and worth monitoring closely if Nabers' PUP stint drags into the season. But at the price the room is paying, this is a wait-and-see, not a draft-day priority. Grade it in January: if Likely finishes outside TE22, the market, not Nova, will have been wrong.