Harold Fannin Jr. survived Cleveland's broken offense. Can Todd Monken unlock the rest?

Harold Fannin Jr. caught 72 passes last season. He will not catch 72 passes in 2026, not because his role has shrunk, but because everything around it has been rebuilt.

As a third-round rookie out of Bowling Green, Fannin caught 72 passes — a Browns rookie record, second among all NFL rookies — for 731 yards and six touchdowns on 107 targets, in an offense quarterbacked by a rotating cast that ended with rookie Shedeur Sanders. The 2025 Browns could not sustain drives, and their tight end still finished with elite volume.

Now the operation around him has been rebuilt. Todd Monken, the longtime Ravens offensive coordinator, takes over as head coach and brings his play-action-heavy, tight-end-friendly system with him — along with pass-game coordinator Danny Breyer, who spent the last three seasons on Baltimore's offensive staff working with tight ends. Deshaun Watson returns from his lost 2025 atop the quarterback depth chart. Fannin's role will look different this year because everything around it got redesigned.

The Ravens blueprint is now the Browns blueprint

Monken's Baltimore offenses ran through the tight end position: play-action off the run game, attack underneath and over the middle, move the chains on schedule. He called plays in that system for three seasons and now installs it around a tight end who just proved he can carry that exact workload.

Fannin averaged 6.7 targets per game last season. The question is whether that number holds when the offense improves around him. It can contract — a functional Browns passing game will have more mouths worth feeding — and it can also get more valuable, because targets from an offense that reaches the red zone are worth more than targets on third-and-forever.

The second story is the stronger football case. Fannin will see two-tight-end looks regularly, but no Browns receiver commands the middle of the field the way he does, and Monken's scheme history says the tight end eats first.

Fannin has room to score more often in the upgraded quarterback situation, even if his 107 targets from 2025 decline modestly.

The schedule is a tail wind

Cleveland's opponents allowed 237.4 passing yards per game last year — a soft passing matchup (rank 31 of 32). The Browns will operate against defenses that gave up passing yards freely last season, and Monken's scheme is built to attack underneath before the downfield plays develop. Fannin sits directly in the throwing lanes that scheme attacks.

A soft passing schedule also relieves red-zone pressure. When the offense is confident it can convert in the air, targets flow to the most reliable receiver, and Fannin earned that role in 2025. Whoever takes the Week 1 snap inherits a tight end who was the offense's most dependable target as a rookie.

Monken still needs a quarterback

Monken has never been an NFL head coach, and the quarterback situation is the least stable part of the plan. Watson sits first on the depth chart after barely playing in two years, with Shedeur Sanders and Dillon Gabriel behind him — three quarterbacks, none of whom has proven he can run a full healthy season. The Ravens' version of this offense had Lamar Jackson executing it. Cleveland's version has a question mark under center and Jerry Jeudy leading the receiver room.

That uncertainty could depress Fannin's early-season efficiency even if the target volume holds. A conservative start from Monken — lean on the run, shorter throws — caps Fannin near 160–170 PPR. A clean install with competent quarterback play pushes him toward 190–200.

At 176.7 projected PPR points, Fannin does not need everything to go right to return TE6 value. He needs the offense to be merely ordinary.

Take the seventh-round tight end edge

Fannin's 78.5 ADP sits eight picks later than Ball Ranks' rank of 70. Take him in the seventh round as your starting tight end and treat the gap as a gift from drafters who watched the 2025 Browns and stopped paying attention. The volume is proven, the schedule is soft, and the new scheme was built around players exactly like him. If the quarterback room collapses again, the 107-target floor is your insurance.

See Fannin's live projection and game-by-game history on his player profile, or compare tight ends across the full 2026 board.