The 20 Best NFL Tight End Seasons in the Last 25 Years

So much can change in 25 years. That statement is no truer than in sports, where 25 years is usually greater than the span of a player's entire career.

In that amount of time, players and coaches change, but more importantly, so do styles of play. We see that across all sports today. Basketball is all about pace and space, baseball is all about pitching and power, and football is all about passing and dynamic wide receivers.

Different eras are shaped by new team strategies and organizational philosophies, so comparing players across several years can be quite difficult. At least, that has been the case until recently.

With the development of Pro Football Reference's approximate value (AV) metric, we can, in fact, compare player seasons from 2016 to seasons past (say, to 1992). This single number is representative of a player's season so that we may compare player and single-season values across NFL eras. If you want to know more about what all goes into it, you can find the details here.

As for any additional qualifications, the players must have tallied 100 or more yards and at least one touchdown in the season. This works to eliminate those players of old who played blocking tight end/offensive line and failed to catch many passes.

Having established that, in the last 25 seasons -- breaking any ties with touchdowns and (if needed) yards per target -- which tight ends have posted the highest single-season AVs?