Fantasy Football Rankings: Rest of the Season TE Levels

The Shuffle Up series rolls along. Today we hit the tight ends. This position was a fantasy wasteland for the first few weeks, but production picked up in Week 8 (ah, the Hallmark holidays) and things have since returned to normal.

The rest of the season’s levels: QBs | RBs | WRs | TEs

I would never want to eliminate the tight end position from fantasy leagues. It’s just another opportunity for us to hopefully make better choices than our opponents.

The salaries are unscientific and meant to illustrate where I see pockets of value. Everything up to this point has been an audition; I rank and rank them as if I were drawing from fresh right now. Remember the golden rule – no player gains or loses extra value because you choose to list them.

The big tickets

• $34 George Kittle

• $30 Travis Kelce

• $28 Brock Bowers

• $26 Trey McBride

The 49ers are only 28th red-zone percentage (touchdowns per pass), but Kittle is part of the answer there. He has been seen 13 red-zone targets, and he’s caught 12 of themgood for six touchdowns. And Kittle is still as dynamic a downfield threat as any tight end, posting a position-best eight catches over 20 yards. He is very close to earning a Hall of Fame spot when he eventually retires.

It’s a shame Bowers doesn’t have a plus quarterback to push him to the top of the position. He has accumulated the most YAC among tight ends, but his YPC is still a mediocre 10.2, a statement more about his supporting cast than Bowers as a player. The Raiders just fired their play-caller, but with the limited quarterback talent here, Bowers can’t fully spread his wings.

McBride does fine with volume, but with just three touchdowns (and none this year) against 41 career games and 33 starts, we have to view him as a capped upside player. Kyler Murray has not been consistent this year and the Cardinals rank just 26th in pass percentage above expectations.

Legitimate building blocks

• $23 Cade Otton

• $22 Evan Engram

• $22 David Njoku

• $21 Kyle Pitts

• $21 Tucker Kraft

• $16 Sam LaPorta

• $15 Mark Andrews

• $13 Jake Ferguson

• $11 Dalton Kincaid

• $10 Taysom Hill

• $10 TJ Hockenson

The term “league winner” is probably overused in fantasy circles, but we’ll at least call Otton a league-tilt. He has been the TE5, TE1 and TE2 the past three weeks, coinciding with injuries to Mike Evans and Chris Godwin. He has five targets inside the five-yard line, tops among tight ends. He has had a market share of 24.6% over the past two weeks, trailing only Travis Kelce (a whopping 29.4%) over that span. Baker Mayfield has struggled to find secondary receivers he can trust so Otton’s role doesn’t disappear.

Kraft will always have to struggle for targets against a loaded Green Bay receiver room, but he does two intriguing things to keep his fantasy value afloat. First is red zone equity, where Kraft already has nine targets, four catches and four touchdowns (only Kittle has more). But the Packers also know how to scheme Kraft in space; he is fourth in YPC at the poison, and his YAC per catching is best among tight ends. Matt LaFleur knows how to set his players up to excel.

Hill has absolutely no weekly floor, but he’s probably the best goal line left in New Orleans, and this is a team desperate for offensive help after Alvin Kamara. A healthy Hill is an interesting tight end sleeper any week.

Some plausible upside

• $8 Dallas Goedert

• $8 Hunter Henry

• $8 Cole Kmet

• $7 Mike Gesicki

• $6 Zach Ertz

• $6 Pat Freiermuth

• $5 Jonnu Smith

• $5 Dalton Schultz

• $4 Isaiah Probably

• $3. Tyler Conklin

• $3 Theo Johnson

Johnson has shown some as a rookie and is coming off the best yardage game of the year, but he has also left some plays on the table. He has a position-high four drops on the year.

Say this for Conklin, the Jets have tried to get him involved. He has run 265 routes, tops in the position. But Conklin isn’t a downfield mover (just 9.2 YPC) or an intermediate route runner (5.24 average depth of field). He always worked with limited range, and now with Davante Adams in town, we can’t count on goal line equity either.

Likely just a stash-and-hope player, someone who can step up if Andrews gets hurt but won’t have standalone value without it. The acquisition of Diontae Johnson also spreads the Baltimore target tree even wider.

Offer container

• $2 Juwan Johnson

• $2 Ja’Tavion Sanders

• $1 Noah Fant

• $1 Colby Parkinson

• $1 Will Dissly

• $1 Chig Okonkwo

Data from TruMedia, Fantasy Points and Pro Football Reference was used in this article.