The tight ends position hasn’t quite been as exciting this season as in past years, considering the absence of Aaron Hernandez, the retirement of Tony Gonzalez and the injuries to Jimmy Graham and Rob Gronkowski.
Julius Thomas, Martellus Bennett and Greg Olsen have been great news from the past couple seasons, but the up-and-down efforts from young players like Jordan Reed and Zach Ertz have been troublesome.
Older players, like Jason Witten and Heath Miller, still hold plenty of talent, but they don’t seem to hold the promise they once had in week-to-week setups.
So I thought it would be cool to look ahead at the rest of the Fantasy season to see what lies ahead for the position. Which tight ends in the middle of the pack have the best chance of leaping up into the top 10 – or higher?
Second-Half Fantasy Tight Ends to Consider
Which Fantasy players are good bets to rise from Week 8 on?
Eric Ebron, Detroit: We’ve tried to impress on readers the fact that rookies rarely become great Fantasy tight ends in their first season. But the second half is a different story, as they’ve begun to become assets – and injuries affect weapons around them. With Calvin Johnson (ankle) hurting, Ebron (hamstring) could become a frequent target once he gets healthy.
Clay Harbor, Jacksonville: Since Week 4, Harbor ranks seventh among all Fantasy tight ends in scoring, and only three other tight ends have more receiving yards in that span. After this week, Harbor faces the two worst defenses against tight ends (Tampa Bay and Dallas).
Jace Amaro, N.Y. Jets: From Weeks 8-17 last season, Tim Wright finished as the sixth-best tight end in Fantasy, despite being a rookie. We could see similar production out of Amaro in the second-half of his rookie season. Jeff Cumberland’s performance in Week 7 was an anomaly.
Austin Seferian-Jenkins, Tampa Bay: With rumors swirling that the Bucs might trade Vincent Jackson, that would shoot ASJ up to being the second target behind fellow rookie Mike Evans.
Charles Clay, Miami: From Week 8 on last season, only four other tight ends had more receiving yards than Clay, and he’s coming off his best game of this season. He’ll get a chance to do even better in Week 8 against Jacksonville, which ranks as one of the worst against tight ends.
Defenses vs. Tight Ends in 2014
We like to use the “Defenses vs. Pos” stats from CBSSports.com. Basically, this tool tells you the average points per position a defense gives up.
The five softest defenses against tight ends this year include:
- Bengals: 14.00 Fantasy pts allowed to TEs per game
- Cowboys: 12.14
- Seahawks: 12.00
- Jets: 11.00
- Titans: 10.29
These Week 8 TE rankings are also helpful for SKYLLZONE’s Fan vs. Machine instant snake drafts on SKYLLZONE.com. Check out our articles over there at blog.SKYLLZONE.com, as we help you in this awesome Daily Fantasy Football game.
You can download the free draft app on iTunes, or you can just draft off your computer. You’ll draft against nine computers who all enter the drafts with different strategies.
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Week 8 TE Rankings
These tight end rankings are based on standard non-PPR Fantasy leagues with six points per touchdown.
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Are there some tight ends you think we have too high or too low in our Week 8 TE Rankings? We want to help our readers, so your comments on these tight end rankings can give them an added perspective and we definitely welcome that!
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