Streaming Tight Ends: Week 3 Targets

Sep 16, 2014

Week 2 was a glorious week for fantasy footballers that refused to spend an early or mid round draft pick on a tight end. Of the top 12 PPR tight ends this weekend, 8 players went into the week unowned in most leagues, and half of the top fantasy tight ends were likely undrafted.

After a mediocre Week 1, the TEBWW strategy got on track in Week 2, and as we accrue more game logs, the confidence in our predictions is only going to get stronger. Besides the goose egg from Dwayne Allen on Monday Night, all of our tight end streamers for Week 2 turned in a TE1 performance in PPR leagues. Marcedes Lewis and Larry Donnell tied as the TE7 and Zach Ertz turned in a TE11 performance.

Even with no fantasy points from Alen, our TEBWW picks averaged 10.7 PPR points, just 0.4 points outside of the TE1 range. Through two weeks, TEBWW candidates have averaged 10.1 PPR points and our optimal TEBWW pick is averaging 15.5 PPR points.

As a reminder, for a player to be eligible for TEBWW they must be unowned in at least 40% of ESPN leagues, but before searching for suggested streaming options, always check to make sure that a highly ranked player isn’t floating around your league’s waiver wire.

On to Week 3’s top tight end plays:

Antonio Gates (SD) at Buffalo

Antonio Gates is the clear top waiver wire option at tight end this week. After a monster game against the Seahawks, this is likely the last time that Gates will be readily available in any league. Any concerns of Ladarius Green cutting into Gates’ workload has disappeared after the first two weeks. Gates has out-snapped Green 94 to 50 on the season, and Green has seen just 2 targets on the year.

The matchup with Buffalo is just average in terms of fantasy points allowed to tight ends, but Gates is such an integral part of the San Diego offense that he is a plug-and-play option going forward.