Streaming Tight Ends: Week 8 Targets

Oct 21, 2014

We’re approaching the halfway point of the season, which means most owners are finally ready to bail on any bad draft day investments they made in August, and a lot of those bad investments came in the form of mid-round tight ends. Of the current top 12 scoring tight ends, half were either late round fliers or undrafted, and with spotty play from every tight end not named Thomas or Olsen, this is the time of year when the Tight End By Waiver Wire (TEBWW) strategy starts to look very attractive to owners who have been plugging in inferior options each week.

For the uninitiated, the TEBWW approach, also know as tight end streaming, uses 4for4’s Schedule-Adjusted Fantasy Points Allowed (aFPA) and recent usage trends to pinpoint prime matchups that might not be so obvious to fantasy owners that rely on raw fantasy points allowed. For a tight end to qualify as a TEBWW candidate, they must be available in at least 40% of Yahoo leagues.

Last week, Dwayne Allen, our top streaming option, posted 14.2 PPR FP, good enough for TE9 numbers on the week, while Jared Cook and Jace Amaro failed to carry their recent momentum into good matchups, scoring just 5.5 and 5.2 PPR FP, respectively. Through 7 weeks, our tight end streamers are averaging 8.7 PPR FP/game, which equates to the TE13 on the season, while our optimal plays have turned in 14.3 PPR FP/game, or TE5 numbers.

Here are the top TEBWW options for Week 8:

Owen Daniels at Cincinnati

No team has been worse at covering tight ends this year than the Bengals, and few tight ends are being used as much as Owen Daniels, who is still owned in less than half of Yahoo leagues. When adjusted for strength of schedule, the Bengals are allowing 20.4 PPR FP/g to opposing tight ends, the worst mark in the league.

Since Week 4, only 5 tight ends have seen more targets than Owen Daniels and he is in the top 10 in fantasy scoring at the position over that time span. Based on his usage and upcoming schedule (PIT - 28th vs TE, TEN - 25th vs TE) Daniels isn’t just a must add this week, but a hold for the foreseeable future.

EDIT: Owen Daniels is OUT Sunday, after a procedure on his knee.