With so few consistent producers, streaming the right player could be the deciding factor in your semi-final matchup. We have analyzed red zone usage and target shares to pinpoint who offers the safest floor this week in fantasy football. Don’t let a poor performance at this position cost you a trip to the championship.
Start ‘Em: Darren Waller, TE, Miami Dolphins (vs CIN)
Last week, the Baltimore Ravens did the impossible. They managed to completely avoid throwing to their tight ends against the Cincinnati Bengals. We can’t really criticize them since they won the game, but it was more due to the Bengals’ offensive ineptitude than the Ravens looking like an efficient offensive machine.
Despite being the No. 1 team at “defending” the tight end in Week 15, the Bengals still allow the most fantasy points per game to the position by an impossibly wide margin. They did not suddenly figure out how to stop the tight end.
Darren Waller is still extremely volatile. He hadn’t seen more than three targets in a game since returning from IR until the second half of Monday night’s game with the Dolphins, playing out garbage time.
But he has a nose for the end zone, as we saw. Waller scored twice against the Steelers. And the Bengals are allowing a touchdown per game to tight ends. You can certainly do worse.
Dallas Goedert, TE, Philadelphia Eagles (at WAS)
I know. It’s easy to recommend Dallas Goedert as a start after his second-best game of the season. Goedert now has registered games of 15.8 and 25.0 fantasy points in each of his last two. Impressively, he did this against two of the better teams at defending the tight end.
This week, Goedert gets a Commanders defense that allows the second-most fantasy points per game to the position.
Jalen Hurts has seemingly decided that checking it down all the time is how he wants to play. This is a game the Eagles should control and win handily, limiting situations in which they need to take any chances. That means more short passes, which benefits Goedert.
MORE: Free Fantasy Start/Sit Optimizer
Sit ‘Em: Jake Ferguson, TE, Dallas Cowboys (vs. LAC)
Remember when Jake Ferguson was the best tight end in fantasy? That was a very long time ago.
From Weeks 2-7, Ferguson’s worst outing was 12.3 fantasy points. He had at least 16.8 points in five of those six contests. Those are WR1 numbers from a tight end.
Since then, Ferguson has not even reached his lowest point during that surge. He’s topped out at 11.6 fantasy points and failed to exceed seven targets in a game.
Ferguson has one touchdown since Week 8, which is the bread and butter of every non-Trey McBride tight end this season. He’s also made some huge mistakes in recent games that have cost the Cowboys.
The Chargers allow the 10th-fewest fantasy points per game to tight ends. Add in the emergence of Ryan Flournoy, and Ferguson has fallen to fourth in the target hierarchy. He is nowhere close to startable anymore and hasn’t been for quite some time.
Dalton Kincaid, TE, Buffalo Bills (at CLE)
It’s hard to criticize the Buffalo Bills when they’re playing well, but it’s also hard to imagine having Josh Allen as your quarterback and wanting to throw the ball as little as possible. But that’s where we are with this offense.
Dalton Kincaid doesn’t really play outside of obvious passing situations. The reason Dawson Knox benefits so much from play action is that teams don’t necessarily expect a pass when he’s on the field. Therefore, it behooves the Bills to put Knox in the game, as it allows them to disguise better what they’re doing. All of this results in Kincaid playing quite sparingly for such a talented player.
Last week, Kincaid played just 36% of the snaps and ran 16 routes. He caught three of four passes for 34 yards. That’s just not viable for fantasy managers. How can you start a guy who is so infrequently on the field?
Kincaid hasn’t really seen heavy volume in any game this season. His highest target count in a single game is six. He’s been incredibly reliant on splash plays and touchdowns.
The Browns’ once-elite run defense has really tapered off. With just three weeks left, they appear to have lost some of that fire that made them so impossible to run against earlier in the season.
Buffalo should experience a positive game script this week, allowing them to run as much as possible. The Browns are an average matchup for tight ends, but that really doesn’t matter. Allen is probably going to throw the ball fewer than 25 times, and Kincaid will be lucky to see a 40% snap share. He is a pure touchdown-or-bust dart throw this week.