2017 Fantasy Football: First TE Ranks

Now to TEs, where there are five surefire difference makers and then…

Note: Same breakdown as the QBs: Players | Team | My Rank | Positional ADP | Difference

Elite Tier	Like, Extremely Good, but… Tier
Rob Gronkowski | NE | 1 | 1 | 0	Greg Olsen | CAR | 4 | 4 | 0
Jordan Reed | WAS | 2 | 3 | -1	Delanie Walker | TEN | 5 | 7 | -2
Travis Kelce | KC | 3 | 2 | +1

A group of 11 that gets us to the middle of the TE 2s.

Good Solid Fantasy Starters Tier	Known Commodities Tier
Jack Doyle | IND | 6 | 13 | -7	Charles Clay | BUF | 11 | 27 | -16
Kyle Rudolph | MIN | 7 | 8 | -1	Coby Fleener | NO | 12 | 16 | -4
Jimmy Graham | SEA | 8 | 5 | +3	Dwayne Allen | NE | 13 | 23 | -10
Martellus Bennett | GB | 9 | 9 | 0	Zach Ertz | PHI | 14 | 11 | +3
Tyler Eifert | CIN | 10 | 6 | +4	Jason Witten | DAL | 15 | 15 | 0
	Eric Ebron| DET | 16 | 12 | +4

That group of 11 is where we find the disagreements start. Jack Doyle is flying under the radar right now and I’m not really sure why. Luck reliably targets his tight ends and with Allen gone, Doyle assumes those targets. Is he the first player after those studs, I don’t know, but he deserves to be in the tier he’s in. Why is Charles Clay at 27 in positional ADP? Right now, the pass catchers in Buffalo are Sammy Watkins, and Zay Jones. Who’s taking Clay’s targets? With Allen, I may be over optimistic about his upside with the plethora of weapons now in New England, but even if I shuffle him to the bottom of the tier I’m still 7 spots higher on him than ADP right now.

Certainly, Some Upside Tier

Hunter Henry | LAC | 17 | 10 | +7

Cameron Brate | TB | 18 | 18 | 0

Antonio Gates | LAC | 19 | 25 | -6

Julius Thomas | MIA | 20 | 17 | +3

O.J. Howard | TB | 21 | 14 | +7

Evan Engram | NYG | 22 | 20 | +2

David Njoku | CLE | 23 | 19 | +4

Erik Swoope | IND | 24 | 36 | -12

Jesse James | PIT | 25 | 28 | -3

Zach Miller | CHI | 26 | 26 | 0

Alright the tier to get us all the way through the TE 2s. I’m low on all of the rookies, because rookie tight ends rarely perform. The biggest difference here is Swoope who averaged over 10 yards a target last season and I think Luck can support, and may need to with an O-line that has yet to gel, two tight ends. As for Henry, well I’m just not convinced that Gates doesn’t take just a little more of the work, and Henry is just a bit less effective in the red zone in 2017.

There we have it, the first TE rankings of the year. It’s a good group, and with the last two draft classes we’re going to see it stay deep for a while going forward.