2017 Fantasy Football: Tight End Rankings
Tight End is always a tricky position to draft for fantasy players who aren’t positive what they’re doing. Despite having a strong class of consistent studs in the middle of drafts, players seem to either draft an injury-prone star in the beginning or wait until the last few rounds. The important thing to understand where you are drafting each tight end option. If you look at the top tight ends in Gronk and Jordan Reed, both are being drafted at their ceiling. The concern however is that Gronk hasn’t played a 16 game season since 2011, and Reed never has. This makes these players incredibly boom or bust options, but if they’re falling in drafts, it’s really tough not to pull the trigger.
*Courtesy of SportsMockery.com
However, a majority of fantasy experts in the industry don’t care to waste early picks on tight ends. Most of us seem to focus our first five or six rounds completely on running backs and wide receivers. This means we will likely miss out on the top six tight end options, and we’ll wait until the final rounds for the position. This shouldn’t be a concern though because many of these options aren’t being drafted at their ceiling. Just look at Kyle Rudolph, who was the number two tight end in PPR formats last season, and is now being drafted as the 7th or 8th tight end off the board. A lot of these sleeper options are being drafted somewhere in between their normal expectations and their floor, which means these options have lots of upside. Just think about Jack Doyle with no Dwayne Allen in Indy, or Eric Ebron with no more Anquan Boldin in Detroit. All of these options from TE9-TE15 have tremendous upside without having to use a high draft pick on them. This is why so many experts love to wait on the position.
But enough of all this strategy, it all depends how your draft board falls to you. Even though I like waiting at the position, if you love Rob Gronkowski, then take him (or trade for him after he gets injured a couple weeks in). Below are my rankings for Tight Ends in both Standard and PPR formats.
Top 25 Tight Ends 2017 (Standard and PPR Scoring)
- Rob Gronkowski, New England Patriots
- Jordan Reed, Washington Redskins
- Travis Kelce, Kansas City Chiefs
- Greg Olsen, Carolina Panthers
- Delanie Walker, Tennessee Titans
- Jimmy Graham, Seattle Seahawks
- Kyle Rudolph, Minnesota Vikings
- Tyler Eifert, Cincinnati Bengals
- Hunter Henry, Los Angeles Chargers
- Martellus Bennett, Green Bay Packers
- Zach Ertz, Philadelphia Eagles
- Jack Doyle, Indianapolis Colts
- Eric Ebron, Detroit Lions
- Zach Miller, Chicago Bears
- Cameron Brate, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
- C.J. Fiedorowicz, Houston Texans
- Austin Hooper, Atlanta Falcons
- Jesse James, Pittsburgh Steelers
- Coby Fleener, New Orleans Saints
- O.J. Howard, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
- Austin Seferian-Jenkins, New York Jets
- Jason Witten, Dallas Cowboys
- Julius Thomas, Miami Dolphins
- Evan Engram, New York Giants
- David Njoku, Cleveland Browns
