Streaming Tight Ends: Week 8 Targets

Oct 25, 2016

So you missed out on a top-tier TE, or purposely chose to wait until later rounds with the strategy of streaming the position weekly? You’ve come to the right place. It’s time to assess your lineup and see if the TE you drafted is starter-worthy this week or if you are better off grabbing someone off the waiver wire who has an above average matchup which can hopefully translate to TE1 production.

The main focus of our research when looking at a TE’s matchup is 4for4’s Schedule-Adjusted Fantasy Points Allowed (aFPA) metric. As the season continues to progress and more data is available, aFPA becomes more and more reliable, using rolling 10-week data. Targets and efficiency metrics are also considered when coming up with weekly TE streamers.

The goal in streaming is to roster a player that is going to return TE1 fantasy points and I’m looking at Week 7 as my mulligan for the season. Kidding of course, but only one of my three streamers had a solid performance. Lance Kendricks, all the way in London, finished Week 7 as the TE6 with 12.5 PPR fantasy points. We don’t need to discuss the other two bums.

After seven weeks of football, 4for4 streaming candidates are averaging 8.81 PPR fantasy points per game, which currently ranks as TE19. The optimal TE streamer has a combined 91.3 PPR fantasy points, enough for TE2 on the season thus far. On to Week 8 where we are faced with more teams on bye weeks, injuries and lack of production. Here are this week’s streamers who will hopefully provide you some relief, as well as the kick in the pants your team may possibly need.

In order to provide advice that you can actually implement, candidates for streaming must be available in at least 40% of Yahoo fantasy leagues.

Vernon Davis (WAS) @ CIN

As a Denver homer who is totally annoyed that Vernon Davis has a Super Bowl 50 ring for doing absolutely nothing, it pains me a bit to recommend using him at all. However, with Jordan Reed out for now with concussion symptoms, it seems he has found a place in Washington’s lineup and is actually producing decent fantasy numbers.

In two weeks as a fill-in for the sidelined Reed, Davis has scored 13.0 and 13.9 PPR fantasy points, respectively. In Week 8, Washington heads over the pond to London, where they will face a Bengals team who gives up the sixth highest aFPA to TEs with 16.4.

Using Davis this week is, of course, dependent on the health of Reed, who has been cleared to practice with the team, but not necessarily given the green light to play on Sunday am. With a bye in Week 9, combined with a tough travel schedule, Washington staff might just decide to hold off on playing Reed until Week 10, which seems to make the most sense, health-wise.

Davis is available in 77% of Yahoo leagues, so if Reed is a no-go this week, he makes a great plug in TE in Merry Old England.