Streaming Tight Ends: Week 8 Targets

Oct 23, 2018

We’ve reached the halfway point in the fantasy season—Week 8. Now’s the perfect time to evaluate your roster choices and gauge if the tight end you drafted is worthy of starting or if you need to hit the waiver wire in search of a better option. If you purposely approached drafting the tight end position with the intention of streaming weekly, I’ve got you covered there, too. As a strategy, streaming aims to find players with above-average matchups, which can hopefully translate to TE1 production for your fantasy squad.

For streaming purposes, 4for4’s Schedule-Adjusted Fantasy Points Allowed (aFPA) is a metric we rely heavily on to determine weekly matchup strength. 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 choosing weekly streamers.

4for4 rankings also come into play here and should always be considered when making league-specific roster decisions.

The goal is to roster a player who will return TE1 fantasy points, and this week was pretty good to me. Ben Watson and Chris Herndon both cracked the top 10 with 16.3 and 14.2 PPR points, respectively, with C.J Uzomah just outside, posting 9.3 fantasy points. The optimal TE streamer has 97 PPR fantasy points—good enough for TE4 on the season thus far. On to Week 8, and the players who can fill in on a bye week, bail you out of a bad draft choice or simply provide the weekly streaming points you crave.

In order to provide advice that you can actually implement, candidates for tight end streaming consideration must be owned in no more than 40 percent of Yahoo fantasy leagues.

Top Streaming Picks

Ben Watson, (Saints) @ Vikings

Fresh off a restful bye, Watson caught six balls for 43 yards and a touchdown in Week 7, translating to the fifth-most PPR points among TEs. The 36-year-old is proving to be a valuable member of the Saints’ offense and one that Drew Brees can count on.

New Orleans heads to Minnesota in Week 8 to face the 27^th ranked defense in TE aFPA, a unit that surrenders an average of 15.6 schedule-adjusted PPR points to the position weekly. In such a down year for TEs, Watson is certainly in the conversation every week, but has a favorable matchup on Sunday to add to his streaming appeal. Rostered in 40 percent of Yahoo leagues, this could be the last week the Saints’ TE qualifies.