Fantasy football rankings, Week 15: Tight ends

As bad as everything was last week at the position, how do you choose a Week 15 tight end?

Dec 10, 2014, 2:53 PM UTC

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The bright side, if you were disappointed by your tight end last week, is that there’s every chance your opponent was equally disappointed, so the awfulness offset.

It was a miserable week for a position that has had a miserable season. Rob Gronkowski, Martellus Bennett and Greg Olsen had fine weeks, as did Mychal Rivera and Jared Cook for whoever owned him. And Travis Kelce was fine. The other decent performances were, by and large, guys with minimal fantasy relevance to begin with; did you really roster Jermaine Gresham?

Beyond that, though, there were so many bad performances from so many big names. Two widely owned guys had zero fantasy points. Six had two. There’s every chance that the awfulness of the fantasy tight ends offset one another, meaning you’ll be moving into your fantasy semifinals (maybe, with different leagues, different rules) with a tight end who risked you losing your matchup only a week earlier.

The chart that follows shows the fantasy scores of the top 15 tight ends in our consensus ranks from last week:

Rank	Player	Week 14 score
1	Rob Gronkowski	14
2	Jimmy Graham	2
3	Julius Thomas	0
4	Greg Olsen	13
5	Antonio Gates	3
6	Martellus Bennett	14
7	Delanie Walker	2
8	Jordan Reed	2
9	Jason Witten	2
10	Travis Kelce	9
11	Dwayne Allen	0
12	Coby Fleener	5
13	Larry Donnell	2
14	Kyle Rudolph	0
15	Jordan Cameron	4

And that's before considering theoretical big names like Owen Daniels and Vernon Davis (two points each)

The good side: If you’re reading this, there’s a reasonable chance you did survive that matchup, and you have a shot at finding improvement for the week to come. The downside, though: With so many tight ends struggling so much, a lot of our rankings for this week will just be a shrug. “Well, he was terrible, but so were the next four guys in the rankings; who can I move above him?”

On top of that, we've basically run out of "hurt guys coming back" to stash. Kyle Rudolph has been back for four games, Marcedes Lewis three. Jordan Cameron just played. Tyler Eifert's still out there, and could theoretically return, but we've heard basically nothing on him in almost three weeks. You aren't expecting much.

In short, if your tight end struggled last week, you might not have a lot of options. Jimmy Graham was my No. 2 tight end last week; he’s my No. 2 this week. That top 15 at the top? Most of the same names will be in the top 15 this week as well.

If you’re tweaking for Week 15, you’re tweaking on the edges. Or you’re playing in a weekly league. And for those cases, we’re here with our rankings.:

Tight end rankings, Week 15

(DK: Daniel Kelley; DC: Dan Ciarrocchi; JD: John Daigle; SK: Scott Kaliska)

Rank	Consensus	Team	Opponent	DK	DC	JD	SK
1	Rob Gronkowski	NE	MIA	1	1	1	1
2	Jimmy Graham	NO	@CHI	2	2	2	2
3	Martellus Bennett	CHI	NO	4	3	3	3
4	Greg Olsen	CAR	TB	3	5	4	4
5	Julius Thomas	DEN	@SD	6	4	6	5
6	Delanie Walker	TEN	NYJ	5	7	5	7
7	Antonio Gates	SD	DEN	9	6	9	6
8	Travis Kelce	KC	OAK	10	9	8	10
9	Jordan Reed	WAS	@NYG	12	10	11	8
10	Larry Donnell	NYG	WAS	11	8	14	9
11	Coby Fleener	IND	HOU	13	11	7	12
12	Dwayne Allen	IND	HOU	7	14	16	11
13	Jason Witten	DAL	@PHI	8	12	17	13
14	Jordan Cameron	CLE	CIN	14	13	13	14
15	Mychal Rivera	OAK	@KC	17	17	10	16
16	Heath Miller	PIT	@ATL	15	15	20	17
17	Jared Cook	STL	AZ	25	16	12	15
18	Charles Clay	MIA	@NE	18	22	15	19
19	Kyle Rudolph	MIN	@DET	22	18	22	18
20	Zach Ertz	PHI	DAL	20	21	18	22
21	Jermaine Gresham	CIN	@CLE	24	20	19	20
22	Eric Ebron	DET	MIN	18	24	21	-
23	Owen Daniels	BAL	JAC	21	19	23	-
24	Scott Chandler	BUF	GB	19	23	25	24
25	Tim Wright	NE	MIA	16	-	-	23
--	Andrew Quarless	GB	@BUF	23	-	24	-
--	Anthony Fasano	MIA	@NE	-	-	-	21
--	Joseph Fauria	DET	MIN	24	25	-	-
--	Levine Toiolo	ATL	PIT	25	-	-	-
--	Mercedes Lewis	JAC	@BAL	-	-	-	25