Fantasy football waiver wire: 4 tight ends to target for Week 13

We are now entering Week 13, possibly the most critical week of the fantasy football season. Depending on your league settings, the playoffs start in either Week 14 or 15, so this is one of your last chances to earn a postseason bid, or secure that coveted first-round bye. With nearly every team done with their byes, bench depth and the waiver wire take on less importance as owners should ride their starters to the finish line. But that doesn’t mean the wire should be totally disregarded yet.
There are only two teams on bye this week -- the Cleveland Browns and Tennessee Titans. That means Delanie Walker and Gary Barnidge owners will need to find a one-week replacement. In addition, Rob Gronkowski is dealing with a back injury, so his owners need to find yet another backup plan in case he can’t play this week. As always, tight end is kind of a crapshoot on the waiver wire, but here are our best educated guesses to pick up, owned in less than 50 percent of Yahoo! standard leagues.

Fiedorowicz emerged on the fantasy radar once it became clear that Brock Osweiler had no interest in pushing the ball downfield. He’s been a useful TE2 most of the season, particularly in PPR, and has a decent matchup with the Green Bay Packers’ crumbling defense this week. You could do better as a starting TE, but you could also do a lot worse.

Antonio Gates surprisingly didn’t see any targets on Sunday, while Henry found the end zone for the second straight game. Henry doesn’t see many targets of his own and it’s hard to predict which of these TEs will be more productive from week to week. Fortunately, Henry and the Chargers get a good matchup against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who still have a questionable defense despite shutting down the Seattle Seahawks in Week 12.

It’s getting harder to justify putting Green in this column. In the three games since coming back from an ankle injury, he has just five catches for 97 yards. Green did make a couple of nice plays against the Indianapolis Colts on Thanksgiving, but he’s otherwise been little-used, playing just 14 snaps in that game. Still, one has to expect he’ll see a bigger role as the Steelers chase the division title -- they didn’t give him a four-year, $20 million contract to play second fiddle to Jesse James. Fantasy owners will have to hope and pray if they decide to stream Green against the New York Giants this week.

Davis’ career revival has been one of the more pleasant surprises of the 2016 season. He’s getting consistent targets even when Jordan Reed is healthy, and now Reed is dealing with a shoulder injury that could force him to sit Week 13. In the two games Reed missed with a concussion, Davis went for 129 yards and a touchdown on seven catches. Reed owners should definitely pick up Davis as insurance in case the former isn’t ready to go against the Arizona Cardinals.