Fantasy football rankings 2017: Tight ends for NFL Week 5

With the arrival of the first round of bye weeks, now is a good time to evaluate your roster. This is a difficult process for those of us who don’t have Rob Gronkowski or Travis Kelce. Tight end is a crazy position and even the best can give you a stinker of a game. Slow starts from Eric Ebron, Jordan Reed, and others make it hard to keep them on your roster, especially when you see guys like Tyler Kroft come out of nowhere to have huge games.

Reed, Coby Fleener and Vernon Davis are all on bye this week. Oddly enough, Fleener’s production may be the most difficult to replace with a streaming option.

Week 5 looks like it could be a rough one for the tight ends who have actually been relatively consistent this season. Kelce, Charles Clay, Gronk and Zach Ertz all have contests against teams that can defend the position fairly well. You still roll out all four this week, but you need to do a good deed or make a sacrifice to the fantasy gods to ensure they put up some numbers.

Both Tampa Bay tight ends finished in the top six last week. Cameron Brate and O.J. Howard have an excellent matchup against the New England Patriots’ suddenly awful defense. I’d go Brate over Howard, but it wouldn’t be crazy to see both finish in the top 12 again.

Another dynamic duo, Hunter Henry and Antonio Gates, will go up against the New York Giants, who have allowed the most fantasy points to tight ends this season. Henry is a fantastic talent, but Gates isn’t going away and Philip Rivers has been a turnover machine. Outside of whoever is the cheaper daily fantasy play, I’m staying away from this temptation given the mystery surrounding their usage. Delanie Walker also has a plus matchup, but he’ll also be on the fantasy bench if Marcus Mariota misses the game.

Finally, I’m happy to see Austin Seferian-Jenkins getting involved in the Jets offense. He’s got an absolute dream matchup against the Browns this week in the Josh McCown revenge game. Don’t be surprised if he summons the ghost of Gary “Mashed Potato Mountain” Barnidge and shows up big on Sunday.

Did I miss a tight end you might need to start? Leave your question in the comment section and we’ll hash it out! Until then, enjoy our Week 5 rankings:

(SK: Scott Kaliska; JG: Jeff Goldberg; DG: Derek Gordon; KB: Kyle Bennett ZS: Zach Senvisky; JM: Jason Marcum)