It’s that time of year. If you’re reading this, you have your roster pulled up, and even if you don’t want to admit it, you’re wondering, “How am I going to mess up this beautiful roster that I put together?”
We’ve all been there. Don’t worry, I’m a professional.
Well, at the very least, I try hard. Really hard. And with that, I present to you my Week 3 fantasy football rankings that have far too much data supporting them to possibly be wrong.
FIND MORE POSITIONAL RANKINGS: QB | RB | WR | K | DEF | FLEX
Top 20 Fantasy Tight End Rankings
1) Trey McBride | Arizona Cardinals (vs. DET)
2) George Kittle | San Francisco 49ers (at LAR)
3) Travis Kelce | Kansas City Chiefs (at ATL)
4) Sam LaPorta | Detroit Lions (at ARI)
5) Dalton Kincaid | Buffalo Bills (vs. JAX)
6) Brock Bowers | Las Vegas Raiders (vs. CAR)
7) Kyle Pitts | Atlanta Falcons (vs. KC)
8) Mark Andrews | Baltimore Ravens (at DAL)
9) Evan Engram | Jacksonville Jaguars (at BUF)
10) Isaiah Likely | Baltimore Ravens (at DAL)
11) Jake Ferguson | Dallas Cowboys (vs. BAL)
12) Dallas Goedert | Philadelphia Eagles (at NO)
13) Pat Freiermuth | Pittsburgh Steelers (vs. LAC)
14) Mike Gesicki | Cincinnati Bengals (vs. WAS)
15) Colby Parkinson | Los Angeles Rams (vs. SF)
16) Hunter Henry | New England Patriots (at NYJ)
17) Dalton Schultz | Houston Texans (at MIN)
18) Zach Ertz | Washington Commanders (vs. CIN)
19) Jonnu Smith | Miami Dolphins (at SEA)
20) Cole Kmet | Chicago Bears (at IND)
Top Tight Ends To Start in Week 3
Brock Bowers, Las Vegas Raiders
It’s hard to be as wrong as fast as the redraft industry was on Bowers (your humble narrator included). The thought process was sound, or so I thought.
Betting against a rookie tight end in an iffy passing offense with an alpha WR1 already in town seemed like the percentage play. But as it turns out, playing the percentages doesn’t matter when discussing an outlier talent.
Brock Bowers and the Raiders are crushing defenses with these 7 routes
Bowers will run drags or overs early, then break it out towards the sideline later into wide open space the clear out created
(overlook the random curl I threw in) pic.twitter.com/9iuQukVARf
— Josh Norris (@JoshNorris)
The Raiders showed us this preseason that they valued Bowers’ versatility, and they’ve continued to beat us over the head with it during the regular season. He’s caught 15 of 17 targets this season and was inches away from finding pay dirt and having an even better week.
Most receiving yards by a TE since 2000, first two career games:
- Brock Bowers: 156
- Will Dissly: 147
- Aaron Hernandez: 146
- T.J. Hockenson: 138
Bowers has more catches in those games than Hernandez and Hockenson combined. He’s posted consecutive TE3 finishes (PPR) and has yet to play 70% of the snaps in a game.
At this point, it’s fair to consider Bowers for the top tier at the position. If you were bold enough to bet on his talent this summer, you’ve set yourself up to win consistently at the hardest position to project.
Travis Kelce, Kansas City Chiefs
The future Hall of Famer has seven targets (four catches for 39 yards and zero touchdowns) this season despite being on the field for at least 88% of snaps in both games (over 84.2% of snaps just three times last regular season).
Is it time to panic?
It’s not because, with each passing week, the 2024 Chiefs are looking more like the 2023 team that had a limited number of reliable skill players on the field. I feel good about Kelce not being the top-scoring tight end moving forward, but Kansas City no longer has the luxury of truly managing the veteran’s reps.
That has me penciling in a production floor that slots him in around TE5 moving forward.
