Fantasy Football Week 5 Tight End Rankings: Trey McBride, Dalton Kincaid

Here’s one early benefit of waiting on tight end and using our Yin & Yang tight end strategy - you probably have another tight end on your roster to start right now with bye weeks here. Two of our most reliable options so far in Tucker Kraft and Kyle Pitts are out as well as the tight end rotations for the Bears and the Steelers. There are some HOT waiver pick-ups at tight end this week, so make sure you've checked out our picks there!

Anyway, here are the half PPR tight end rankings for Week 5. For free, too, how about that? Your ole buddy Coop is still here trying to help you out, especially you guys over on Reddit. If you want to further help yourself out (and also support me), my rankings for every single position, for every single format, are available to Fantasy Alarm Members here. We actually have our Spooktober deal running now, where you can get 20% off the monthly price for the rest of the NFL season (if you have fantasy hockey or fantasy basketball drafts coming up, no better time to take a monthly membership for a spin). 

Reminder - these rankings below are just for Week 5. If you want my rest of season tight end rankings, in our patented Yin & Yang Tight End format, those are available here at the bottom of this article. As always, I’ll be available for comments or concerns in the Twitter or Reddit threads, so feel free to weigh in there with your own thoughts - or any questions you have for this week!

*Players highlighted in red have injury concerns that we need to monitor

 SUNDAY UPDATE

• Removed Thursday Night and Sunday Morning players who have already played
• Removed Brock Bowers who is OUT, added Raiders options
• Moved Juwan Johnson down on injury concerns, return of other tight ends

Week 5 Tight End Rankings: Tier 1

Trey McBride stands alone right now as the guy who checks virtually every box we look for whole consistently offering a decent floor and a big ceiling, regardless of matchup. Seriously, he checks these 10 boxes and only one other player checks more than six. That's why he's in his own tier. 

Week 5 Tight End Rankings: Tier 2

Tyler Warren offers the next best combination of athleticism and usage in terms of his route participation and target share. His 2.35 yards per route run dwarfs all other qualified options. I’d like to see him get more targets vs. man-to-man, but that will come. Jake Ferguson is my TE2 in full PPR, but these are half PPR, and he’s a little bit slow for standard or half - he’s never had a 100-yard game, believe it or not. His floor is good, though, and he leads the league in catches vs man to man, which lends towards TD upside.. Brock Bowers clearly is not healthy, and his QB sucks, but who are you going to start over him?

Week 5 Tight End Rankings: Tier 3

These guys have been the next most reliable. We are hoping safety Tyler Nubin misses this week - that would be good news for Juwan Johnson. Matt Milano is back for the Bills, which is bad news for Hunter Henry. Dalton Kincaid still doesn’t play a full snap share, but they are leaning on him in the red area, which we can’t ignore. Sam LaPorta has a lot of target competition, but he’s catching 3 or more every week and is a TD threat at any time. 

Week 5 Tight End Rankings: Tier 4

This tier is pretty painful right now, and it’s certainly not exciting. But these guys represent the best combination of deployment right now in terms of route participation, target share, routes run from a WR spot, receptions vs man-to-man, screen targets, etc. You can find more upside outside of this tier, but you will also find less safety.

Week 5 Tight End Rankings: Tier 5

Each one of these guys has a dangerous knock on them. Evan Engram is not close to a full-time player so far. Yes, he got 7 targets, but 7 of 42 is still a 16.6% target share. We’re hoping he plays more. Chig Okonkwo is playing plenty, and he has a great matchup, but his team has been terrible. He actually leads this team in receptions, with 13. Darren Waller should play more this week, but he also hardly played last week, so it’s hard to say what he will be up to. Mason Taylor is intriguing after 6 and 7 targets the last two weeks, and the Cowboys are a bottom 6-7 team vs. the TE, depending on which metrics you care about. Brenton Strange is also not a super sexy option, but he offers a bit of a target floor - with a better matchup, he’d be closer to tier 4, but the Chiefs have been one of the worst TE matchups. 

Week 5 Tight End Rankings: Tier 6

These Browns tight ends have already been a nightmare, and now they will have a rookie QB against a really good Vikings defense. So I’m trying to just avoid using these guys this week, where possible, while we see who Dillon Gabriel likes - and if he can actually play. 

Week 5 Tight End Rankings: Tier 7

There is some high-risk upside here for sure. Tommy Tremble has played two games over the last two years without Ja’Tavion Sanders, and he’s gotten 8 targets each time. In a world without Malik Nabers, Theo Johnson could get more looks. Jake Tonges is not George Kittle, nor does he get the snaps of Kittle, but there aren’t many weapons for the 49ers. Dalton Schultz is pretty boring, and this matchup has one of the lowest over/unders, but he’s there. Cade Otton has multiple games with zero points, but looked okay last week. 

Week 5 Tight End Rankings: Tier 8

We truly don’t know how much any of these guys will play in any given week. Oronde Gadsden is fun, but they have three WRs ahead of him. I’d like to see Elijah Arroyo play more. It would be cool if the Rams would play Terrance Ferguson tonight, but they probably won’t.