Tight End Yin-Yang Fantasy Football Rankings: George Kittle in Purdy Good Matchup with Cardinals

tight end rankings week 18 george kittle san francisco 49ers

Published: Jan 03, 2023

Updated: Jan 05, 2023

We recognize that many leagues play all the way through the regular season so we’re not going to leave those folks high and dry. Not to mention, the rest of us have DFS to play. Luckily for those that play through Week 18, we actually didn’t end up with too many situations where teams might be resting their starters. There are a ton of must win games, seeding to jostle out, and pride to play for so we have a pretty full arsenal of players at our disposal. Let’s take a look!

		Matchups
Tier	Player	18
1	Travis Kelce	LV
2	George Kittle	ARI
	Mark Andrews	CIN
3	TJ Hockenson	CHI
	Dallas Goedert	NYG
	Dalton Schultz	WAS
4	Evan Engram	TEN
	Cole Kmet	MIN
	David Njoku	PIT
	Pat Freiermuth	CLE
	Darren Waller	KC
5	Logan Thomas	DAL
	Tyler Conklin	MIA
	Cade Otton	ATL
	Trey McBride	SF
6	Taysom Hill	CAR
7	Dawson Knox	NE
	Daniel Bellinger	PHI
	Juwan Johnson	CAR
	Gerald Everett	DEN
	Chig Okonkwo	JAX
	Hayden Hurst	BLT
8	Jordan Akins	IND
	Noah Fant	LAR
	Tyler Higbee	SEA
	Jelani Woods	HOU
	Albert Okwuegbunam	LAC
	Hunter Henry	BUF
	Austin Hooper	JAX
	Robert Tonyan	DET
	Isaiah Likely	CIN

Tier 1: The Travis Kelce Tier

Travis Kelce - Not only is he the best but he has a fantastic matchup. Easy.

Tier 2: Elite With Good Matchups

George Kittle - Speaking of good players with good matchups, Kittle now has five touchdowns over his last five games and he gets to face the Arizona Cardinals who are the second-worst team vs. the tight end behind only the Seattle Seahawks. Jackpot.
Mark Andrews - Mark Andrews reminded us last week what he’s capable of. And this week he gets a Bengals team that he lit up with eight receptions for 89 yards and a touchdown earlier this season.

Tier 3: Highly Confident

TJ Hockenson - TJ Hockenson has been peppered with targets but the results aren’t always mindblowing. Sometimes they are though and that’s the upside we are playing for. The Bears on paper look decent vs. the tight end but they have only played a couple high end guys and they are also missing safety Eddie Jackson. So we feel pretty good about Hock here.
Dallas Goedert - The timing was honestly terrible for Goedert. He got injured against one of the toughest defenses vs. the tight end in the league then came back to face two more top five defenses vs. the tight end. This week vs. the Giants should provide a spot for him to flash what we saw earlier this season.
Dalton Schultz - Again - good player, bad matchup. Schultz has been hot and George Kittle did well vs. this Commanders D but most of the season they have been shutting tight ends down. Like last week when David Njoku had one catch.

Tier 4: Happy To Have Them

Evan Engram - The Jaguars crushed the Texans so didn’t really need Engram much. Terrible timing if your championship was last week. If it’s this week, you have Engram in a good matchup. The Jaguars are in if they win and they need major help if they lose so they will be playing for keeps.
Cole Kmet - Cole Kmet is a guy that plays virtually every snap and runs a ton of routes on a team that is hurting for pass catchers. Just wish we could trust him more but it’s a decent matchup and the upside is there. He bailed us out with a score last week.
David Njoku - Much like Goedert, Njoku returned from injury just in time to see back to back brutal matchups for fantasy. But he’s at least playing a big snap share and this week he has a much more reasonable matchup. The uber-athletic tight end is always a threat to break a big play.
Pat Freiermuth - From Week 13-15, 'Muth clearly was not healthy and he only played ~55% of the snaps over that span and even went without a target in Week 15. The last two weeks he is back up around 80% and he’s had eight and six targets. If he had a better matchup he’d be higher but Cleveland is a tough one - they are letting up the 6th fewest points to the position.
Darren Waller - He’s just not playing a full snap share. Since returning from injury, he’s played 49%, 40%, and 57% of the snaps. It caps his upside. Good matchup vs. the Chiefs though so he’s viable. I just don’t see why a team that is already eliminated from playoff contention would all of a sudden change his usage for one last game.

Tier 5: Upside Is There

Logan Thomas - Carson Wentz likes his tight end. In the last two games, Thomas’s snaps (71% and 83%) and targets (eight and seven) are up. He has six catches in both games which is all you can ask for in PPR. Unfortunately he gets the Cowboys who happen to be top five vs. the tight end.
Tyler Conklin - Tyler Conklin in a vacuum does not have much that we look for. He’s not particularly fast, he’s not the best pass catcher on his team, he doesn’t always play a full snap share (hasn’t played more than 80% of snaps since Week 4), and he’s not super elusive (he has five total broken tackles in five years). What he does have is a good matchup and a quarterback who is willing to dump it down. Worked last week in similar circumstances.

Tier 6: Taysom Hill

Taysom Hill - He’s gotten you this far cruising on touchdowns. Might as well go for it one last time.

Tier 7: Major Flaws

Dawson Knox - Let’s be real here - we are chasing touchdowns with this play. The Patriots with Kyle Dugger are pretty good at handling the tight end - especially Knox who they literally blanked earlier this year.
Daniel Bellinger - Not a great matchup and the Giants are one of the few teams that don’t have much to play for (though Daboll said they aren’t resting guys). The one thing going for him is he plays virtually the whole game and their weapons aren’t amazing.
Juwan Johnson - Juwan Johnson is a bit of an enigma. He has never played more than 80% of the snaps in a game and the last few he’s coasted closer to 50%. This week in a tough matchup he came out and caught five of seven targets and played 67% (which isn’t great but could be worse). What he does have is a nose for the endzone which makes him a dart throw pretty much any week.
Gerald Everett - Since the return of Keenan Allen and Mike Williams, Everett has been a fairly low upside option. We have to remember that Keenan Allen leads this team in targets making Everett fourth at best.
Chig Okonkwo - The athleticism is what excites us. The matchup is what keeps him out of the bottom tier. The quarterback situation is rough but at least it’s not Malik Willis again.
Hayden Hurst - Another guy who is not even a top three pass catcher on his own team. Boring. But he’s technically startable.

Tier 8: These Guys Are Virtually Unstartable

Weekly Rankings

Follow Andrew Cooper on Twitter @CoopAFiasco to see the weekly rankings once they are available later this week!

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