2013 Fantasy Football Positional Rankings: Tight End

The 2013 Fantasy Football Season is nearly here. But before you can trash talk your friends, scour the waiver wire for the next fantasy gem, and win a championship, you have to get prepared for the Draft. Bik Nizzar will get you ready for the upcoming fantasy season as The Extra Period continues its Fantasy Football Positional Rankings.

The final stop on our positions rankings ends at Tight End. Yes I’m aware that there are still defences and kickers that we haven’t got to, but as I explained in the Draft Guide, we’re saving those picks for the ends of the draft. So tomorrow when you see my overall ranks, you’ll notice that D/ST and Kickers rank significantly lower than the rest of the league. I'm not gonna waste a post on Kickers and D so the overall ranks will be tomorrow. Depend on how you want to build your roster you can attack Tight End early around the 3^rd round... or just not at all. I think once you get past Graham and Gronk, you might as well just wait on drafting a TE. More details about some players who could regress or progress next week . Below the ranks are some details for the current spots in their tiers. Without further adieu the 2013 Fantasy Football TE Ranks:

Updated July 25^th

1	Jimmy Graham	16	Coby Fleener
2	Rob Gronkowski	17	Brandon Myers
3	Jason Witten	18	Dustin Keller
4	Tony Gonzalez	19	Dwayne Allen
5	Vernon Davis	20	Jermaine Gresham
6	Dennis Pitta	21	Tyler Eifert
7	Brandon Pettigrew	22	Jacob Tamme
8	Kyle Rudolph	23	Heath Miller
9	Jermichael Finley	24	Brent Celek
10	Owen Daniels	25	Zach Miller
11	Martellus Bennett	26	Ed Dickson
12	Jared Cook	27	Rob Housler
13	Antonio Gates	28	Virgil Green
14	Greg Olsen	29	Mercedes Lewis
15	Fred Davis	30	Zach Ertz

It’s thin once you get past the top few so the tiers will be short. I’m not in love with a lot of the TE’s after Gronk as I explained in the Draft Guide. You can refer to that to see what the game plan for TE’s  are for your draft strategy. There are some interesting upside players in “The Rest” group that I’ll briefly touch on here but more so next week in “Progression/Regression”.

Graham-Gronk:

I’ve got Graham ahead of Gronk FOR NOW because of Gronk’s injury issues. Even if Gronk is healthy I suspect Graham will hold onto the top spot, but the gap difference in their overall ranks will shrink. Graham will hang onto the top spot because while he dealt with a wrist injury last year (the cause for his league leading drop total), not only should he return healthy but the Saints see the return of their real head coach Sean Payton this year. Gronk sits at #2 because the injuries are too much of a worry. Not just if he’ll come back from his current injuries, but if he’ll sustain more during the year. However he’s so potent that around Round 5 he might be worth the flier at that stage.

Witten - Gonzalez:

These 2 separate themselves from the rest of the pack juuuust enough to make me consider drafting them before I have all my RB’s and WR. Just from the volume of consistency by these 2 puts them ahead of the herd. Witten started the year slow but rounded into form. The TD’s might not be there for him but he did get double digit Targets in the Red-Zone so 3 should be a baseline for Witten. I’ll have more on Gonzo next week, and while I still consider him draftable, I’m down on him a little.

The Rest:

From this point on you can really throw a dart and hope the 1 you hit, goes off that week. Both Davises (Davisians? Davisites?), Finley, Rudolph, Fleener, Cook all have upside but you might find weeks where they have 1 fantasy point followed by 15 the next. You just really don’t know and I wouldn’t want to hang onto any of them for too long clogging up my roster if they don’t perform.

The Overall ranks coming tomorrow will reflect how I feel on TE’s in general, so come back to see the ranks. I will try to identify some breakthrough candidates in “Progression/Regression” next week.

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