Whether you are looking to a tight end sleeper in fantasy football for week five due to necessity (bye week or injury) or strategy (you recognize that tight ends are interchangeable), we are here to help. As the weeks progress, you may need some help just for one week to help float you past byes or patch over your roster for injuries. Here are three sleeper wide receivers (owned in 40% of leagues or fewer for two, and in fewer than 10% for the third, for you deep divers). All figures are based on Yahoo! ownership percentages as of Saturday afternoon.[embedit snippet=”jeff-ads”]
Cameron Brate at Carolina (37% owned)
With the jettisoning of ASJ, the preseason rumblings surrounding Brate suddenly made sense. The biggest issue with Brate was that he would miss out on snaps and opportunity to the now-Jet, Seferian-Jenkins was the forerunner to eat up the abnormal amount of targets Jameis Winston heaves towards tight ends. In the last two games, Brate has emerged as a target monster, getting eighteen targets that he caught for 113 yards and two scores. He takes on a Carolina team that is traditionally strong on defense, but is the fourth-worst team at yielding tight end scores. Since holding Virgil Green in check week one, they have allowed four different tight ends a touchdown and over 40 yards to them three times. That’s three tight ends in three weeks that have gotten past the ten point threshold, which is good enough for a top ten week at the tight end position.
Hunter Henry at Oakland (31% owned)
With Antonio Gates looking increasingly unlikely that he will be available for a significant number of snaps Sunday as the Chargers take on the Raiders, Hunter Henry is in line to continue to get his six targets per week that he has averaged since getting a bigger role. In the two weeks he has gotten a bigger role, he has had 72 yards and 61 yards & a touchdown. He is seemingly going to be the exception to the rule that rookie tight ends don’t do anything in fantasy football. His opponent, Oakland, is a middling opponent against tight ends, mostly because there has only been one touchdown scored against them. They’ve also only taken on one team, Atlanta, who had the tight end as a significant part of their game plan. Jacob Tamme had eight targets, and turned this into 5/75/1. No other tight end received more than five targets.
Will Tye at Green Bay (2% owned)
A preseason sleeper tight end that lost snaps to Donnell this year, Will Tye was a top-ten tight end option down the stretch when Eli opened up the offense to him and he ceased ceding snaps to Donnell. Now, he will be without Donnell as he has been ruled out for their tilt Sunday. Down the stretch last year, he was a TE1 and now he is without Donnell. The offense has changed, but the TE position in New York still focuses on the TE, with seven targets a game going towards the position. All those targets will go Donnell’s way. Green Bay gives up the fifth-most points to tight ends, giving up two touchdowns in the three games they have played and they’ve allowed an average of 75 receiving yards to touchdowns. Pick your poison the odds Tye gets at least seven fantasy points this weekend, because the numbers say he will.