Training camp and the preseason shouldn't have too much impact on your redraft rankings. They should have even less effect on your Dynasty rankings. That doesn't mean they should have no impact.
The wonderful thing about tight end is it doesn't take all that much to show star potential and it takes even less to be Fantasy relevant. There's perhaps no better example of that than our first riser, Darren Waller.
Waller has caught 18 passes for 178 yards and two touchdowns since entering the NFL in 2015. He'll turn 27 years old in September. But he's won the starting tight end job in Oakland with some spectacular training camp catches and he's won our attention. This is the same job that led Jared Cook to Fantasy greatness last year, but I'm going to have see a little more before I move Waller into starting range in either redraft or Dynasty. For now he's just a speculative add.
Hunter Henry missed all of 2018 due to a torn ACL but it only took a couple of glimpses of him in the preseason for me to believe Henry could be a dominant force at the position in 2019. He has averaged 9.2 yards per target over his career and Philip Rivers has regularly targeted his tight end 120-plus times in a season. Even with the lost year, Henry is one of the youngest starting tight ends in the league and could legitimately be a top-two option in Dynasty by October.
Here is the final preseason update to my Dynasty Tight End Rankings:
Rank | Player | Team | Age |
1 | Travis Kelce | KC | 29 |
2 | George Kittle | SF | 25 |
3 | Zach Ertz | PHI | 28 |
4 | Hunter Henry | LAC | 24 |
5 | O.J. Howard | TB | 24 |
6 | Evan Engram | NYG | 25 |
7 | T.J. Hockenson | DET | 22 |
8 | Noah Fant | DEN | 21 |
9 | Austin Hooper | ATL | 24 |
10 | David Njoku | CLE | 23 |
11 | Mark Andrews | BAL | 24 |
12 | Dallas Goedert | PHI | 24 |
13 | Eric Ebron | IND | 26 |
14 | Chris Herndon IV | NYJ | 23 |
15 | Jordan Reed | WAS | 29 |
16 | Vance McDonald | PIT | 29 |
17 | Jared Cook | NO | 32 |
18 | Irv Smith Jr. | MIN | 21 |
19 | Jace Sternberger | GB | 23 |
20 | Trey Burton | CHI | 27 |
21 | Will Dissly | SEA | 23 |
22 | Ian Thomas | CAR | 23 |
23 | Darren Waller | OAK | 26 |
24 | Kyle Rudolph | MIN | 29 |
25 | Hayden Hurst | BAL | 26 |
26 | Delanie Walker | TEN | 35 |
27 | Jack Doyle | IND | 29 |
28 | Dawson Knox | BUF | 22 |
29 | Mike Gesicki | MIA | 23 |
30 | Tyler Eifert | CIN | 29 |
31 | Jimmy Graham | GB | 32 |
32 | Greg Olsen | CAR | 34 |
33 | Gerald Everett | LAR | 25 |
34 | Josh Oliver | JAC | 22 |
35 | Jonnu Smith | TEN | 24 |
36 | Kahale Warring | HOU | 22 |
37 | Foster Moreau | OAK | 22 |
38 | C.J. Uzomah | CIN | 26 |
39 | Ricky Seals-Jones | ARI | 24 |
40 | Adam Shaheen | CHI | 24 |
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