Fantasy Football Week 13 Tight End Preview: Both Saints tight ends as sneaky starters, DFS, more

As of Tuesday evening, it looks as if the Saints are going to go marching in to the Superdome next Sunday without at least two of their top three wide receivers. Michael Thomas is already on injured reserve and Rashid Shaheed is looking doubtful with a quad injury. Chris Olave is still in the concussion protocol, but looks to be moving the right direction. If the names A.T. Perry and Keith Kirkwood don't get you excited, then you should expect a large role for the tight ends. 

All of those injuries are enough for me to project Juwan Johnson and Taysom Hill both as top-12 tight ends. Hill has been there many times this season, but I expect the increased targets to mean a higher floor than he's typically had. Johnson was a breakout tight end candidate coming into the year before injuries derailed that hype train. 

I have Johnson projected for seven targets in Week 13 and that's been more than enough. In the six career games he's seen at least six targets he's averaged 12.3 PPR FPPG and he's never scored fewer than eight Fantasy points. He's a superb bye week replacement as long as the injury picture doesn't change by Sunday.

• Heath's Week 13 Previews: QB | RB | WR | TE

You can find more in my weekly projections over at SportsLine. Now here is the rest of the Week 13 TE Preview:

Week 13 TE Preview

The following players are not being projected to play Week 13 at this time. Here's what it means:

• 2.08 -- Trey McBride is averaging 2.08 yards per route run, which ranks third at tight end behind only Travis Kelce and George Kittle.
• 120 -- Pat Freiermuth's 120 yards in Week 12 were a career high. No one is happier about the new offense than him.
• 7 -- Juwan Johnson saw a season-high seven targets in Week 12. He may lead the team in targets with all the wide receiver injuries.
• 16 -- The Texans and Broncos are the only two teams allowing more than 16 PPR Fantasy points to tight ends. They're playing each other this week.
• 3.3 -- The Browns see a league-low 3.3 tight end targets per game. Do not expect an encore from Tyler Higbee.

My full set of Week 13 Fantasy Football projections for every position are now available on SportsLine. Find out which of my favorite plays are projected to score higher than consensus rankings and which don't live up to their draft hype, at least in Week 13. Projected stats for all starting quarterbacks are available at Sportsline.