Fantasy Football Week 4 tight end rankings: Updated for Sunday morning injuries, inactives

The long-awaited Year of the Tight End has yet to materialize.

By Chris Towers

Oct 3, 2021 at 11:23 am ET • 4 min read

When it comes to ranking tight ends for Fantasy football, the question is, "Who can I actually trust?" And the list of players you can trust is usually alarmingly short. That remains the case in Week 4.

For instance: can you really trust Noah Fant and Kyle Pitts? I love the potential both bring to the table, and I'm especially confident in Pitts eventually being a dominant force -- hopefully sooner than later. But right now, neither has produced like a tight end you can trust, and with both coming off three-target games, I'm not sure you can trust them despite their talent.

OK, so who can you trust? I would say everyone through TE7 in the rankings -- Logan Thomas -- I'm pretty confident in, and I think Fant, Pitts, and Tyler Higbee probably all need to be started despite my concerns. After that? Cross your fingers and hope.

Here are my tight end rankings for Week 4 along with some thoughts on some of the more interesting players:

Week 4 TE Rankings

Travis Kelce
Darren Waller -- Waller's production and usage have slipped over the past two weeks with the Raiders getting other receivers involved. Waller is still the unquestioned No. 1 option in this offense, but Derek Carr will need to lean on him more -- and I think he will.
George Kittle -- It sure was nice to see a vintage Kittle performance in Week 3, and I'm hoping we'll see more of that moving forward. I'm less convinced he'll lead the team in targets by a large margin, but I am expecting him to be right there are at the top of the heap nearly every week.
T.J. Hockenson -- Alright, well maybe it was too early to coronate Hockenson as an elite Fantasy tight end. Look, bad games happen against tough matchups, but it's worth noting that, even on a team with very little around him, Hockenson only has a 17% target share through three games. Now, that was 21.5% before Week 3, so don't overreact too much to the surface number, but even 21.5% is a bit below what we've come to expect from the Kelce/Waller/Kittle tier. I still think Hockenson is probably a bit below that group.
Mark Andrews -- Hope you bought low on Andrews when you had the chance. He's been running more routes than ever before so far this season, and it was only a matter of time until it turned into a big game.
Logan Thomas -- Thomas really hasn't had a breakout game yet -- his high so far is just 45 yards on five catches. He's still playing every single snap for Washington, which means he's a must-start TE, but you'd like to see some more upside.
Noah Fant -- Fant has been one of the more disappointing players at the tight end position, with just 48 yards over the last two games since Jerry Jeudy went down with an injury. He's still getting a healthy target share, and it could just be a matter of time until he breaks off a long touchdown and makes his numbers look a lot better. But Fant isn't yet having the breakout I hoped for.
Kyle Pitts -- Like Calvin Ridley, Pitts' struggles seem to be a lot more about Matt Ryan and the offense's issues more generally than anything Pitts is doing wrong. But the facts are, he's been under whelming so far. You're still starting him, because tight end is still a disaster, but Pitts feels like less of a sure thing than we hoped at this point.
Tyler Higbee -- Higbee is playing well, but he hasn't exactly been a superstar so far. That sounds about right. He's a low-end No. 1 TE, but one you should be starting every week.
Dalton Schultz
Dallas Goedert
Tyler Conklin -- After a couple of non-descript games, Conklin found the end zone in Week 3 for a breakout. He's still in touchdown-or-bust territory, but he's one of the more interesting ones in his role in this passing game. Conklin is expected to play despite some early-week injury concerns.
Evan Engram -- With Sterling Shepard likely out, I have Engram ranked higher than I feel comfortable. Giants fans won't be happy.
Jared Cook
Robert Tonyan
Mike Gesicki -- Gesicki's 10-catch performance in Week 3 was impressive, but you don't want to take too much from it, I don't think: He had just three targets through the first three quarters of the game. He's still a fringe Fantasy option.
Austin Hooper
O.J. Howard
Dawson Knox
Jonnu Smith -- I had high expectations for the Patriots tight ends coming into the season, but Smith and Hunter Henry have just 29 targets between them through three games, with 183 yards and no touchdowns. They are touchdown-or-bust options on a bad offense right now. Meh.
Hunter Henry
Blake Jarwin
Will Dissly
Zach Ertz
Cole Kmet
Juwan Johnson
Adam Trautman
Eric Ebron
Tommy Tremble -- It sounds like Tremble's development played a role in the team's decision to give up Dan Arnold in a trade to the Jaguars on Monday, but I need to see more before I view him as a starting-caliber option.
Cameron Brate