Fantasy Football Week 5 Tight End Rankings: Can you trust Jake Ferguson, Tyler Higbee ahead of Dallas Goedert?

Here's how the TE position shakes out for Week 5

By Chris Towers

Oct 8, 2023 at 8:47 am ET • 2 min read

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Unlike at some of the other positions in Week 5, tight end isn't actually being hit all that hard by the first round of bye weeks. Gerald Everett and David Njoku came into the season with the expectation that they would be starting-caliber options for Fantasy, but after Week 4, both sit outside of the top-15 in Fantasy points per game. Which is to say, you could probably drop both of them this week without worrying too much about losing out on them if you wanted to add them again next week.

The problem is, there aren't exactly a ton of viable tight ends out there worth picking up on waivers. If you played in one of the 42% of CBS Fantasy leagues where Cole Kmet is available, he was worth starting for Thursday's game; if you missed out on him, the options were pretty limited otherwise.

Neither are Jake Ferguson or Tyler Higbee, who are actually rostered in slightly more leagues than Kmet, though all three were in my top-13 for Week 5. To be sure, that's more about that lack of viable options than it is confidence in any of them. But they are all important parts of their offense who could be good for a six-catch game in any given week; the downside, of course, is that they might all catch one pass next week.

This is all a roundabout way of saying that I'm probably not sitting Dallas Goedert at this point. Unless I picked up Sam LaPorta -- a top-four TE for Week 5 and maybe a top-five guy the rest of the season -- there just isn't anyone I feel has both a higher floor and comparable ceiling as Goedert. He's been a model of efficiency over the previous two seasons, but has really struggled so far; I'm betting he gets back on track.

I can't say the same for Kyle Pitts, who has been slowed by his recovery from last year's knee injury and held back by very poor QB play and hasn't even been the most productive tight end on his own team. Am I starting Jonnu Smith ahead of him? No, not yet. However, while I still think there aren't more than a handful of tight ends who are more talented than Pitts, at this point, I can't keep banging my head against the wall and ranking him as a top-12 tight end. I'm actively looking for alternatives in the leagues where I have Pitts until he shows us something.

Here are my rankings for Week 5 at the tight end position: