Fantasy football rankings, Week 16: Tight ends

Streaming your tight ends really wasn't the best strategy this year, as it turns out.

It's time for an unscientific study. I'm in seven leagues this year. I went through the rosters of the 14 championship contenders to see how many of them got away with a shaky tight end on their team.

"Shaky" is, of course, a ridiculously subjective term. Is Jordan Reed "shaky," or is he just bad? Is Julius Thomas "shaky," or are we forgiving his injury struggles? I'll be the first to tell you my list could be picked apart. But in the end, those 14 rosters employed eight tight ends. Of those, six are in our Week 16 top 10, and the other two have spent significant time there.

I did the same with quarterbacks, just out of curiosity. The same 14 rosters employ 10 quarterbacks. The bigger difference is, though, the tight ends are guys who are all prominent to one level or another, while the quarterbacks have a much wider range.

The following chart shows the players in question, with the number of rosters they appear on (if plural) in parentheses:

Quarterbacks	Tight ends
Drew Brees (2) Jay Cutler (2) Ben Roethlisberger (2) Mark Sanchez (2) Tom Brady Andrew Luck Kyle Orton Aaron Rodgers Tony Romo Matthew Stafford	Rob Gronkowski (5) Larry Donnell (2) Jimmy Graham (2) Martellus Bennett Coby Fleener Travis Kelce Julius Thomas Delanie Walker

(Hilarious that neither Peyton Manning nor Greg Olsen popped up anywhere.)

The moral of this little story (such as it is; as I said, this is woefully unscientific): You could get by this season with a dodgy quarterback if you streamed at the right time. The bulk positions - running back and wide receiver - by their nature, allow for streaming. But this year, streaming tight ends? It just wasn't viable.

With the exception of the guy with Fleener (he started with Dennis Pitta), every championship contender in every league I'm in found a relevant tight end and made it work. The guys who are adding and dropping Mychal Rivera, Owen Daniels and Tim Wright on a week-to-week basis fell by the wayside some time ago.

It's tough to say whether this will hold true going into 2015. But conventional wisdom coming into this season said that you drafted one of Graham, Gronkowski or Thomas, or you waited deep into the draft, because you could get just about anyone. From what has happened this season, that might not have been correct. So you might need to take special care to draft your tight end next season. (This is also one heck of an argument in favor of Gronkowski as a 2015 first-rounder.)

Now, on to the Week 16 rankings:

Tight end rankings, Week 16

(DK: Daniel Kelley; DC: Dan Ciarrocchi; JD: John Daigle; SK: Scott Kaliska)

Rank	Consensus	Team	Opponent	DK	DC	JD	SK
1	Rob Gronkowski	NE	@NYJ	1	1	1	1
2	Jimmy Graham	NO	ATL	3	2	2	2
3	Greg Olsen	CAR	CLE	2	4	3	3
4	Martellus Bennett	CHI	DET	5	3	5	4
5	Delanie Walker	TEN	@JAC	4	5	6	8
6	Travis Kelce	KC	@PIT	8	6	4	7
7	Julius Thomas	DEN	@CIN	6	7	7	5
8	Dwayne Allen	IND	@DAL	7	8	8	9
9	Jason Witten	DAL	IND	9	9	9	10
10	Antonio Gates	SD	@SF	10	11	11	6
11	Jordan Reed	WAS	PHI	15	10	16	11
12	Coby Fleener	IND	@DAL	13	18	10	12
13	Mychal Rivera	OAK	BUF	16	13	13	13
14	Owen Daniels	BAL	@HOU	14	12	14	20
15	Heath Miller	PIT	KC	12	17	18	17
16	Charles Clay	MIA	MIN	11	20	17	18
17	Jared Cook	STL	NYG	23	14	15	15
18	Kyle Rudolph	MIN	@MIA	17	19	12	19
19	Jordan Cameron	CLE	@CAR	22	15	19	16
20	Larry Donnell	NYG	@STL	18	21	21	14
21	Zach Ertz	PHI	@WAS	20	16	24	21
22	Scott Chandler	BUF	@OAK	19	23	23	23
23	Eric Ebron	DET	@CHI	24	24	20	22
24	Andrew Quarless	GB	@TB	21	--	22	24
25	Brent Celek	PHI	@WAS	--	22	--	25
--	Tim Wright	NE	@NYJ	25	--	--	--
--	Marcedes Lewis	JAC	TEN	--	25	--	--
--	Josh Hill	NO	ATL	--	--	25	--

Source SBNation.com - All Posts http://ift.tt/1z3zSrx