Week 4 Tight End Waiver Wire Pickups and Adds

September 25, 2018

Tight ends to add or target off the waiver wire for Week 4 of the 2018 fantasy football season. Craig Rondinone lists the TE pickups you should be looking to add to your roster.

If you are a Jordan Reed owner, you probably need a tight end this week. Washington is one of the first two teams (along with Carolina) on bye this season, so the Reed owners out there are going to have to scour their league’s waiver wire this week for a replacement if they chose not to draft a backup tight end.

The waiver wire pickings are slimmer at tight end than they were a couple weeks ago, but there are still some guys who can serve as one-week stopgaps if you need a body, and a couple with the potential to be long-range problem solvers if the tight end position on your fantasy team is in as much disarray as the Oakland Raiders.

Without further adieu, here are the best tight ends to pick up heading into Week 4. Good luck RotoBallers!

TE Waiver Wire Options for Week 4

Mark Andrews, Baltimore Ravens - 14% owned

The revolving door at tight end for Baltimore the past couple seasons has made fantasy owners dizzy. Maxx Williams, Benjamin Watson, Crockett Gillmore and Dennis Pitta have all done disservices to fantasy players in one way or another. So it is refreshing to have Andrews, a third-round rookie from Oklahoma, come in and get off to a decent start and show promise for the future.

Andrews is a big-bodied tight end that is a matchup nightmare in the red zone if he is one-on-one with a smallish defensive back. With 107 yards and a touchdown over his first three games, and with his next game on the horizon against a Pittsburgh Steelers team that could not stay in Travis Kelce’s zip code when Kansas City torched them in Week 2, Andrews is an intriguing option for one week and possibly the whole season.

Ricky Seals-Jones, Arizona Cardinals - 30% owned

Seals-Jones had been Seals-subpar (seven catches for 36 yards) during the first two weeks when quarterback Sam Bradford could not hit the broad side of a continent with his passes. Seals-Jones finally got on the scoreboard this past Sunday when he turned his lone reception into a 35-yard touchdown. The murky future for Seals-Jones could get brighter if Bradford is bumped for rookie Josh Rosen and Rosen develops chemistry with his starting tight end. Seals-Jones could be the No. 2 option in Arizona’s lackluster passing attack because of the lack of depth in the Cardinals receiving corps, so make Seals-Jones a speculative pick and you could be handsomely rewarded.

Rhett Ellison, New York Giants - 0% owned

Ellison is a block-first tight end who was only drafted in NFC East-only fantasy leagues before the season. With Evan Engram going down with a possibly semi-serious knee injury, though, Ellison is the next man up for the Giants at the tight end spot. He looked good against the Houston Texans, catching three Eli Manning passes for 39 yards and a touchdown, so if Engram is out for multiple weeks it could mean a big bump in fantasy value for Ellison. If you are an Engram owner and worried about what his MRI is going to say, pick up Ellison and he can be a safety valve of sorts for your fantasy squad – not to mention Manning.

Other Options

Tyler Higbee, Los Angeles Rams - 6% owned

Rams head honcho and offensive mastermind Sean McVay has been about as interested in getting his tight ends involved in the offense as President Trump has been interested in making amends with Hilary Clinton. That said, Higbee had two receptions for 35 yards this past week and a touchdown reception the week before, so this could be foreshadowing a larger role for him in the offense down the line.

Antonio Gates, San Diego Chargers - 18% owned

The 38-year-old Gates looked like he was 100 years old during the first two games while getting back in football shape after missing training camp, yet he must have taken a swig from the Fountain of Youth before Week 3 as he had three receptions for 45 yards, including a 27-yard catch. If Gates returns to his Hall of Fame form and starts getting targeting in the red zone by battery mate Philip Rivers, he could turn into a sneaky fantasy find.

More Waiver Wire Adds and Pickups