2021 Fantasy Football Sleeper Tight Ends Week 11: The Good DArnold

We’re through ten weeks of the fantasy football season, meaning that we have just four weeks left in the fantasy football regular season. If you’re reading this, then congratulations on making it this far with something to worry about! Also, sorry about your roster struggles. This week, we have three sleeper tight ends for your perusal. To make the list of sleeper tight ends, a player must be available in at least 50% of leagues. For deeper leagues, we provide one player available in at least 90% of leagues. Now, onto the week eleven fantasy football sleeper tight ends (had to get one more SEO hit in there, sorry).

Dan Arnold versus San Francisco (36% rostered)

The unstoppable force meets the unmovable object when the 49ers’ tight end defense goes up against the Dan Arnold buzz saw. This isn’t facetiousness, either. The 49ers, for all their defensive faults this season, have mostly locked up tight ends. T.J. Hockenson ended up with 97 yards on 11 targets (mostly in garbage time) in week one, but since then, it’s been a barren wasteland. Touchdowns from Mo Alie-Cox, Tyler Higbee, and Jesse James boosted their fantasy points against, but they haven’t had a tight end top 40 yards against them since that Hockenson garbage time output in week one.

But! Dan Arnold is the #1 receiver in Jacksonville, notching 8, 5, 10, 7, and 7 targets in the five games since the Jaguars lost DJ Chark on Thursday Night Football in week four (Arnold’s first game with the Jags). He has turned in at least four catches for 60 yards in three-straight games, notching 17 catches in the last three contests. He is yet to score a touchdown this season, but that could change. Nevertheless, he’s getting what you need: targets (Mike Gesicki look away).

C.J. Uzomah at Los Vegas (21% rostered)

Uzomah had a bye week last week after a tough matchup against the Browns, but he had five touchdowns in his five games prior to that point, notching scores against Baltimore, Detroit and Jacksonville. Those three teams have something in common: they cannot stop tight ends to save their life.

Luckily for Uzomah, he gets a Raiders team this week that also cannot stop a tight end to save their life. They allow the second-most fantasy points to tight ends, with three tight ends in the last two games notching a touchdown or 100 yards against them. On the season, they’ve given up six very good games to tight ends (greater than 11 points). They even let Evan Engram and Noah Gray look halfway competent against them. You can safely go back to Uzomah this week.

Adam Trautman at Philadelphia (6% rostered)

Don’t look now, but Trautman has at least 6 targets in three straight games, going 4/47 and 5/32 in each of the last two weeks. That smells to me like a team that has decided to get the ball to their best tight end with Trevor Siemian under center. With Siemian, Trautman has 13 targets, 9 catches, and 79 yards in the last two games. That gives us just about our magical 4/40 line we look for from tight ends to give us a baseline goal to smash in with a touchdown.

That should happen this week against the hapless Eagles defense. Philly gives up the most fantasy points to tight ends. They didn’t give up a touchdown last week, but both Albert Okwuegbunam and Noah Fant topped eight fantasy points. Prior to that, they allowed eight tight end touchdowns in the seven preceding games. They aren’t good against tight ends, and Adam Trautman’s target volume should find him as the recipient of their bad play this week.