Fantasy football Week 3 TE preview: Starts, sits, waiver wire, DFS more

We told you tight end was deep this year, and so far it has been, just not necessarily in the way we imagined. Twelve tight ends are averaging at least 11 PPR Fantasy points per game. That’s awesome. Unfortunately, about half of them were not drafted to be Fantasy starters in August. What that means, obviously, is that some of the guys we did draft to be starters now look like busts. None are bigger busts after two weeks than Colston Loveland and Kyle Pitts.

Pitts is the easiest to make excuses for, so we will start with him. Tua Tagovailoa and Michael Penix both missed the first two weeks of the season. Cooper Rush and Jack Strand combined for 288 passing yards and one touchdown in those two games. Even if Pitts had a 30% share of the receiving yards, he would be disappointing. Instead, Bijan Robinson saw more than half of the targets in Week 1, and Rush gave the ball up to the defense repeatedly in Week 2 before Strand came in and threw a pick-six on his first NFL pass. Disaster. Pitts is both the easiest to explain and the easiest to have hope for. Penix is expected back this week. So while I don’t rank Pitts as a starter, I am 100% holding him to see what this offense looks like with an NFL-caliber quarterback.

Pitts has scored 2.5 Fantasy points this season. Incredibly, Loveland has been worse. He has one catch for three yards. And now, like Pitts the first two weeks of the season, it looks like Loveland will be playing with his third-string quarterback in Week 3…against the Philadelphia Eagles. Loveland doesn’t even project as a top 20 tight end for me this week, but I also would not consider dropping him. He’s still running a route on 79.7% of the Bears’ pass attempts, and the tape shows he’s still getting open. He’s still a remarkably talented and very young tight end. You should add one of the many waiver wire options below and start them over Loveland, but you should not drop him.

QB | RB | WR |TE

Here’s everything else you need to know about tight end in Week 2:

Week 2 TE Preview

• 71 — Travis Kelce has back-to-back games with at least 71 receiving yards. He had three games with that many yards in all of 2025.
• 4.69 — Dalton Kincaid led all tight ends with 2.83 yards per route run last year. He’s averaging 4.69 YPRR through two weeks in 2026.
• 4 — Sam LaPorta has four red zone targets in two games. Trey McBride is the only other tight end with more than three.
• 28% — Dalton Schultz had a 28% target share in Week 2 without Nico Collins. Schultz is a must-start tight end if Collins is out again.
• 29.5% — Isaiah Likely has nearly a 30% target share, second only to McBride at tight end.
• 34 — Tyler Warren has 34 receiving yards in two weeks. He is currently the most touchdown-dependent TE1 in Fantasy Football.
• 17% — Harold Fannin has a 17% target per route run rate. Last year it was 24.7%.

My full set of Week 3 Fantasy football projections for every position is now available here. Find out which of my favorite plays are projected to score higher than consensus rankings and which don’t live up to their draft hype, at least in Week 3. Projected stats for all starting tight ends are updated throughout the week, so check back before you set your lineup for the latest information.