Playoff fantasy football TE rankings: Travis Kelce tops the list

The 2023 fantasy football season doesn't need to be over quite yet with the rising popularity of playoff leagues. This unique format is mostly similar to traditional season-long leagues, using the same scoring settings and roster formats, but with a major twist that drastically affects draft strategy. As teams are eliminated from the NFL Playoffs, all of their player become unavailable in fantasy football.

This makes it essential for managers to target certain palyers on draft day that play on teams that they believe can make a deep postseason run. Drafting too many players on teams that eventually get eliminated early, such as in the Wild Card round, can be detrimental to the pursuit of a fantasy football championship. These leagues are most often won by rosters with the most key players that survive the most playoff rounds.

For each of the four rounds of the playoffs, the available player pool shrinks as the field of teams is narrowed down to just two for the Super Bowl. This is crucial for positions that lack depth, including tight ends. Managers must balance their usual projections for a players production with their probability of making it into the deeper rounds of the playoffs to truly analyze their fantasy outlook.

Travis Kelce tops the playoff fantasy football tight end rankings when taking all factors into consideration. He is already one of the most productive players in the position and the Kansas City Chiefs have a solid chance at making deep playoff run.

George Kittle comes in just behind him, and while he can arguably be ranked at the top of the list, the bye week drops him to number two. The San Francisco 49ers won't be playing in the first round, so Kittle gets one less game to use in lineups, unlike Kelce. The same can be said for Isaiah Likely, who has been a late-season breakout tight end, but the Baltimore Ravens also earned the top seed in their conference and a first-round bye.

All of these scenarios were taken into careful consideration for every tight end option during the NFL Playoffs to produce the following positional rankings.

WR rankings for playoff fantasy football

TE rankings

1. Travis Kelce
2. George Kittle
3. Jake Ferguson
4. Dalton Kincaid
5. Isaiah Likely
6. David Njoku
7. Dallas Goedert
8. Sam LaPorta
9. Dawson Knox
10. Cade Otton
11. Dalton Schultz
12. Durham Smythe
13. Tyler Higbee
14. Mark Andrews
15. Pat Freiermuth
16. Tucker Kraft
17. Brock Wright
18. Noah Gray
19. Brevin Jordan
20. Luke Musgrave

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