Week 9 Rest of Season Fantasy Football Tight End Rankings: Ben Watson Proves 'TE Saints' is a Thing

I, literally forgot to post the rest of season TE rankings last week. Sorry to all of you who I had to refer to Week 7's rankings, but the differences were largely inconsequential. It was a weird life week. This week, the shakeup is pretty huge and last week's ranks are where they were actually ranked in my sheets for Week 8's post that never happened where I was cautious on Benjamin Watson, not trusting of Jordan Reed's health, and underestimating the injury to Antonio Gates.

Nothing makes the NFL more fun than fantasy football and few things make fantasy sports more fun than rankings, rankings, and more rankings. WRs are ranked in this post with the ESPN and Yahoo! standard fractional scoring.

Notes:

• There is a special bump for top-10 TEs who have had their byes with nine games remaining to everyone else's eight. For everyone else who has had bye, you should definitely be streaming from week-to-week anyway.
  
  
• Denoting PPR value is mainly for deciding your flex spots where a TE is a legitimate option in your deeper PPR leagues. Otherwise, it is very difficult to justify a TE as a flex. Martellus Bennett or Travis Kelce may be the cut-off spot in 12-team leagues.
  
  
• Be careful with these ranks. The position is a total mess after the #13 spot. Because Jimmy Graham is TE9, making him a legit #1 TE, but near the spot in the rankings where we are likely better off plugging in whomever is playing the Raiders. After Cameron or Jason Witten, we may be better off streaming whomever is playing the Giants, Lions, or 49ers, maybe the Steelers, Seahawks, Chargers, Titans, or Jaguars.
  
  
• Before Gates shows he is healthy, I fear re-injury too much. Once he shows he is healthy with a strong game, he returns to the top-3. TE6 through TE10 is a real jumble, so the gap between him and Benjamin Watson right now, despite this fear, is almost immeasurable.
  
  
• If Graham as TE9 seems blasphemous, I thought I was being charitable, considering no one ever throws him the ball. The volume goes up and then it disappears. The eight ahead of him and a healthy Gates are more dependable.
  
  
• Austin Seferian-Jenkins was not ranked because his status is too unclear. He is probably worth rostering in 12-team leagues again to speculate. If he returns for Week 9, his upside alone puts him in the top-12, but he is very risky from week-to-week.
  
  
• As we go down the rankings, there is an increase in the weight of strength of schedule. And the better matchups sooner than later because there is sell-high value to come. These are not weekly rankings, but the idea of these rankings is to measure whom we should be owning now over whom.
  
  
• Do your research and use rankings cautiously, as they are always a work-in-progress. Rankings are a bad tools to tell us what to do. They are conversation starters, tier setters, value mirrors, and a combination of the scientific explanations of what has happened with the art of predicting what will happen. Feel free to supply contrary evidence to me on Twitter at @AlexSontySBN or in the comments. They will help me help you.