Fantasy Football Week 6 TE Preview: Have Dawson Knox and Dalton Schultz moved from streamers to must-start?

At the beginning of the year very few people were even drafting Dawson Knox or Dalton Schultz in standard leagues. Knox was in an offense that simply hadn’t employed tight ends, and Schultz was projected to share (or play behind) Blake Jarwin. 

A lot has changed in five weeks.

Schultz has taken advantage of Michael Gallup’s absence to earn a 19% target share for the season. Maybe more importantly, he’s made great use of those targets, scoring three times on 31 targets and averaging a career-best 9.0 yards per target. Without that type of volume, he’s quickly gone from the waiver wire, to the streamers column, and now into my top-five tight ends for Week 6. He’s a must-start at least until Gallup returns, maybe for the rest of the season.

The argument for Knox is a little more complicated. For the time being, he looks more like Robert Tonyan than a legitimate breakout tight end. Knox only has one game with more than five targets and Week 5 was his only game with more than 49 yards. But he’s scored five times in five games, so he’s the No. 3 tight end in Fantasy after five weeks. No one is benching Knox as long as he’s on this streak, but it hardly seems sustainable. 

Ideally, you’d be able to sell high on Knox. I would happily take Kyle Pitts, T.J. Hockenson, or Schultz for him. If you can’t sell him, the only choice is ride it out. After all, Robert Tonyan made it a whole season before his regression kicked in.

Here’s everything else you need to know about tight end in Week 6:

Week 6 TE Preview

The following players are not being projected to play Week 6 at this time. Here’s what it means:

• 18.6% — Robert Tonyan’s crazy touchdown rate from 2020. Dawson Knox’s is two points higher than that.
• 21 — Zach Ertz has 21 targets over the past three weeks. That should go up without Dallas Goedert.
• 24.6% — Darren Waller leads all tight ends with a 24.6% target share. Despite recent struggles, he’s still a top-three tight end rest of season.
• 159 — David Njoku has 159 yards after catch, behind only Travis Kelce and George Kittle.
• 325 — Kyle Pitts’ 325 air yards are fourth amongst tight ends behind Waller, Kelce, and Mark Andrews.

So who should you start and sit this week? And which surprising quarterback could lead you to victory? Visit SportsLine now to get Week 6 rankings for every position, plus see which QB is going to come out of nowhere to crack the top 10, all from the model that has out-performed experts big-time.