Who Should I Start? Darren Waller or Tyler Conklin

Thursday, December 18, 11:46 AM

Despite having to deal with a new quarterback in Week 16, Miami Dolphins tight end Darren Waller (knee, rest) is expected to maintain a critical role in the team's passing game when they line up with the Cincinnati Bengals at home. The 33-year-old is fresh off his best outing of the campaign, hauling in a season-high seven passes and two more touchdowns, giving him six scores in seven appearances. Unfortunately for Waller, any rapport he'd built up with quarterback Tua Tagovailoa won't translate when rookie signal-caller Quinn Ewers takes the field for his first NFL start. With the current state of Miami's offense, there's little reason to believe the veteran's role would shrink, although it's fair to expect diminished production. Favorably, Cincinnati's defense has allowed the most fantasy points per game to TEs (22.66), leaving Waller as a back-end TE1 for the outing.

Friday, March 21, 10:24 PM

Former New York Jets tight end Tyler Conklin reached an agreement on an undisclosed one-year deal on Friday with the Los Angeles Chargers, according to his agent, Mike McCartney. Conklin heads to the AFC West after spending the last three years with the Jets, where he had 170 catches on 246 targets for 1,622 yards and seven touchdowns in 50 games (43 starts). While the 29-year-old did have a career-high four touchdowns in 16 games (15 starts) last year, he had just 51 catches and 449 yards (his lowest total since 2020) on 72 targets. The former fifth-round selection (157th overall) by the Minnesota Vikings in 2018 out of Central Michigan has the opportunity to be the Chargers' top pass-catching tight end in 2025, but he'll also be sharing playing time with Will Dissly. Dissly had a very similar 50-481-2 line to Conklin a year ago in L.A. Expect Conklin to be a touchdown-dependent TE2 in fantasy in his new home.