As we mentioned last week, there really weren’t any great “elite” options with a tough matchup for Travis Kelce and Darren Waller being injured but our top mid tier option, Kyle Pitts, absolutely SMASHED with 163 yards. We also got some juice from Dallas Goedert (TE8) and Ricky Seals-Jones (TE9 at 3X). Cole Kmet at the low price of $3,000 also once again quietly provided us with 3.1X from the bargain bin. Good times for two weeks in a row but it’s on to Week 8!
Top Tier: the safest and most expensive guys available if you want to pay up
Mid Tier: affordable players that offer the best bang for your buck
Value Tier: the bargain bin players that are risky by nature but can have the huge upside in terms of value created
Fades: The guys we feel are the worst value proposition that you should actively avoid
Top Tier
Kyle Pitts - With Kelce playing the night game and Waller/Andrews on bye, there really aren’t a ton of options at the elite level. If you are going to pay up for the safest possible play however, it should likely be Kyle Pitts. After a slow start he now has back to back 100+ yard games including a seven catch, 163 yard performance last week. The Panthers pass defense has been stingy on paper in terms of yards allowed but when you look closer at the matchups. The Jets, Saints, Texans, Giants, and Eagles have not been formidable pass attacks while Dak Prescott threw for four touchdowns vs. them and the Vikings threw for 300+ yards and three. Pitts takes up 12.6% of your budget on DraftKings but only 10.5% of your budget on Yahoo so much cheaper on Yahoo.
T.J. Hockenson - For options above $5,000 on DK, there’s really only Pitts, Hock, Kittle (OUT), and Gesicki. Mike Gesicki has been a popular option but Matt Milano and the Bill simply are not a great tight end matchup. If you insist on going with someone in this price range that isn’t Pitts it should be TJ Hockenson who has 11 and 9 targets in his last two games. Just keep an eye on the injury status as he’s had a knee injury and now an ankle injury just popped up on the report. He’s fairly evenly priced on both platforms so pick your poison there.
Mid Tier
Dallas Goedert - We were hopeful that Dallas Goedert would see a shift in usage with Zach Ertz gone and the underlying numbers show that to be true. Goedert lined up at WR for 35 snaps which is the most he’s had since week 12 of last year - when Zach Ertz was out. Now he gets a cakewalk matchup against the Detroit Lions in a game where Jalen Hurts is going to be pressed to prove that he can indeed throw the ball. Goedert is about 1% cheaper on Yahoo than DK but its close enough that it doesn’t matter a whole lot.
Tyler Higbee - It is rare that you get a Tyler Higbee recommendation from me so it’s got to be one heck of a spot for me to recommend him. But this week he gets the Houston Texans who are far and away the worst team vs the TE. The next closest teams are the Chargers and Ravens who have faced a combination of Kelce, Waller, Hock, Fant, Schultz, Logan Thomas - none of which the Texans have faced. It’s not necessarily a huge upside play given that Woods and Kupp are still there but he’s one of the safer plays this week.
Value Tier
Dan Arnold - Urban Meyer started this season by essentially deploying James O’Shaughnessy like he was Travis Kelce. O’Shaughnessy’s 32 snaps at WR that week was top five for tight ends and tied with Logan Thomas. When James O got hurt, he used Luke Farrell like that. Then the next games Jacob Hollister. Then he went out of his way to trade for Dan Arnold. The Seahawks aren’t exactly a tough matchup and Arnold should see great deployment so, at his price, he’s not a bad dart throw. He’s evenly priced on both DraftKings and Yahoo.
Jonnu Smith - Like the Higbee pick, you might think this one is out of character for me. Because it is. I like Hunter Henry better in season long and he also has the “revenge game” narrative. But here’s the thing - Bill Belichick doesn’t care about revenge games, he cares about winning. I like Hunter Henry because he’s great at route running and creating for himself vs. man to man coverage. That means he’s still a decent start this week. But Jonnu is much cheaper and he’s the one who actually excels in space and vs. zone coverage. Brandon Staley is one of the most zone heavy coaches in the league who loves hanging back in Cover 1 or Cover 3. Which is exactly what the Jets do and the tweet below is how the game started last week vs. the Jets. Jonnu is actually much cheaper on DraftKings than Yahoo at 5.6% of your budget vs. 7%.
BONUS DART THROW
Ricky Seals-Jones If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. He’s playing that Logan Thomas role and running a ton of routes still. DraftKings got wise to what we were doing and boosted his priced but he’s still only $11 on Yahoo if you play over there. Denver isn’t a great matchup for tight ends but at his price he’s worth a stab.
Fades
Rob Gronkowski - People are going to be tempted to use Gronk after practicing Wednesday, thinking they are getting sneaky value here. And there really is no reason. First off, he’s not even that good of a value of DraftKings or Yahoo. Second, he’s coming back from broken rips and injured organs. There is absolutely no reason for him to play a massive snap share in what should be an easy win. The Bucs have plenty of pass catching options.
CJ Uzomah - Uzomah faces the lowly Jets coming off of a two touchdown performance vs. the Baltimore Ravens - he should be fairly high owned which is reason enough to fade him. But when you really look at CJ Uzomah, he hasn’t actually had 3+ targets in any game outside of the one game that Tee Higgins missed. Here are some other stats where he’s not even within the top 20 tight ends. He’s the biggest boom or bust TE out there and at $3,700 on DK he’s not even cheap. RSJ is too expensive for us on DK at $3,800 and RSJ has 5 end zone targets to only 1 this season for Uzomah (and hasn’t even been starting the whole season).