This part of the season is a double-sided coin. On one hand, playoff football is amazing and the matchups get better and better as the teams dwindle down. There are no two-score favorites this week and one team isn’t even the favorite despite having home-field advantage. The stakes couldn’t be higher, which inherently is fun.
On the flip side, there are a lot fewer options for us fantasy gamers. Only four games this week leaves us eight teams. But that doesn’t mean we can’t make the best of it and make some money. So let’s get into it and cash out some lineups before this season wraps!
NOTE: Usually we do “top tier”, “mid tier”, “low tier”, “fades” but with such limited slates we are going to give a high end, low end, and a dart throw for each slate.
Saturday
High End: George Kittle
At the risk of being too obvious, there really aren’t many great options for the Saturday slate. CJ Uzomah is the contrarian play but he’s honestly not a big enough discount from Kittle given how low his ceiling is. Not to mention, Uzomah gets the Titans defense who are one of the best in the league vs. the tight end (sixth best per DraftKings scoring). Regardless of the platform you play on, if your plan is to pay up for the safest and best tight end on the slate, it’s Kittle.
Low End: Josiah Deguara
Once we boiled down the numbers, this pick also became a fairly obvious one. Uzomah is going to be a fairly popular option for folks not using Kittle. But the reality here is that Uzomah isn’t doing a whole lot that Deguara isn’t capable of. Uzomah has gotten decent targets his last few games but those came against the Chargers (worst TE defense), Ravens (third-worst TE defense) and Chiefs. The last time he played a good tight end defense was the Bengals where he had 18 yards. I’d much rather go with the curveball and save a couple bucks here than go with the play everyone will be on.
Dart Throw: Tyler Davis
This is a play that almost no one will be on, which makes him an interesting dart throw. He’s the bare minimum $2,500 on DraftKings but, when you look at the last three games for all of these guys, Davis has actually run more routes (36) than guys priced above him in the $3,000 range like Anthony Firkser (32) and Geoff Swaim (28). In fact, he’s run more routes in those three games than Drew Sample has in his last four games (30). Once you get down to this bare minimum price range, all you are looking for is a random target that could be a touchdown. Davis is at least running routes and he’s been targeted in each of the last two games - so he fits that bill. Just don’t expect a monster game.
Sunday
High End: Travis Kelce
There are a lot more options on this slate than the other one, which typically would find us pivoting to a more exciting option. But they really didn’t price Kelce high enough this week to deter us from using him. Kelce is $6,500 and you don’t get that steep of a discount to go down to Rob Gronkowski or Dawson Knox. Kelce may be having a “down year” by his standards but he’s scored five touchdowns over the last four games including a game where he knocked out 191 yards receiving. Obviously it’s a lot more fun to NOT play the chalk if you can, but in this instance Travis Kelce simply is the best option.
Low End: Tyler Higbee
Those who have read my work know that I’m not the biggest Tyler Higbee fan but, when I do recommend him, it’s usually for good reason. In this case it’s because of how highly utilized Dawson Knox will be in fantasy lineups because he scored two touchdowns last week. But that’s ignoring the fact that Tyler Higbee’s utilization has been just as good as Dawson Knox’s per game in terms of routes run - and Higbee has actually been targeted more consistently in the second half of the season. He’s had at least 40 or more yards in five straight games whereas Knox has only done that in two of five games. And Higbee just had a two-touchdown game of his own the week before last. So why is Knox $900 more than Higbee on DraftKings?
Dart Throw: Cameron Brate
Brate was a dart throw of ours last week and, at his price point, three catches for 29 yards isn’t terrible. $2,500 is the bare minimum price and $2,700 isn’t far off - especially since he’s the only guy in that range getting consistent targets. It's worth mentioning once again that Brate finished the regular season with the 11th-most red zone targets and the 8th-most end zone targets. Plus, three of his four touchdowns came in games where Gronk was playing. If you are looking for that pay down option on Sunday, it’s Cameron Brate.