The tight end position is always full of surprises in DFS. Brock Bowers and Trey McBride have their first game with rookie quarterbacks. Dalton Kincaid and Hunter Henry are battling injuries. Tucker Kraft and T.J. Hockenson have terrible matchups. George Kittle and Travis Kelce’s teams just traded for wide receivers.
There are a lot of moving parts here, to say the least. So it’s our job to dig through all the data and narratives to sort out what matters, what doesn’t, and where to attack. Based on all the info available to us, here are our picks for the tight end position for Week 10 in DFS.
NFL DFS TE Top Tier Picks For Week 10
George Kittle TE, San Francisco 49ers - DraftKings: $6,500 | FanDuel: $6,600
This is going to be an extremely chalky pick this week. And there are a couple of reasons for that. There is kind of a three-man top tier right now with Kittle, Brock Bowers, and Trey McBride. Of the three, Kittle is the only one that has a good matchup, with Bowers facing Seattle and McBride facing the Rams. That alone would be enough to make Kittle chalky.
But, on top of that, those two guys are also playing their very first games of the season with rookie quarterbacks. That’s not really their fault that they are being thrown into two incredibly difficult matchups - it’s just the way the trade deadline fell with Kirk Cousins and Jacoby Brissett being shipped out. So there’s really only one TE in the top tier that we really like, and everyone that spends up will probably be using him. He especially makes sense vs. Bowers and McBride on FanDuel, which is half PPR, a format that has always favored Kittle. He accounts for 13% of your budget on DraftKings but only 11% on FanDuel.
NFL DFS TE Mid-Tier Picks For Week 10
Harold Fannin, Cleveland Browns - DraftKings: $4,900 | FanDuel: $5,700
We had Harold Fannin as a fade last week. And that’s because we don’t think Shedeur Sanders is that good of a quarterback. Sanders also pushes the ball down the field a lot more than Deshaun Watson, as we saw last week. But Watson is back this week, so that is no longer a concern.
Fannin has had good deployment in terms of snap share and route participation all year, so we expect him to bounce back this week. Folks might be scared off by the questionable tag, but he was limited in practice last week with the same groin issue and still played. So it’s not a major concern.
Travis Kelce TE, Indianapolis Colts - DraftKings: $4,700 | FanDuel: $5,500
He might not be prime Travis Kelce, but even 70% of Travis Kelce is a pretty darn good fantasy player. He’s still leading the team in targets this year, and he quietly has had a lot more YAC than we’ve seen from him in recent years. He said he was going to take this offseason seriously, and it looks like that has paid off.
People might be worried about Josh Downs, but Downs still needs to pick up the playbook - I think that problem is going to grow for Kelce as the season moves on rather than be an immediate issue. Speaking of trades, the Falcons USED to be kind of a tough matchup for tight ends but, after trading away Jessie Bates, I’m not worried about them at all.
Tyler Warren TE, Indianapolis Colts - DraftKings: $4,400 | FanDuel: $5,300
Because we only had one tight end in the elite tier, we’re going to give you a bonus one in the middle tier here. Yes, the Indianapolis Colts are blowing things up. But you still have to play the games. They decided that Jonathan Taylor and Tyler Warren were part of their long-term plans, and they are clearly part of their short-term plans as well.
Warren has gotten 26 targets over the last three games and, before garbage time, he’s playing 90% of the snaps. With both Keenan Allen and Josh Downs gone, I can’t imagine a world where he is not involved this week. And it’s a great matchup against the Miami Dolphins. So Warren is on the table, especially on DraftKings, which is full PPR.
NFL DFS TE Value Picks For Week 10
Brevyn Spann-Ford TE, Dallas Cowboys - DraftKings: $3,200 | FanDuel: $4,500
When Jake Ferguson left after four snaps in Week 8, Brevyn Spann-Ford played 88% of the snaps. Last week, Jake Ferguson left after 27 snaps, and Spann-Ford was used essentially the same way. With Jake Ferguson set to miss multiple weeks, I expect
Now, we didn’t even really love Jake Ferguson. But this game has a 55.5-point over/under, which means the ball will be flying around. George Pickens has a lingering shoulder issue that could come into play here. So Spann-Ford, as the starting tight end for Dak Prescott, is in play here. Even if it’s probably more of a touchdown-or-bust play.
Elijah Higgins TE, Arizona Cardinals - DraftKings: $2,500 | FanDuel: $4,400
Look, we’ve tried this one before. And it hasn’t QUITE worked out. But if it’s ever going to work, why not now? Why not us?
For those unfamiliar, Elijah Higgins is a converted WR who serves as the backup pass-catching TE to Trey McBride. With all the injuries to the WRs, he might actually be the second-best pass-catcher on the team now. Last week, even with Michael Wilson playing most of the game, Higgins ran 20 of 35 routes, which is much more than you get from any bar minimum-priced tight end. Last year Trey McBride led all tight ends in broken tackles, while Elijah Higgins was quietly third, so Higgins has some sneaky upside that deserves to be priced higher than where he is priced.
NFL DFS TE Fades For Week 10
Tucker Kraft, Green Bay Packers- DraftKings: $5,000 | FanDuel: $5,400
A concerning trend has emerged with Tucker Kraft. With the offensive line issues for Green Bay, he’s been asked to block on 23.3% of his pass plays over the last two weeks. That makes a whopping 17 routes that he could have been running but didn’t. He only had a 66% route participation last week because of that. This Vikings pass rush is mean, and they are the number one team against the tight end, so we really do not want to use Kraft here.
T.J. Hockenson, Minnesota Vikings - DraftKings: $4,300 | FanDuel: $5,200
Hockenson has been pretty solid as of late. But that monster double-digit target game did come when Justin Jefferson was out, and Jordan Addison got hurt, so we can’t bank on that. Kirk Cousins COULD improve things for Hock - or he could focus on deeper targets, and things could get worse. This is a terrible matchup against some great safeties in Evan Williams and Xavier McKinner, so we don’t want to hang around and find out.