What a glorious week. No bye weeks. We essentially already got a full slate for DFS. We have a Black Friday football games for Showdown. And now we get another full Sunday slate of games? With a ton of great matchups? What did we do to deserve this? I’ve got some tight end plays for you at every level that are sure to make us some cash so feel free to take advantage of those Black Friday deals today!

Be sure to check out the rest of the NFL DFS Coaches and DFS Watch List throughout the week!

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As a reminder, here is how we separate the groups here.  We do it this way so that you have an option no matter how much (or how little) money you have available to spend on tight end.

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.

For Week 2 we now have actual statistical information from the first week to analyze so this is where the real money is made.

NFL DFS Week 12 TE Top-Tier Picks

Travis Kelce, Kansas City Chiefs

Since Patrick Mahomes has joined the Chiefs, they have played the Raiders 10 times. In those games, they have AVERAGED 36 points. They scored fewer than 30 points in only one of those games (and in that game they scored 28). The Chiefs have historically destroyed this team. In the last 13 matchups for Kelce vs. them, he’s scored double digit PPR points 11 times. He’s scored 20+ in five of those. He’s scored 30+ twice, including Week 5 last year. If you are paying up at tight end, this is where to do it - especially on FanDuel where we don’t get discounts on cheap tight ends. Kelce is 16% of your budget on DK and Yahoo but he’s only ~13% on FanDuel.

NFL DFS Week 12 TE Mid-Tier Picks

Dalton Schultz, Houston Texans

There are too fairly similarly priced Daltons this week and folks who follow me will be surprised to see which one is in the plays and which one is in the fades. Schultz has been one of the more consistent options this year and this week the matchup is set up perfectly for a shootout. The over/under of 47.5 points with a spread of 1.5 doesn’t guarantee a close game down to the wire but Vegas usually has their finger on the pulse here so we’ve got to lean into those odds. It’s difficult to run on the Jaguars but the short pass has been their all year and it’s looking like we’ll be without Noah Brown in the slot once again. He’s 9.5% of the budget on Yahoo, 10.8% on DraftKings, and 11.33% on FanDuel so this is our preferred Yahoo play this week. Not going to use Schultz on FanDuel when Kelce is only 2% more of the budget though.

Trey McBride, Arizona Cardinals

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Trey McBride should be one of the most expensive tight ends on the slate this week but instead he’s the 6th most expensive. Since Zach Ertz got hurt he ~15 PPR points a game which is more than Travis Kelce. And that includes a game against the top TE defense in the league where Clayton Tune was the quarterback. Kyler Murray has been loving McBride since he got back and he has a juicy matchup this week vs. the Rams. McBride is fairly evenly priced on all three platforms but DraftKings is full PPR and that is his best format. So to sum up the top options, we like Travis Kelce on FanDuel, Dalton Schultz on Yahoo, and Trey McBride on DraftKings this week. Smart DFS players will price shop and build a few different lineups to have some diversity. 

NFL DFS Week 12 TE Value Tier Picks

David Njoku, Cleveland Browns

This one is DraftKings specific and doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. David Njoku is 9.5%-10% of your budget on Yahoo and FanDuel which is half PPR. That price makes sense. On DraftKings he’s 8.2%. This fella got FIFTEEN targets last week with Dorian Thompson-Robinson, which tiest he highest of any tight end in a game this year. The Broncos were already arguably the best matchup for tight ends and now Kareem Jackson is suspended. If you play on DraftKings, you have to make an Njoku lineup. 

Cade Otton, Tampa Bay Buccaneers

We’re going to give you something at every price level this week for ultimate flexibility. We’ve got Kelce as the pay up, plays around 10%, an 8% play, so how about one at 6%? Cade Otton quietly leads all tight ends in snap share this week and he has a number of games this year playing 100% of the snaps. Folks will be off him after the last two weeks but he played two of the toughest tight end matchups in Tennessee and San Francisco. In the games prior he has 6, 6, and 9 targets. The Colts are a decent matchup for tight ends and they just released veteran Shaq Leonard with little fanfare. We’re not using him on FanDuel but he’s very reasonable at 6.4% and 7% of your budget on DraftKings and Yahoo respectively. 

BONUS DART THROW

Josh Whyle, Tennessee Titans

We said we’d cover you at every level so how bout a bare minimum priced play. FanDuel doesn’t do us any favors down here but Whyle is the bare minimum price on DraftKings and Yahoo. The rookie has quietly split the workload with Chigoziem Okonkwo the last couple weeks and actually ran more routes last week. Last week the Titans only ran 40 offensive plays which matches the lowest of any team this season and the week before that Whyle got five targets. We want to try to catch these guys on the way up before anyone else catches wind and I can bet you that ownership for Whyle is going to be insanely low this week.

NFL DFS Week 12 TE Fades

Dalton Kincaid, Buffalo Bills

I love Dalton Kincaid like a son. And I’m starting him in a LOT of redraft and dynasty leagues. But I’m quietly a little scared for this week. His rostership will be high as folks still consider the Eagles to be a “pass funnel” team that funnels things over the middle. Which worked early in the season. But they traded for Kevin Byard to help fix that problem and he actually looked pretty good against Travis Kelce last week. I’m hoping Kincaid does well for the sake of my teams and yours but I’m not going to use him in DFS.

Taysom Hill, New Orleans Saints

There are some weeks when a lot of tight ends are off the main slate or they have bad matchups where I might use a Taysom Hill. This isn’t one of those weeks. When Juwan Johnson was out Hill was running a ton of routes but as of late he’s back to relying on the team getting him to the red zone where he can do his thing. You feel free to roll these dice but I just like better options in DFS where every format is some kind of PPR.