It is on to Week 4 of the NFL and Daily Fantasy Football at DraftKings. I’m back to provide recommendations for Tight Ends for your weekly lineup. This week is the perfect week to take a dip into the Daily Fantasy pool as you can win $1,200,000! Daily Fantasy can help you with lineup decision for your season-long league and give you another team to root on during the weekend.

This is a great week to check out DraftKings and pick up a new way to play fantasy football.

DraftKings Tight End Recommendations

If you’ve never played on DraftKings before, you can get a deposit bonus by signing up. And there are different options to pick from at DraftKings for any skill level.

It’s the first week of byes for the NFL and they hit us right in the heart. Gronk is off! Week 3 did give us the confirmation of our “start any TE against the Raiders” as Gary Barnidge (recommended here last week) put up over 100 yards and a TD. So, without Gronk and everyone onto our Raiders’ TE plan do we have other options?

Finally, a gentle reminder on the scoring for Tight Ends – this is a PPR site so remember that when selecting players. The full for scoring for Tight Ends is at the end of this column.

Tight Ends can also be used in the flex position at DraftKings. However, with the entire world of RBs and WRs at your disposal Rob Gronkowski is probably the only TE you’d consider as a flex option. TEs still make a viable option at the flex spot as long as the pricing continues to be soft.

Let’s take a look at a couple of options at each price point. For those who are new to the column, I’ll generally look at a couple of options in each pricing tier broken out based on the socioeconomic status of 1970s sitcom families. And I’ll always cover Rob Gronkowski.

I’ll mention Football Outsiders a lot over the season – the passes per game and yards per game stats I use are from Football Outsiders. Here is the link to Football Outsiders’ 2013 stats. FO stats for 2014 are here and I like to use the defense versus types of receivers to fill out my rosters. And we now have 2015 stats located here – now with receiver types!

Without Gronk, our spread is only $6,000 for the top TE and $2,500 for the bottom of the barrel. I guess that $2,500 floor is here to stay.

Teams on bye: New England Patriots, Tennessee Titans – so no Gronk and no Delanie Walker

Also, note there is a game in England this week so there is an early start (9:30am Eastern) game as well.

Over/Under

We’ve added a new feature this year highlighting the top totals (over/under) in Vegas for the week.

The top over/under totals for Week 4 (according to Vegas Insider consensus):

Green Bay Packers at San Francisco 49ers (o/u 48 points)
Jacksonville Jaguars at Indianapolis Colts (o/u 48 points)
Houston Texans at Atlanta Falcons (o/u 47 points)
Philadelphia Eagles at Washington (o/u 47 points)

Another week without a total at 50 points or higher.

The Gronk Tier

Rob Gronkowski | Patriots – On bye. Hurry back Gronk!

The Jeffersons

Jimmy Graham | Seahawks | $6,000 – Graham got the ball last week early and often against a Bears team that looks like they can’t wait to tee it up in the offseason. So, you think Graham is back? Well, he does get a Lions team that has given up a TD to TEs in each of the first three games. He could be a GPP option, but I think there are some better options down the line.

Greg Olsen | Panthers | $5,400 – Cam Newton has eyes only for Olsen. After a measly three targets in Week 1, Olsen has seen 25 over his next two games. And last week’s eight catches for 134 years and two TDs had Olsen all over the field as he was an inline TE as well as flex out to more of a WR position. His matchup is tougher this week against the Bucs, but he’s the focal point of that Panthers’ offense and if I wanted to pay up at TE, I’d go here first.

Travis Kelce | Chiefs | $5,300 – The Chiefs finally discovered the wonders of throwing TDs to WRs. And I, for one, welcome this new addition to the Chiefs’ playbook. Remember, Kelce has been putting up numbers without much of a threat from the WRs. Kelce has 21 targets through the first three weeks and will continue to see his fair share of targets. His matchup this week with the Bengals isn’t the best, but the Bengals did give up 10 targets to TEs last week against the Ravens.

All in the Family

Tyler Eifert | Bengals | $4,600 – I hope you sold high on Eifert in your season-long leagues. We’ve now seen that at least part of what Eifert did in week 1 was due to the ineptitude of the Raiders defense. Eifert put up a big zero last week, though he did have a TD called back. Or overturned. Or something. I don’t know the rules anymore. Eifert gets the Chiefs and it’s tough to tell how well KC defends the TE as they haven’t faced a real one yet. I wouldn’t pay up for him this week, when you can save $100 and get…

Jordan Reed | Washington | $4,500 – Reed’s salary jumped $700 (the biggest jump of the week). And while the matchup against the Eagles looks tough, the Eagles have only faced one real TE so far this year. And in that game against Jason Witten, they gave up seven catches on eight targets for 56 yards. Much like Travis Kelce, Reed has little competition from WRs for targets. For tournaments, he makes a nice pivot off our next guest who many will be on.

Martellus Bennett | Bears | $4,500 – Alert! Alert! Alert! Talented TE facing horrendous Oakland Raiders TE defense! If you need a reminder, the Raiders have given up five TDs in three games to TEs. They’ve had two 100 yard TEs in those three games and two double digit reception TEs as well. The only concern with Bennett is the QB play of Jimmy Clausen. But, it’s not like Josh McCown is the second coming of Fran Tarkenton. Bennett will be a cash game mainstay for me this week.

Julius Thomas | Jaguars | $4,500 – He’s practiced on a limited basis the last couple of weeks so we could see him in Week 4. But, there isn’t a reason to run out and put him in a lineup in his first time back.

Jason Witten | Cowboys | $4,400 – Witten said he was healthy last week and he certainly showed up with six catches on eight targets. He’s been a metronome so far this year with no more than 65 yards and no fewer than 56 in his first three weeks. His big week this year included two TDs (and Tony Romo at QB). The Saints have given up three TDs to TEs in the first three weeks so he has a shot at another good week.

Good Times

Austin Seferian-Jenkins | Buccaneers | $3,900 – Out for the next three to five weeks.

Heath Miller | Steelers | $3,700 – See below. The Steelers play Thursday night.

Eric Ebron | Lions | $3,500 – I’m not enamored with Ebron this week as the Seahawks have Kam Chancellor back in the lineup. I’d rather move down the board a bit to save some money.

Crockett Gillmore| Ravens | $3,500– See below. The Ravens play Thursday night.

Charles Clay | Bills | $3,300 – Clay gets the Giants and that’s been a good thing so far for TEs. The Giants have given up three TDs in the first three weeks and at least six catches and 60 yards to TEs. Clay has TDs in back to back games and Tyrod Taylor is looking more and more like a viable NFL QB. I like Clay as a top 10 TE this week

Ladarius Green | Chargers | $3,200 – Green makes a high risk/high reward GPP play this week. If you dig further into the Browns’ stats, you see they’ve faced Kellen Davis/Jeff Cumberland, Anthony Fasano/Chase Coffman and Mychal Rivera/Lee Smith. Not exactly a Murderer’s Row of TEs. So, we don’t know exactly how good the Brows are against the TE and Green is skilled enough to take advantage of any issues the Browns may have. Watch his progress back from a concussion this week.

Coby Fleener | Colts | $3,200 – Fleener is an option again if Dwayne Allen is out. Fleener generally shines when Allen isn’t around. He had four catches on six targets for 51 yards last week with Allen out.

Dwayne Allen | Colts | $3,100 – May not play and will likely not be 100% if he does play.

Gary Barnidge | Browns | $3,100 – Don’t get greedy. His salary jumped $600 off of his game versus the Raiders. He can be ignored for the rest of the year.

Sanford and Son

As we strive to give you more and more each week, we’ve added a new tier. The Sanford & Son tier. If you want to go dumpster diving hoping to find that gem, let Sanford & Son be your guide. You hear that Elizabeth? I’m coming to join ya!

Richard Rodgers | $2,500 | Packers – There is always some value to be found in the players from the Sunday night and Monday night games as the DraftKings’ pricing comes out before those games are complete. Rodgers isn’t a high volume TE and you are counting on a TD to get value from him. But, he’s in a prolific offense so the TD opportunities will be there.

Maxx Williams | $2,500 | Ravens – See below. The Ravens play Thursday night.

Thursday Game – Baltimore Ravens at Pittsburgh Steelers

The Ravens have Crockett Gillmore ($3,500) as their starting TE, but he missed the second half las week. It’s unclear if it was due to injury, but rookie Maxx Williams ($2,500) stepped in and performed well. Williams played more snaps than Gillmore and was targeted seven times. Gillmore can be ignored until his price comes down from his performance against the Raiders. And it looks like Gillmore won’t go, which makes Williams a reasonable punt play as he’ll get targets in a Ravens offense that only has Steve Smith, Sr. as a viable receiver.

On the Pittsburgh side, we have Heath Miller ($3,700). And Michael Vick at QB. So, I don’t have a ton of faith in Vick right now. He won’t be as bad as he was last week as he’ll have time to prepare. But, it’s still a short week and I imagine Pittsburgh will try to pound it on the ground and take the occasional shot down the field. Neither of those things spells a big game for Miller.

Good luck in Week 4!

DraftKings Tight End Scoring

10 Receiving Yards = +1PT (+0.1PT per yard is awarded)
Reception = +1PT
Receiving TD = +6PTs
100+ Yard Receiving Game = +3PTs
Fumble Lost = -1PT
2 Point Conversion (Pass, Run, or Catch) = +2PTs
Offensive Fumble Recovery TD = +6PTs

The full DraftKings scoring system is here.