Best and worst daily fantasy football TE plays over and under $4,500 in Week 7

In NFL DFS, if you’re going to spend up, you must be sure you’ll be getting bang for your buck. For example, a player worth $6,000 who scores 24 points has quadrupled, or 4Xed, their salary, which can send you zooming up the standings. Those are the guys we want throughout the lineup. At the same time, you don’t want to invest big on a player only for them to underwhelm at the expense of a significant portion of your DFS budget. Here are our best and worst tight end plays at DraftKings for Week 7.

BEST: Jared Cook, New Orleans Saints ($4,300)

Forget the matchup against the Carolina Panthers and the 7th-best defense against opposing tight ends in 2020. This play is about Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints offense simply not having many other options to catch passes after it was announced both Michael Thomas and Emmanuel Sanders will miss Sunday’s game against the Panthers. Without other playmakers at wide receiver, expect Alvin Kamara and Jared Cook to be heavily involved in the passing game.

WORST: Hayden Hurst, Atlanta Falcons ($4,400)

Maybe Matt Ryan and the Atlanta Falcons offense will just start clicking on all cylinders now that Dan Quinn has been removed as head coach. Or maybe with the return of Julio Jones there will just be too many mouths to feed in the Falcons offense. With Julio Jones and Calvin Ridley, plus a defense that has allowed the 2nd-fewest points to opposing tight ends in 2020, expect Hayden Hurst to be the player who takes the biggest hit this week.

BEST: T.J. Hockenson, Detroit Lions ($5,000)

Sticking with that same game, T.J. Hockenson will probably have better luck of things, facing Atlanta’s 28th-ranked defense against opposing tight ends in 2020. The Lions might have Kenny Golladay back with Marvin Jones, but Hockenson is still Matthew Stafford’s favorite redzone target, and the Lions could get into a shootout against Matt Ryan’s Falcons.

WORST: Rob Gronkowski, Tampa Bay Buccaneers ($4,600)

The tight end formally known as “Gronk” might come cheaper than Hockenson this week, but Gronk still looks to be a shell of the player he once was in New England. Add in the fact that the Buccaneers are relying more and more on the ground game with Ronald Jones and Leonard Fournette, the fact that Mike Evans has been gobbling up all of the redzone looks from quarterback Tom Brady, and there are a lot of mouths to feed in the Buccaneers offense with Evans, Chris Godwin, Scott Miller, the running backs, and Cameron Brate, and it’s probably best to avoid Gronkowski against the Las Vegas Raiders and the 13th ranked defense against opposing tight ends.