Giants vs. Chiefs Fantasy Football Worksheet, Week 3

The Worksheet, a comprehensive fantasy football preview by Rich Hribar, breaks down everything you need to know about the Week 3 matchup between the Giants and Chiefs on Sunday Night Football.

Find a breakdown of every Week 3 NFL game in our Worksheet Hub.

Trust = spike production for that player

Quarterback

Patrick Mahomes: Things have gone as poorly as possible for the Kansas City offense to open the year.

Mahomes has only passed for 6.6 and 6.4 yards per pass attempt to open the season.

It is not all due to the pass catchers, either.

He is 30th in the league in completion percentage (58.8%).

His expected completion percentage is 68.4%.

No quarterback is below his expected completion rate to a greater degree.

On Sunday, 27.6% of Mahomes’ throws were inaccurate, the highest rate he has had in a game for his career.

Despite that, Mahomes has managed to produce QB6 (26 points) and QB7 (22.1 points) scoring weeks on the strength of his scrambling.

Mahomes has a 15.5% scrambling rate through two weeks.

His previous career high in a season was 7.6%.

Mahomes has 123 scramble yards and 2 touchdowns on those runs.

The next closest quarterback (Josh Allen) has 87 scramble yards.

Mahomes is holding on as a QB1 thanks to his legs, and a Week 3 slate missing multiple quarterbacks to injury, but eventually, Mahomes will not run for a touchdown to elevate his line.

He may keep running in the short term, but this is not a sustainable way for him to produce fantasy points.

He is essentially operating as Justin Fields right now.

The Chiefs have faced two strong pass defenses to open the year, so this would be a good spot to get things on track as much as possible, given what is available for him on offense.

The Giants have not been able to get to the quarterback early this season, posting a 31.6% pressure rate (22nd).

They are playing man coverage at a 33.8% rate (6th).

As a byproduct of playing more man coverage and not reaching the quarterback, they are allowing 7.2 yards per pass attempt (22nd) and a 69.5% completion rate (26th).

Russell Wilson: A week after wondering if we had seen the last of Wilson, he roared back with a vintage performance in Week 2.

Wilson completed 30 of 41 passes for 450 yards and 3 touchdowns.

He threw an interception in overtime, but he added 23 rushing yards to make up for the loss of those points for fantasy.

It was the fourth 400-yard game of Wilson’s career.

The moonball was on full display.

Wilson connected on 7 of 11 throws of 20 or more air yards for 264 yards and all 3 touchdowns (also the interception).

He had 3 completions on throws over 30 yards in the air.

Wilson bought himself some runway as the starting quarterback, but that doesn't mean we should chase last week’s box score this week against the Chiefs.

He is still a QB2 and single-game DFS option.

We saw one of his 400-yard games last year with the Steelers in Week 13.

He never threw for more than 217 yards the rest of the season.

Through two games, the Chiefs have allowed 12.5% (1 of 8) of throws 20 or more yards downfield to be completed, the third-lowest rate.

If Wilson is not hitting on those deep shots, the rest of this game is fragile.

On throws shorter than 20 yards, Wilson is 30th in completion rate (61.5%) and 24th in yards per pass attempt (5.4).

The league base rates on those throws are a 68.3% completion rate and 6.2 Y/A.

Wilson last faced a Steve Spagnuolo defense in Week 17 last year.

In that game, Wilson threw for 5.5 yards per pass attempt and 205 yards, throwing 0 touchdowns and an interception.

Running Back

Chiefs RBs: This has been arguably the league’s worst backfield over the opening two weeks.

The Kansas City running backs have combined for 119 total yards on 35 touches.

We have yet to see either Isiah Pacheco or Kareem Hunt post 35 total yards in a game.

Through two weeks, Pacheco has 18 touches for 57 yards while Hunt has 16 touches for 60 yards.

That should change here.

The Giants have allowed 5.7 yards per carry to running backs (31st) with a 58.1% success rate against those runs (27th).

They have allowed a first down or touchdown on a league-worst 30.2% of those runs.

The Giants are also 19th in the league in receiving points allowed to running backs (8.9 per game).

The tricky part is diagnosing which back this matchup benefits more, or whether these backs continue to cannibalize each other.

That makes them both matchup-based FLEX options.

Hunt has played more snaps in the red zone (8) than Pacheco (6), but he only has a 2-to-1 edge in touches in that area of the field.

I would lean towards Hunt if chasing a touchdown, but the offense has not run a play inside the five-yard line yet to provide clarity.

Hunt has played 4 snaps inside the 10 compared to Pacheco’s one.

Giants RBs: This backfield has already tightened up two weeks into the season.

After Tyrone Tracy handled 63.2% of the backfield touches in Week 1, Cam Skattebo played the most snaps (33) with the most touches (13) on Sunday.

Skattebo produced 59 yards and a touchdown on those opportunities.

Tracy did turn 9 touches into 51 yards when he did play, but the fact that Skattebo has already had a game as the lead back is positive for him this early in the season.

Skattebo still only handled 54.2% of the backfield touches, so he is still a touchdown-dependent FLEX until he further distances himself.

This is not a great spot to chase efficiency, so gamers will need a touchdown.

The Chiefs have allowed 3.9 YPC to running backs.

Only 19.5% of those running back runs have resulted in a first down or touchdown, 13th in the league.

Wide Receiver

Malik Nabers: Nabers was electric on Sunday, pulling in 9 of 13 targets for 167 yards and 2 touchdowns.

Entering the season, we discussed how the new quarterback room was going to aid Nabers downfield, and it came through for at least one week.

Nabers had only 2 touchdowns on targets of 20 or more air yards as a rookie.

He caught just 7 of 28 downfield targets as a rookie.

As noted above with Wilson, the Chiefs have taken those downfield shots away to open the year.

This is where the gaudy target share needs to show up for Nabers as a WR1.

Nabers has received 37.5% and 32.5% of the team's targets through two games.

The Chiefs have played Cover 0 at the league’s highest rate (23%), which will give him some one-on-one opportunities.

Since entering the league, Nabers has been targeted on 36.8% of his routes versus man coverage with 2.44 yards per route run.

Wan’Dale Robinson: After Week 1, it appeared as if all of the preseason talk on using Robinson differently was just noise.

Robinson only averaged 3.1 air yards per target in Week 1.

In Week 2, that climbed to 16.2 air yards per target.

Robinson set a new career-high with 142 receiving yards, grabbing 8 of 10 targets with a touchdown.

That was the second 100-yard game of his career.

It is tough to chase last week’s outcome as being static here for the reasons noted so far, leaving Robinson as a WR4/FLEX.

Robinson has played 75% of his snaps from the slot, which could provide some matchup leverage.

The Chiefs have allowed 10.3 yards per target to slot receivers early in the year (28th).

Xavier Worthy: Worthy logged some practice time at the end of last week and is expected to do the same leading up to Sunday.

If he does play, he will be playing with a torn labrum.

If he is active, we do not know the extent of what “active” means for snap counts.

You would love to believe that if he is cleared to play, he is cleared to play fully, but that takes a step of faith.

Worthy will be a volatile fantasy option if we see him.

These types of situations never feel great as a fantasy manager.

If you sit Worthy and he plays and goes off, you feel like you made a costly decision.

If you play him and he is clearly restricted, you feel like that was the obvious outcome and feel bad about it.

The only win is playing him, and he smashes.

I prefer to go in another direction in managed leagues, but I understand that anyone shooting for upside or taking a flyer in single-game DFS may do so.

Marquise Brown: We questioned if Brown’s 16 targets in Week 1 were out of necessity or in-game adjustment, and if those would be static in a new game plan.

Turns out that was the runout.

After seeing 42.1% of the targets in Week 1, Brown had 17.2% of the targets in Week 2.

He caught all 5 of his targets for 30 yards.

If Worthy remains out, Brown is a WR3 option, but if we do see Worthy dress, then Brown has an added layer of volatility as a WR4/FLEX.

The Giants have played man coverage 33.8% of the time, sixth in the league.

Brown has had a reduction in target opportunities against man coverage, drawing a target on 20% of his routes versus man coverage compared to 28.8% versus zone.

The Giants have not been good against wide receivers, however, allowing 8.7 yards per target to wideouts (24th).

Tyquan Thornton: Thornton secured 2 of his 5 targets for 59 yards and a touchdown on Sunday.

After Mahomes missed Thornton on a busted coverage where he was uncovered, Mahomes then made up for things with a 49-yard strike for Thornton’s touchdown grab.

Thornton’s job in this offense is to do one thing: get downfield.

He has only 9 targets through two games, but he is averaging 31.6 air yards per target.

Seven of his targets are positioned 20 yards or more downfield, and four of them are 40 yards or more downfield.

He is the perfect all-or-nothing swing for single-game DFS.

The Giants have allowed 5 of 8 deep targets to be completed so far.

Darius Slayton: Slayton only has 2 receptions on 4 targets for 61 yards to start the season.

He has run a team-high 89 routes (98.9% of the dropbacks) but has been targeted on only 4.5% of them.

He is the less fun version of what we laid out with Thornton and is only viable for single-game DFS.

JuJu Smith-Schuster: Smith-Schuster has collected 6 of 8 targets for 60 yards through two weeks.

He is a low-ceiling fantasy option for single-game DFS, but he has been on the field for 82.6% and 76.3% of the dropbacks.

Tight End

Travis Kelce (TRUST): Kelce caught 4 of 6 targets for 61 yards on Sunday.

His two incompletions were drops, the second of which was a tide-turning play where he dropped the potential game-tying touchdown, resulting in an interception.

While that will be the play that is remembered from Sunday, Kelce was more involved in Week 2, receiving 20.7% of the team's targets after 10.5% in Week 1.

As bad as it has gone to open the year, Kelce has produced two TE1 scoring weeks against two of the league’s best defenses at slowing down tight ends.

The position itself is not in great shape, but Kelce remains a TE1 himself.

Here, he draws a defense that allowed a touchdown to Zach Ertz in Week 1 and then 9 catches for 78 yards to Jake Ferguson on Sunday.

Theo Johnson: Johnson has kicked off the season with games of 1-5-0 (3 targets) and 4-34-0 (5 targets).

He has run a route on 74.4% of the dropbacks (TE17) but only has 11.1% of the team’s targets (TE24).

Johnson is stuck as a TE2 until that usage climbs consistently.

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