Broncos vs Chiefs Fantasy Football Worksheet, Week 13

The Worksheet, a fantasy football overview by Rich Hribar, breaking down everything you need to know for the Week 13 Denver Broncos at Kansas City Chiefs Sunday Night Football game.

Denver	Rank	@	Kansas City	Rank
14		Spread	-14
18.25		Implied Total	32.25
19	31	Points/Gm	31.6	2
27.1	24	Points All./Gm	21.6	6
63.3	20	Plays/Gm	65.9	8
66.5	27	Opp. Plays/Gm	63.7	13
41.8%	15	Rush%	38.3%	24
58.2%	18	Pass%	61.7%	9
44.3%	23	Opp. Rush %	42.9%	20
55.7%	10	Opp. Pass %	57.1%	13

The Chiefs have won 10 consecutive games versus the Broncos, going 9-1 ATS in those games, with an average point differential of -13.7 points.
Kansas City has converted a league-high 50.7% of their third down plays while Denver is at 36.1% (30th).
Since entering the league, Tyreek Hill has scored a league-high 33 offensive touchdowns from outside of the red zone, including a league-high eight this season.
Hill has scored 35.0% of the Kansas City offensive touchdowns, the highest rate of all wide receivers.
Denver is last in the league in catchable target rate (67.2%).
The Broncos have turned the ball over on 20.2% of their possessions, the highest rate in the league.
Denver has turned the ball over in 12 consecutive games, the longest ongoing streak in the league.

Quarterback

Patrick Mahomes: The Chiefs have skewed extremely pass heavy the past four games, with Mahomes averaging 49.0 dropbacks per game over that stretch after 39.3 per game prior. In those games, Mahomes has thrown for 416, 372, 348, and 462 yards with 14 touchdowns.

When these teams played in Week 7, the Chiefs ran a season-low 51 offensive plays due to defensive and special teams touchdowns, which led to Mahomes throwing a season-low 23 passes and his lone game this season without multiple touchdown passes. The Broncos are allowing just 12.9 passing points per game (fifth) and 6.6 Y/A (third), but Mahomes has thrown for 8.7 and 10.0 yards per attempt in his two full games against Denver under Vic Fangio. Continue to roll out Mahomes as the top fantasy passer.

Drew Lock: What Denver had to do a quarterback last week was the only set of circumstances that could make a team miss have Lock in the lineup. Lock has been the QB21 or lower in six of his eight starts this season, with his two QB1 scoring weeks coming against Atlanta and the Chargers with massive jailbreak fourth quarter performances in those weeks. In two starts against Kansas City, Lock has completed 42-of-80 passes (52.5%) for 5.8 Y/A with zero touchdowns and three interceptions.

Running Back

Clyde Edwards-Helaire: Edwards-Helaire ran into the Tampa Bay buzzsaw last week, but his 12 touches were right in line with his usage over the past several weeks. Over his past five games, the first-round pick has totaled just 53 touches after handling 128 through his opening six games. He has not had 80 yards from scrimmage in a game since Week 6, with 39 yards or fewer in three of the five games since.

The positive news is that he has scored in three of those five games after just once over his opening six games. Denver is also a significantly worse run defense than a pass defense, if such a thing matters for the Chiefs. The Broncos are 24th in rushing points allowed per game (15.5) and are 27th in rushing yardage allowed per game to backs (105.6). Edwards-Helaire is an RB2 in a positive game environment, but his recent volume does make him touchdown dependent.

**Edwards-Helaire had an illness this week that forced him to miss practice Thursday and Friday. He is expected to play, but we could see his role reduced with Le’Veon Bell getting more snaps.

Melvin Gordon: With Phillip Lindsay having to exit last week’s game with a knee injury, Gordon could once again have this backfield largely to himself. In four games without Lindsay or him exiting early in the game, Gordon is averaging 19.0 touches for 81.5 yards and 16.4 PPR points per game with 84 or more yards in three of those four games. In his other six games with Lindsay, Gordon is averaging 13.0 touches for 51.5 yards and 8.8 points per game with a game-high of 84 yards.

The Chiefs are 27th in yardage allowed per game to backfields (148.6 yards) to keep the lights on for Gordon as a volume-based RB2 should Lindsay be out.

Wide Receiver

Tyreek Hill: After six or fewer targets in six of his opening eight games, Hill has seen a gaudy 18, 14, and 15 targets come his way the past three weeks for games of 9-113-2, 11-102-1, and 13-269-3. Hill has now scored a touchdown in 10-of-11 games this season. One of his highly targeted games early in the season was against Denver, when he had a 40% team target share, catching 6-of-10 targets for 55 yards and a score, giving him a touchdown in three straight games against the division rival. Hill is a set-and-forget WR1.

Chiefs WRs: Sammy Watkins got back on the field for the first time since Week 5 last week, playing 72% of the team snaps. He only turned in a 4-38 line, but with seven targets, Watkins has now seen at least seven targets in each of his four full games played this season, giving Watkins WR3/FLEX appeal as attachment to Mahomes and this offense.

In those four full games with Watkins, Demarcus Robinson has caught 8-of-13 targets for 56 yards and zero scores while Mecole Hardman has secured 12-of-16 targets for 137 yards and two touchdowns if chasing a WR dart or single-game DFS option.

Jerry Jeudy: We can site Jeudy’s opportunity and his air yards, all of which are true. Excluding last week’s game which did not count for Denver pass catchers, Jeudy has 40 targets over the past four weeks, which rank third among all wideouts over that span. He leads the league in air yards over that span with 648. The downside is that Jeudy has been the WR39, WR8, WR33, and WR57 over those weeks because just 19 of those 40 targets have been deemed catchable. For the season now, just 56.8% of his targets have been catchable.

Quarterback play has been a hindrance for Jeudy and warped his actual “error” yards, but the opportunities are overall still in place to keep Jeudy as a boom-or-bust WR3/FLEX.

Broncos WRs: Denver WRs: Tim Patrick turned in five receptions for 119 yards in Week 11, aided by a 61-yard reception as time expired on a clock-killing play to end the game that Patrick tried to house. It was Patrick’s sixth top-40 scoring week over his past seven games. It was also the first time since Week 7 that Patrick out-targeted K.J. Hamler, 8-6.

Hamler is another wideout where the target volume has led to some intrigue, but the results have not followed. Hamler has just one scoring week higher than WR41 on the season. If choosing a Denver wideout outside of Jeudy to round out your roster, Patrick has been the better producer based on opportunity.

Tight End

Travis Kelce: Kelce has been a top-five tight end in every game but two this season. His lone week outside of the top-10 was in Week 7 when he caught three passes for 31 yards on a season-low 12% target share. As mentioned, that game had the Chiefs offense in unique circumstances in terms of play volume and game script.

Prior to that, Kelce had notched games of 11-142-0, 6-79-1, and 7-78-1 with double-digit targets in all three games against Denver with Mahomes. Kelce has 65.8 more PPR points than the TE2 (Darren Waller) this season, the same gap that Waller has over the TE17. Kelce remains the top tight end on the board in Week 13.

Noah Fant: Fant was the only Bronco to catch a pass last week, which should have defaulted him to TE1 status considering the circumstances. But alas, Fant has been a TE1 scorer in just one of his past eight games played and has not scored a touchdown since Week 2. He caught 3-of-7 targets for 38 yards in the Week 7 matchup between these teams. Fant is a TE2 option.

More Week 13 Fantasy breakdowns from The Worksheet: