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.

• The Chiefs have allowed opponents to score on 27.9% (17-of-61) of their possessions Weeks 6-11, second in the league over that span.
• Opponents had scored on 57.8% (26-of-45) drives prior, the highest rate in the league.
• Denver is allowing 6.5 red zone plays per game, the fewest in the league.
• The Broncos are allowing 2.2 red zone trips per game, the fewest in the league.
• The Chiefs average 3.8 red zone trips per game, eight in the league.
• 53.6% of the rushing yards gained by Kansas City running backs have come after contact, the lowest rate in the league. League average is 68.6%.

Trust = spike production for that player

Quarterback

Patrick Mahomes: Mahomes has only been in the front half of weekly scoring in one of his past five games played. In that one, he was the QB1 overall, but this is the lowest floor Mahomes has had per week in any season so far. 

The Broncos have picked their spots to be an aggressive defense this season, ranking eighth in blitz rate (30.4%), but as they showed last week against Justin Herbert in blitzing just 11.8% of the time (second lowest), they are opponent sensitive. No quarterback gets blitzed at a lower rate than Mahomes this season (13.5%), so we should see another coverage-based game plan here. 

The Broncos are seventh in passing points allowed per attempt (0.39). Mahomes has only faced one team higher this season (Buffalo) and averaged 5.0 yards per pass attempt. As good as Denver has been in bulk, they do have some opponent driven splits for fantasy output. Herbert, Lamar Jackson, Derek Carr, Dak Prescott, Jalen Hurts, and Daniel Jones have all scored 18 or more points against Denver while Case Keenum, Taylor Heinicke, Trevor Lawrence, Zach Wilson, and Ben Roethlisberger have not. Prescott and Herbert got there ugly against the Broncos, but the points still happened.

In three full games against Denver since they hired Vic Fangio, Mahomes has yet to throw more than two touchdown passes, but does have two 300-yard games.

With Mahomes, you are tied into riding the train based on investment. A lot like Herbert and Josh Allen, there have been lulls, but the spike weeks are the best at the position, making him a boom-or-bust QB1.

Teddy Bridgewater: Bridgewater has thrown the ball 28 or fewer times in each of the past four Denver wins while averaging 34.4 attempts per game in losses. The downside is he has been far worse chasing points, averaging 6.4 Y/A in losses compared to 8.5 Y/A in those wins. Like Jimmy Garoppolo, the idea of streaming Teddy always sounds better in theory than the results you do get when finally pull the trigger. 

Bridgewater has been excellent against the blitz this season and the Chiefs have lived on aggressive play-calling defensively. 

Bridgewater is averaging 10.0 yards per pass attempt against the blitz (fourth) as opposed to 6.6 Y/A when not blitzed (31st). Kansas City blitzes 30.6% of the time, sixth in the league, providing some undercover upside for Bridgewater as a 2QB option.

Running Back

Clyde Edwards-Helaire: Edwards-Helaire came back prior to the bye week after missing the previous five games. Returning to the field, we are back to what we saw in terms of usage in this backfield early in the season.

Edwards-Helaire was out-snapped by Darrel Williams 36-to-32, but Edwards-Helaire was back into his lead role as a ball carrier, handling 70% of the backfield touches, turning 14 touches into 76 yards and a touchdown. 

The bugaboo for Edwards-Helaire is that he is just not used in the way Williams was as a three-down back and Williams is not a good enough runner to push Edwards-Helaire when the latter is available to play. Edwards-Helaire has 10 catches in six games played this season, which forces him to be hyper-efficient on the ground or find the end zone. This inherently makes him an RB2 with more appeal in non-PPR formats.

The Broncos are allowing 4.5 yards per carry (24th) to opposing backs to offer efficiency-based touches, but we still need that touchdown.

Broncos RBs: Coming out the bye, Melvin Gordon still drew the start, but Javonte Williams was able to out-snap him for the second straight game, 36-to-26. Williams turned 17 touches into 111 yards on the strength of a 47-yard reception while scoring his third touchdown of the season. Williams ran 15 pass routes to seven for Gordon.

Gordon still had plenty of usage himself and actually out-touched Williams 17-to-14, totaling 88 yards on his opportunities. Although we did see another lean in snaps for Williams, this is still very much a split backfield, much to the chagrin of gamers.

That said, Gordon is dealing with a hip injury that has prevented him from practicing this week (through Thursday). Friday will be telling if we will see him on Sunday Night or not. If Gordon ends up sitting out, then Williams will vault up to a RB1 option. If Gordon plays, his injury adds more weight to the scales in Williams’ favor, but still leaves both backs right on the RB2/FLEX line with the upside swerving to who gets goal line carries when they come, but there can be production against the Chiefs. Kansas City is allowing 0.94 points per touch to opposing backs (27th), but they are actually third in the league in allowing just six touchdowns to opposing backs.

Wide Receiver

Tyreek Hill: Hill has received double-digit targets in four straight games and in seven of his past eight with a low total of nine. He only trails Cooper Kupp (11.5) in targets per game (11.1). Even though Hill has not had a 100-yard game since Week 4, he is stacking high-end weekly volume. He also leads the Chiefs with six end zone targets, double that of the next closest player. Hill has not cleared 74 yards against the Broncos since Vic Fangio has been there but has scored four touchdowns in those four games. Continue to roll Hill out as a top fantasy option.

Broncos WRs: This pass-catching unit is frustrating for fantasy because the passing volume just is not reliable enough to make anyone someone to get excited about. 

Last week, all of Jerry Jeudy, Tim Patrick, and Courtland Sutton received three targets each.

In the five games that all three wideouts have played together, only Jeudy has topped six targets in a game, something he has done in three of them. In those five games, Jeudy has 31 targets compared to 21 for Patrick and just 15 for Sutton. 

Patrick is the only wideout to catch a touchdown (two of them) in those five games, but in his games without a touchdown, has been the WR45, WR65, and WR67.

The Chiefs are only allowing 11.2 receptions per game to opposing wideouts (third) and a 61.2% catch rate (eighth) on targets to wide receivers, but they have allowed a 5.5% touchdown rate to the position (23rd). 

At this point we cannot trust Sutton outside of a single-game DFS dart, leaving Jeudy as floor-based WR3 in PPR formats and Patrick as a touchdown-dependent WR4.

Chiefs WRs: Prior to the bye, Byron Pringle continued to operate as the WR2 in the Kansas City offense, running a pass route on 65.9% of the dropbacks. In the two games prior to the bye, Pringle surpassed Mecole Hardman, who was relegated to 33.3% and 18.2% route participation after a 69.2% rate prior. Pringle has used that opportunity to produce games of 4-46-1 and 1-37-0, so we’re still grasping for fantasy purposes outside of single-game DFS heaves.

Tight End

Travis Kelce: Kelce exits the bye week in a familiar place as the highest scoring tight end in fantasy. He hit the bye week catching 5-of-8 targets for 74 yards while adding a rushing touchdown to his line. Kelce oddly only has one end zone target so far this season as really the only rub.

Denver just allowed their first touchdown to a tight end last week against Jared Cook and they have a solid resume of opponents with Darren Waller (5-59-0), Mark Andrews (5-67-0), and Dalton Schultz (4-54-0) as the sample. That said, find anyone not treating Kelce as the TE1 in fantasy.

Noah Fant: Fant turned in another lackluster fantasy game in Week 12, catching 3-of-4 targets for 12 yards. Since being the TE1 overall scorer in Week 6, Fant has 15 catches for 118 yards over his past four games played with zero touchdowns. 

In the seven games Fant has played with Albert Okwuegbunam this year, he is averaging 4.0 receptions for 33.6 yards per game with two touchdowns while running a pass route on 73.1% of the dropbacks compared to an 86.4% route rate otherwise. 

The Chiefs are dead last in yards allowed per target (9.0 yards) to opposing tight ends, but after matchups against the Eagles and Chargers yielded marginal results for Fant, it is hard to elevate him solely for opponent over being on the TE1/TE2 line.

More Week 13 Fantasy breakdowns from The Worksheet:

DAL at NO | ARI at CHI | NYG at MIA | TB at ATL | MIN at DET | IND at HOU | PHI at NYJ | LAC at CIN | SF at SEA | WFT at LVR | JAX at LAR | BAL at PIT | DEN at KC | NE at BUF