The Worksheet, a comprehensive fantasy football preview by Rich Hribar, breaks down everything you need to know about the Week 1 matchup between the Broncos and Raiders.
Find a breakdown of every Week 1 NFL game in our Worksheet Hub.
| Las Vegas | Rank | @ | Denver | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | Spread | -4 | ||
| 20.0 | Implied Total | 24.0 | ||
| 23.2 | 13 | Points/Gm | 16.9 | 32 |
| 24.6 | 26 | Points All./Gm | 21.1 | 12 |
| 61.7 | 21 | Plays/Gm | 63.4 | 16 |
| 63.4 | 17 | Opp. Plays/Gm | 63.5 | 19 |
| 5.7 | 7 | Off. Yards/Play | 5.1 | 23 |
| 5.8 | 27 | Def. Yards/Play | 5 | 6 |
| 40.80% | 19 | Rush% | 41.19% | 17 |
| 59.20% | 14 | Pass% | 58.81% | 16 |
| 42.71% | 14 | Opp. Rush % | 40.59% | 9 |
| 57.29% | 19 | Opp. Pass % | 59.41% | 24 |
- Since 2000, Denver is 23-3 at home in Weeks 1-2, the best record in the NFL. They are 15-8-3 against the spread in those games (.652), fourth in the league.
- Just 22.6% of the Denver drives reached the red zone or resulted in a touchdown, the lowest rate in the league.
- Denver was dead last in the NFL in touchdown rate per drive (14.5%) in 2022.
- The Raiders scored 42.8% of their drives in 2022, second to only the Chiefs (44.2%).
- 45.1% of the scoring plays against Denver in 2022 were touchdowns, the lowest rate in the league.
- The Broncos had a 35.7% success rate on passing plays in 2022, ahead of only the Texans (35.1%).
- Denver had a league-worst 0-5 record in games that they led at halftime in 2022.
- The Raiders were 31st, going 3-6 in games they led at the half.
Trust = spike production for that player
Quarterback
Russell Wilson: There is not much good to say about Wilson’s first year in Denver.
He had career lows in completion rate (60.5%) and touchdown rate (3.3%) while his 7.3 yards per pass attempt was the second-lowest rate of his career.
Wilson ranked ahead of only Davis Mills, Kyler Murray, Carson Wentz, Kenny Pickett, and Zach Wilson in success rate as a passer.
For fantasy, he was the QB20 in points per game (15.0).
Where Wilson has to do a better job moving forward under Sean Payton is adapting his game to how the current NFL is played.
Wilson has always been a big-game hunter at quarterback.
Even though Nathaniel Hackett takes the brunt of what went wrong in Denver last season, Wilson and his offenses always end up looking the same.
No matter how many times we have heard the “let him cook” narrative, Wilson himself needs to calibrate his game to the way teams are playing defensively.
Wilson threw the ball deep on 16.6% of his passes, second in the NFL. He was 27th in throw rate between the numbers (40.5%) and 26th in short throw rate (44.3%).
Wilson just has to do a better job of making easier plays on early downs setting up shorter third downs and outright avoiding them.
Just 29.2% of Wilson’s third-down passes resulted in a first down or touchdown, 42nd out of 47 passers to throw 100 or more passes in 2022.
There is hope that Sean Payton can be the one to facilitate that change, but the preseason did not provide any immediate relief.
On 22 preseason dropbacks, Wilson completed 10-of-19 passes (52.6%) for 117 yards (6.2 Y/A) with a touchdown.
He also lost some weaponry along the way with injuries to Jerry Jeudy, Tim Patrick, and K.J. Hamler.
As bad as things were, Wilson did still provide some hope to end the season, closing the season with three top-five scoring weeks over his final four starts, so we know the ceiling is still here.
Also, while Wilson did not have many good outings in 2022, he was good both weeks against the Raiders.
In his two meetings with Las Vegas, Wilson completed 41-of-56 passes (73.2%) for 484 yards (8.6 Y/A) with two passing touchdowns and a rushing score.
The Raiders were a defense we regularly targeted for streaming in 2022 and have not made many objective upgrades on that side of the ball this offseason.
Marcus Peters and Marcus Epps were their adds to a secondary that was 28th in points allowed per pass attempt (0.450), 7.3 Y/A (26th), a 67.6% completion rate (29th), and 15.6 passing points per game (29th).
Wilson is not an easy quarterback to start in 1QB leagues, but he is a matchup-based QB2 and someone to nibble on in large-field tournaments in DFS.
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