The Worksheet, a comprehensive fantasy football preview by Rich Hribar, breaks down everything you need to know about the season-opening matchup between the Lions and Chiefs on Thursday night.
Find a breakdown of every Week 1 NFL game in our Worksheet Hub.
| Detroit | Rank | @ | Kansas City | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4.5 | Spread | -4.5 | ||
| 23.75 | Implied Total | 30.25 | ||
| 26.6 | 5 | Points/Gm | 29.2 | 1 |
| 25.1 | 28 | Points All./Gm | 22.2 | 18 |
| 64.2 | 13 | Plays/Gm | 64.0 | 14 |
| 63.3 | 14 | Opp. Plays/Gm | 64.4 | 25 |
| 5.9 | 4 | Off. Yards/Play | 6.3 | 1 |
| 6.2 | 32 | Def. Yards/Play | 5.2 | 9 |
| 43.96% | 14 | Rush% | 38.52% | 25 |
| 56.04% | 19 | Pass% | 61.48% | 8 |
| 44.33% | 22 | Opp. Rush % | 37.81% | 2 |
| 55.67% | 11 | Opp. Pass % | 62.19% | 31 |
- The Chiefs have won eight consecutive Week 1 games (6-2 ATS), the longest active streak in the league.
- Kansas City has averaged 36.4 points scored per game over that span, 37.8 per game with Patrick Mahomes as their starting quarterback.
- Games involving the Lions in 2022 averaged a league-high 51.8 combined points per game.
- Under Dan Campbell, the Lions are tied for a league-best 23-11 record against the spread (19-9 as an underdog).
- The Chiefs (36.9) and the Lions (36.0) were first and second in yardage gained per drive last season.
- The Chiefs led the NFL in points per drive last season (2.55).
- The Lions were third in the NFL in points per drive (2.40).
- Detroit allowed a league-high 2.32 points per drive in 2022.
- The Lions allowed a touchdown on a league-high 26.8% of opponent possessions while allowing a league-high 36.5 yards per drive.
- Detroit allowed a league-high 4.5 plays of 20 or more yards per game in 2022.
- The Chiefs averaged a league-high 4.9 plays of 20 or more yards per game in 2022.
Trust = spike production for that player
Quarterback
Patrick Mahomes (TRUST): Mahomes opens the 2023 season in a favorable spot at home against a Detroit defense that allowed a league-high 0.47 fantasy passing points per attempt. Detroit was 31st in yards allowed per pass attempt (7.9 Y/A) and dead last in yards allowed per completion (12.6 yards) while ranking 24th in touchdown rate allowed (4.6%).
Detroit has added defensive backs C.J. Gardner-Johnson and Cameron Sutton as well as re-vamping their linebacking corps by retaining Alex Anzalone and Charles Harris while drafting Jack Campbell, but this unit still has a lot to prove in terms of turning things around as a defense that we are concerned about limiting production.
Especially against Mahomes, who had just one game last season outside of the top-12 scorers (which was a QB13 finish).
Under Aaron Glenn, the Lions have been aggressive defensively. They ranked seventh in the NFL last season in blitz rate per dropback (33.5%) and were third in rate man coverage on passing plays (38.1%).
Mahomes was blitzed on 22.4% of his dropbacks a year ago (27th amongst qualifying passers), but he led all passers in EPA per dropback (0.26) when defenses sent extra defenders.
The Chiefs did face man coverage on a league-high 34.1% of their passing plays in 2022. On those dropbacks, Mahomes was second in the NFL in EPA per dropback (0.31).
In the preseason, Detroit played man coverage on 71.2% of passing plays while the next closest team was at 46.1%.
Outside of everything else, Mahomes has outright cooked in the season openers.
Over five Week 1 starts, Mahomes has thrown 18 touchdowns to zero interceptions, tossing three or more touchdowns in all five of those games.
Even without Travis Kelce available, Mahomes can make a lot work in this matchup.
Jared Goff (TRUST): After three straight down seasons, Goff bounced back last year with a solid campaign.
He threw 29 touchdown passes (the second most of his career) while setting a career-low interception rate (1.2%). His 7.6 yards per pass attempt were his most in a season since 2018.
For fantasy, Goff was strong to close the season, finishing as a top-six scorer in four of his final six starts.
He will look to pick things up in a game where we should anticipate Detroit needing to pace the scoreboard. We should also expect Dan Campbell to play things aggressively, something he has done in the past when Detroit has been tasked to punch up against competition.
The Chiefs force teams to throw, seeing the second-highest pass rate in the league and facing the third-most pass attempts last season.
Kansas City only allowed 6.7 yards per pass attempt in 2022 (seventh), but as a byproduct of all of the passing volume they faced, they were 25th in the league in passing yardage allowed per game (243.4 yards).
They also allowed a league-high 5.4% touchdown rate through the air, which led to them allowing 16.3 passing points per game, 31st in the league. The Chiefs allowed 12 different passers to throw multiple touchdown passes in the regular season.
We also may not have Chris Jones on the field for the Chiefs, who is still holding out for a new contract.
With Jones on the field a year ago, Kansas City pressured opposing quarterbacks on 35.5% of passing plays. That rate would have ranked fifth in the league over the full season.
With Jones off the field, that rate dropped to 27.4%, which was 29th in the league.
Running Back
Lions RB: We will get our first look at Jahmyr Gibbs and David Montgomery playing together this season as Montgomery sat out the entire preseason.
Detroit leaned heavily into a compartmentalized backfield split last season between Jamaal Williams and D’Andre Swift, but Montgomery is more of a full-field asset than Williams was. We could see Montgomery operate in an expanded role versus the one that Williams had.
While there is some ambiguity here in terms of early-season usage, the game environment and opportunity for both backs are strong enough to consider each as viable RB2/FLEX options with upside for more.
The Chiefs were middle of the road defending the run last season, allowing 4.3 yards per carry to running backs (15th) with a 62.4% success rate (14th) on those attempts.
This is another spot where the potential absence of Chris Jones can be felt. With Jones off the field, running backs rushed for 4.8 YPC against Kansas City, which would have been 26th in the league.
But since the Chiefs control game scripts so heavily, they also do not face a lot of runs altogether. They faced the fourth-fewest running back rushes in the league last season while teams were forced to press things through the air.
This is where the Chiefs have been the most vulnerable for fantasy production from backfields, which bodes well for Gibbs in his NFL debut.
The Chiefs were 31st in the league in receiving points allowed to running backs last season (12.7 per game), allowing the most receptions (112) out of the backfield.
This is not just a one-year development, either. Over the four years before last season, the Chiefs have ranked 29th, 32nd, 31st, and 27th in receiving points allowed to running backs.
Out of the backfield, Gibbs averaged a 2023 class-high 3.3 receptions per game over his college career at Georgia Tech and Alabama. His receptions rose all three seasons.
This past year, he was targeted on 21.4% of his routes (second in the class), catching 44-of-52 targets for 444 yards and three touchdowns.
We could see Montgomery play more passing downs than expected, and we are going to need both of these backs to get into the end zone to hit their ceilings while sharing work, but this is the type of matchup and game environment made for what Gibbs does best.
In full-PPR formats, give Gibbs a significant boost since his floor should be sturdier here with the potential to have a true RB1 ceiling should he reach the end zone.
Chiefs RB: When we last saw this backfield in action in the Super Bowl, we had clarity with Isiah Pacheco operating as the early-down grinder on the ground and Jerick McKinnon as the passing down specialist. Clyde Edwards-Helaire was scratched for that game.
With Pacheco missing most of the offseason with a shoulder injury and logging just one preseason carry, there is a good chance that we will see Kansas City roll out a combination of Pacheco and Edwards-Helaire while McKinnon still lingers as the passing-down option.
Isiah Pacheco improved the output of the Kansas City running game once he took over as the primary ball carrier in Week 10.
Pacheco played just 50% of the offensive snaps in three games (with a high of 57%). He caught just 13 passes all season and did not log a single reception on third down since he ran just five total pass routes on third down during the regular season.
Pacheco is a touchdown-dependent FLEX player with the potential that his already thin role could be stunted to open the year.
Detroit improved over the back half of 2022 but could still be run on.
The Lions closed the year allowing 4.7 YPC to backs (26th) with a 58.9% success rate on those rushes (26th).
After their Week 6 bye, they allowed 4.4 YPC (19th) with a 62.2% success rate (16th), allowing a first down or touchdown on 21.4% of those attempts (14th).
In the passing game, Detroit allowed a league-low 4.9 receiving points per game to running backs.
That also leaves McKinnon as a touchdown-or-bust FLEX play in full-PPR formats only.
Kansas City running backs were second in the NFL in receiving yards (826) in 2022 while leading the league with 12 receiving touchdowns.
McKinnon was a huge part of that as he accounted for a 56-512-9 receiving line on 71 targets a year ago.
He had just seven receiving touchdowns over his first six years in the league, so it will be hard to bank on a repeat scoring performance.
In games in which McKinnon did not score a touchdown, he averaged 6.2 PPR points per game.
Edwards-Helaire also received more work in this area during the preseason. He ran 12 pass routes with Mahomes in the game this preseason to McKinnon’s five.
It needs to be said, however, that Mahomes did not play with Pacheco available this preseason.
Edwards-Helaire is a dart looking to luck-box into a score for showdown slates.
Wide Receiver
Amon-Ra St. Brown (TRUST): Building off the strong second-half break out of his rookie season, St. Brown closed his second season as the WR11 in points per game, catching 106 passes for 1,161 yards and six touchdowns.
St. Brown was second behind only Tyreek Hill in target rate per route run (30.3%) among wideouts while he accounted for 33.3% of his team targets when he was on the field, which also only trailed Hill (36.2%).
Detroit still has little to prevent this passing game from completely running through St. Brown again with Jameson Williams set to serve a six-game suspension to open the season.
St. Brown’s strongest immediate target competition is set to be rookies Jahmyr Gibbs and Sam LaPorta, who aren’t even wide receivers.
The only minor bugaboo for St. Brown is that he is more volume-dependent than the other front-end wideouts. In full-PPR formats, he is a much stronger option as we wait to see his game evolve to the “discount Cooper Kupp” levels we are hopeful to exist.
St. Brown’s 6.5 air yards per target ranked 130th among wideouts while just 4.1% of his targets were deep targets, a rate only ahead of JuJu Smith-Schuster and Richie James among 140 wide receivers to run 100 or more pass routes.
St. Brown was in the slot for 54.0% of his routes in 2022.
Kansas City allowed just 6.9 yards per target (second in the league) to opposing slot wide receivers, but due to the volume of pass attempts that they faced, they were 26th in the league in fantasy points allowed per game from the slot (13.5 points).
43.7% of the receptions that the Chiefs allowed to wide receivers overall came via the slot, which was 27th in the NFL. They also allowed a 5.4% touchdown rate on targets to slot wideouts, which was 23rd.
As a capper, no team allowed more points per game to WR1 targets than the Chiefs did in 2022 (19.6 per game).
