Chiefs vs. Ravens Fantasy Football Worksheet, Week 1

The Worksheet, a comprehensive fantasy football preview by Rich Hribar, breaks down everything you need to know about the Week 1 matchup between the Ravens and Chiefs on Thursday Night Football.

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Trust = spike production for that player

Quarterback

Patrick Mahomes: Mahomes had an “off year” by his career standards in 2023.

He threw a career-high 14 interceptions while posting career-lows in touchdown rate (4.5%), yards per pass attempt (7.0), yards per completion (10.4), and passing yards per game (261.4).

He closed the season 10th in EPA per dropback (0.07) and 10th in success rate (45.2%).

Averaging a career-low 15.5 passing points per game last season (10th among quarterbacks), Mahomes was the QB14 in points per game overall (17.5).

Mahomes struggled due to his surrounding pass catchers failing to deliver, compounded with Travis Kelce playing through injuries and having a down year compared to his Hall of Fame standards.

Kelce ran a route on 71.7% of the team dropbacks, his lowest rate in the Mahomes era.

That led the team.

The only other Kansas City skill players on the field for at least half of the team dropbacks were Marquez Valdes-Scantling (62.1%), Rashee Rice (54.5%), and Justin Watson (51.3%).

Mahomes had no downfield presence at wide receiver, something this team has lacked since trading away Tyreek Hill.

On throws 10 yards or further downfield, Mahomes had his lowest passing volume paired with some of the worst rates of his career in nearly every department.

He was 28th in the NFL in rating (65.1) on those passes.

He completed just 45.8% of those passes with 2 touchdowns and 9 interceptions.

Struggling to push the football down the field since Hill was traded, the Chiefs emphasized getting an infusion of speed paired with upside at wide receiver this offseason by adding Marquise Brown and Xavier Worthy.

Brown is not expected to play in the season opener, but this Kansas City offense should push the ball downfield more this season.

That will be tested against a Baltimore defense going through some transition themselves.

Personnel-wise, the Baltimore defense is still largely intact from a year ago, but Mike Macdonald moved on to Seattle this offseason after two successful seasons as the defensive coordinator.

Over those two seasons, the Ravens were fourth in yards allowed per pass attempt (6.5) and third in touchdown passes allowed (1.1 per game).

The Ravens only allowed five top-10 scoring weeks to an opposing quarterback under Macdonald.

When these teams played in the Conference Championship last season, Mahomes opened the game completing all 10 of his passes in the first quarter for 8.6 yards per attempt and a touchdown.

He threw for 5.3 yards per attempt without a touchdown over the final three quarters.

Zachary Orr is replacing Macdonald in his first opportunity as a coordinator.

He will be tested right out of the gate against Mahomes and Andy Reid.

The former linebacker has been with the Ravens staff for seven of the past eight years as a defensive analyst and linebackers coach.

Working under Macdonald, Dean Pees, and Wink Martindale, Orr is expected to carry an aggressive mindset.

Mahomes is one of the least blitzed quarterbacks and was again last season.

He was blitzed on only 20.5% of his dropbacks, the fourth-lowest rate in the league in 2023.

But there was a drop-off when he was blitzed.

Mahomes was 24th in the NFL with 6.4 yards per attempt when blitzed last season, down from his career rate of 8.3 yards per attempt.

Macdonald upped their seasonal blitz rate (20.2%) against Mahomes in the AFC Championship (22.7%) with success.

In that game, Mahomes was 6-of-10 for just 42 yards (4.2 Y/A) when blitzed.

With the Chiefs expected to be without Brown, things could look more of the same as a year ago before this passing game gets ramped up, but the addition of Worthy paired with Orr being in his first game as a defensive playcaller opens the door for added upside in an otherwise tougher matchup on paper.

With this being the season opener, both offenses could come out flat, but that same potential exists for the defensive side of the ball.

Before last season’s fistfight, these two teams had combined to score 71, 54, 61, and 51 points in matchups between Mahomes and Lamar Jackson.

Even if we are setting expectations lower based on respect for the Baltimore defensive personnel, Mahomes is a mid-range QB1 option to kick off the season.

Lamar Jackson: After missing crucial chunks of the 2021 and 2022 seasons, Jackson was able to stay healthy for a full season, winning his second MVP Award.

He set career highs with a 67.2% completion rate and 8.0 yards per pass attempt.

His 12.0 yards per completion was his highest since his rookie season.

In the first half of games last season, Baltimore had a 63.8% dropback rate, which was ninth in the NFL.

In the first half of games, Baltimore outscored their opponents by a league-high 142 points.

As a byproduct, Baltimore carried a 48.6% dropback rate in the second half of games, the lowest rate in the NFL.

That was not the case when these teams played in the AFC Championship, and it drew criticism from many outside of the organization.

The Ravens dropped back to pass on a season-high 80.7% of their plays in the AFC Title Game, running just eight times without Jackson.

Even more befuddling in terms of approach, the Chiefs entered that matchup ranking fifth in the league in success rate against the pass compared to 27th in success rate against the run.

Needless to say, Jackson did not find success.

He completed just 54.1% of his passes with 1 touchdown and 1 interception, taking 4 sacks.

The Chiefs were a stingy defense against the pass last season, ranking seventh in passing points allowed per game (11.4) and sixth in passing points allowed per attempt (0.350).

Steve Spagnuolo has often sent everything at Jackson.

The Chiefs blitzed Jackson 43.5% of the time in the AFC Championship, their second-highest rate in a game last season.

Their seasonal blitz rate was 29.2%.

In his four games against Jackson as a defensive coordinator with Kansas City, Spagnuolo has blitzed on 38.6% of the dropbacks compared to a base rate of 28.6%.

In those outings against the blitz, Jackson has completed just 51.9% of his passes for 6.7 yards per attempt and 2 touchdowns.

Baltimore will be starting a rookie right tackle in Roger Rosengarten while shuffling in a pair of new starting guards in Daniel Faalele and rookie Andrew Vorhees.

Faalele logged only 101 pass-blocking snaps in 2023 but received the lowest pass-blocking grade of any Baltimore offensive lineman per Pro Football Focus.

In the four games against Spagnuolo, Jackson has averaged only 9.3 passing points per game for fantasy.

The silver lining is that Jackson has rushed for 11.8 fantasy points per game in those matchups.

Jackson has rushed for 46, 83, 107, and 54 yards with 3 total rushing scores.

Like Mahomes, I am not outright expecting a ceiling performance here in this matchup, but Jackson’s rushing production is always in play to keep him afloat as a QB1 option.

As noted with Mahomes, this being an early-season kickoff provides an extra element of variance.

While I would expect the outcome of this game to be lower scoring for each team based on where they will end the season, there is still shootout potential here.

Running Back

Derrick Henry: Henry is coming off a season in which he scored fewer fantasy points per game for the second consecutive campaign.

His RB16 rank in points per game was the first time since 2018 that he was not an RB1 in that category.

Henry rushed for a career-low in yards per carry (4.2).

He also played just 53% of the snaps last season, his lowest rate in a season since 2018.

Over his previous four seasons, Henry played 64%, 66%, 71%, and 67% of the snaps.

But make no mistake, Henry was still a workhorse back.

Despite giving away more snaps in 2023, Henry still led the NFL in rushing attempts for the fourth time over the past five seasons.

He got there because when Henry was on the field, he was getting the football.

The Titans ran the ball on 58.2% of the snaps that Henry played last season.

The only running back with a higher rate who also played more than 200 snaps was Tyler Allgeier (60.6%).

If looking down the board a few pegs, Gus Edwards sported a 54.3% rate, which was the sixth highest among running backs.

Although Henry did have some peripheral decline, he also still managed to clear 1,000 yards rushing and rush for double-digit touchdowns for the sixth consecutive season.

Touchdowns should be an available resource with the Ravens.

Henry found paydirt that many times on a Tennessee team that ranked 27th in points per game (17.9) and was 26th in points per drive (1.65).

He is joining a Baltimore team that was fourth in the NFL in points per game (27.7) and sixth in points per drive (2.35).

The Ravens had 74 red zone possessions in 2023 (fifth) while the Titans had 48 (23rd) and Henry still found his way to double-digit touchdowns.

The Ravens ran the football 59.6% of the time in the red zone, which was second in the league behind the Eagles (63.0%).

The difference between the Ravens and the Eagles, however, is that their mobile quarterback did not bogart all of the scoring opportunities.

Baltimore running backs accounted for 20 total rushing touchdowns in 2023 with Edwards leaving 13 scores behind in his final season with the Ravens.

Ravens running backs had 40 rushing attempts in goal-to-goal situations last year (fourth in the league).

Inside of the five-yard line, Baltimore backs were third in the NFL with 25 rushes.

Philadelphia running backs had zero rushes from the one-yard line while Jalen Hurts had all of them.

The Ravens backfield carried 8-of-10 rushing attempts from the one-yard line.

Henry just turned 30 this January, so a peripheral decline is expected in terms of his efficiency and his reduced snap count cutting out the empty calorie snaps he played.

Going further under the hood, Henry’s explosive run rate was a career low.

At his age, we should expect some recoil in that area.

But Henry remained a bulldozer, ranking eighth in the league in yards after contact per rush (3.32 yards) out of 49 running backs to carry the ball 100 or more times.

Baltimore has several moving parts on their offensive line and is on the road here, but I would wager any dollar amount that the Ravens run Henry more than they did Edwards and Justice Hill in the AFC Championship when they combined for just six rushing attempts.

The Chiefs were vulnerable to run again last season, allowing 4.4 yards per carry to opposing running backs (25th) while allowing 1.36 yards before contact per rush (23rd).

For Henry, the largest obstacle will be Baltimore hanging in a tight script since we are still expecting Hill to play on passing downs, and of course, finding the end zone.

He averaged 19.4 PPR points per game in his weeks with a touchdown.

He averaged just 5.5 per game in his weeks without a touchdown.

In his eight games without a touchdown, Henry was a top-24 scorer just twice.

In non-PPR formats, Henry is a locked-in RB1 option, but he is more touchdown-dependent on reaching his ceiling in PPR leagues.

Isiah Pacheco: Building on the way he finished his rookie season in 2022, Pacheco turned 249 touches into 1,179 yards and 9 touchdowns over 14 games in his second season.

In 2023, Pacheco ranked 25th among running backs in success rate as a runner (37.1%) and 24th in explosive run rate (9.8%).

What is alluring about Pacheco from a fantasy stance is his attachment to the Kansas City offense as a whole creating scoring opportunities paired with how the Chiefs have handled this offseason.

Even in a season that was a mixed bag for this offense in 2023, Kansas City still ranked seventh in the NFL in red zone possessions and was second in goal-to-go plays.

Pacheco accounted for 10 of the Kansas City runs inside the five-yard line while the rest of the running backs on the roster combined for five.

He was sixth among all running backs in expected points inside of the red zone while operating as a part-time player for the crux of the season.

The status of this depth chart is what gives Pacheco the most appeal taking a step forward as a fantasy RB1.

The team only retained Clyde Edwards-Helaire as a threat to Pacheco, rookie Carson Steele was the best of the backups this preseason, and Samaje Perine just joined the team.

After running a route on just 20.4% of the team dropbacks as a rookie in 2022, Pacheco climbed up to a 37.3% rate last season.

In the five games that Jerick McKinnon missed last season, Pacheco ran a route on 47.5% of the team dropbacks.

That rate would have ranked as RB13 for the full season.

In the 10 games in which Pacheco ran a route on 40% or more of the team dropbacks, he averaged 17.6 touches and 15.3 PPR points per game.

Any time Reid utilized a running back as a three-down player, that player was extremely profitable for fantasy purposes.

Will Perine compromise that three-down opportunity?

Perine may impact things for Pacheco’s outlook big picture, but with him joining the roster in the 11th hour of the offseason, I would anticipate Pacheco having control of this backfield in the opener.

Pacheco played 70% or more of the offensive snaps in all four postseason games last season, handling 93-of-108 backfield touches (86.1%).

That type of volume paired with scoring potential is enough to keep Pacheco in play as a volume-based RB1 in tough matchups, which we have here.

Pacheco only rushed for 2.8 yards per carry when these teams played in the playoffs last year, but he logged 28 total touches and found the end zone.

Wide Receiver

Zay Flowers: Flowers caught 77-of-108 targets for 858 yards and 5 touchdowns as a rookie, adding a rushing touchdown to his totals.

Flowers finished seventh among rookies in yards per route run (1.65) and sixth in target rate per route (20.7%).

He did receive a bump as a rookie with Mark Andrews missing so much time.

Flowers ran 273 routes with Andrews on the field.

On those routes, he was targeted on 19.0% of them with 2 touchdowns.

On 314 routes with Andrews absent, Flowers was targeted on 22.0% of his routes with 4 touchdowns.

Flowers roughed up the Chiefs with five catches for 115 yards and a touchdown in the AFC Championship, which aligns with Andrews only running 12 routes in that game after returning from injury.

The Chiefs were second in points per game to opposing WR1 last season (11.3), but they are now without L’Jarius Sneed and have several moving parts on the back end.

They still have Trent McDuffie, but after an injury to Joshua Williams this preseason, Jaylen Watson, Chamarri Conner, and Nazeeh Johnson are going to play a lot at cornerback early in the season as Kansas City calibrates the loss of Sneed.

Andrews playing in full does impact Flowers, but all of the moving pieces at cornerback give Flowers a path to another upside outcome as a WR2 to kick off the season.

If Spagnuolo remains aggressive with his play calling, that benefits where Flowers earned targets as a rookie.

Kansas City played man coverage on 33.0% of their snaps last season, which was the fifth-highest rate in the league.

As a rookie, Flowers was targeted on 24.0% of his routes against man coverage as opposed to an 18.9% rate versus zone coverage.

Flowers was also targeted on a team-high 24.5% of his routes when Jackson was blitzed last season compared to an 18.7% rate when he was not blitzed.

Rashee Rice: Over the final 10 games last season, Rice jumped up to 2.59 yards per route run in a larger role in the offense.

He ran a route on 69.4% of the team dropbacks with a 23.9% share of the team targets to close the year.

He had at least 19.0% of the team targets in each of the final 10 games of the season with over 25.0% of the targets in seven of those 10 games.

By the end of the season, Rice caught 79 passes for 938 yards and 7 touchdowns in the regular season, adding another 26 catches for 262 yards and a touchdown in the postseason.

Rice found his niche by producing after the catch.

70.8% of his receiving yards came after the catch, the highest rate among qualifying wide receivers.

Rice only averaged 4.6 air yards per target, ahead of only Parris Campbell and Kadarius Toney.

83.7% of his targets as a rookie were fewer than 10 yards downfield, which led the league.

While that could be viewed as something unstable moving forward. Rice caught a ton of screens in college.

There is room for Rice’s route tree and role to expand, but at minimum, the Chiefs found where Rice succeeded and used him in that capacity to maximum effectiveness.

This preseason, Rice picked up right where he left off.

He led all Kansas City players with 17 routes run with Mahomes on the field.

On those plays, he was targeted six times (35.3%) with 2.06 yards per route run.

Rice did only have 46 yards when these teams played in the AFC Championship last year, but he caught eight passes and had nine targets (with a touchdown called back due to a penalty).

The Ravens were stingy overall to wideouts last year, allowing a league-low 6.2 yards per target and 10.9 yards per catch to the position.

With Marquise Brown on the shelf for the opener, Rice should be in line for another volume-based opportunity, but he has a higher floor as a WR2 in full-PPR formats while being more of a touchdown-dependent WR3 in non-PPR formats given the matchup.

Xavier Worthy: No player helped himself more than Worthy at the NFL Combine. He ran a 4.21 time in the 40-yard dash, the fastest time for a wide receiver ever.

Worthy also backed up that juice in straight-line speed by posting a 95th percentile explosion score, logging a 41-inch vertical and a 10-foot-11-inch broad jump.

We know we are working with an explosive player.

The Chiefs had fast wideouts in Marquez Valdes-Scantling and Justin Watson running a ton of routes last year, but neither were receivers who commanded targets.

This preseason, Worthy showcased his upside, drawing a target on 31.6% of his routes with 3.26 yards per route run.

He caught his preseason touchdown from Carson Wentz, but Worthy did run a route on 88.9% of the dropbacks for Mahomes this preseason, drawing a target on 25.0% of those routes (he caught 1-of-4 targets for 39 yards from Mahomes).

With Marquise Brown not expected to play in Week 1, Worthy should be set up to play close to a full-time role, giving him added appeal as a boom-or-bust WR3/FLEX option.

If not for the respect this Baltimore defense commands, Worthy would have added appeal as a must-start player when your team is at full strength, but this is as good of a path he will have to early-season opportunities.

Justin Watson: Watson should be expected to at least log snaps in the opener with Brown expected to miss the game.

Watson ran a route on 77.8% of the dropbacks for Mahomes this preseason after a 53.7% rate last season (which was fourth on the team).

The downside is that Watson was only targeted on 13.5% of his routes last season.

Outside of taking a flyer in single-game DFS stacks based on snap potential, Watson is not much of a fantasy play.

Ravens WRs: Rashod Bateman and Nelson Agholor are the favorites to log snaps at wide receiver for Baltimore, but neither are plays outside of hoping to land a touchdown in single-game DFS.

Bateman has earned praise in the offseason, but Agholor bested him in yards per route run last season.

Bateman is only a hold for deeper leagues in hopes of a breakout.

His 15.9% target rate per route run last season is a low bar to clear this year, but we have yet to see Jackson support third and fourth options in the passing game to this point. We are still leaning on Mark Andrews and Zay Flowers as the favorites for targets here.

Tight End

Travis Kelce: After a superb run of staying healthy, Kelce started the 2023 season dealing with a knee injury and then suffered a low-ankle sprain in Week 5.

He battled through 15 regular season games but had career lows in yards per catch (10.6) and yards per target (8.1).

He had never averaged fewer than 12.0 yards per catch in any season of his career.

His 65.6 receiving yards per game were his fewest in a season since 2015.

He was only on the field for 71.7% of the team dropbacks, his lowest rate since his first season of action in 2014.

Kelce played 77% of the team snaps in total.

His overall snap rate has now dropped from the season prior in five consecutive seasons.

That said, while the Chiefs have been more cognizant of getting Kelce snaps off, they are doing so by removing his involvement in the run game.

With Kelce on the field last season, the Chiefs had a 70.7% dropback rate, which would have led the NFL.

With Kelce off the field last season, the Chiefs had only a 51.4% dropback rate, which would have been last in the NFL.

Kelce might be conceding some snaps, but the majority of those missed snaps were not going to result in fantasy points for him to begin with.

Despite playing through injuries and producing a down season for his career standards, Kelce still was the TE1 in points per game in PPR formats (14.6) and matched Sam LaPorta’s 11.5 points per game in 0.5-PPR formats.

Once we got into the postseason, Kelce turned up the dial and showed the upside he still has.

In four playoff games, he caught 32 passes for 355 yards and 3 touchdowns including collecting all 11 of his targets for 116 yards and a touchdown in Baltimore in that AFC Title Game.

With Roquan Smith and Kyle Hamilton, you would expect the Ravens to be elite against opposing tight ends. They did allow a 72.3% completion rate (20th), but only 9.8 yards per catch (8th) and 7.1 yards per target (12th).

None of that mattered for Kelce, however.

Entering the season healthy, he remains a front-end TE1.

Mark Andrews: Andrews was still an alpha option when on the field last season.

He was third among all tight ends in yards per route run (1.96) and ranked ninth in target rate per route (22.0%).

When on the field in Weeks 2-11, Andrews was third among all tight ends in fantasy points and expected fantasy points.

Despite the addition and success of Zay Flowers, Andrews remained the top target in Baltimore.

When on the field, Andrews commanded a team-high 27.4% of the targets.

When he was available, Andrews received 43.8% of the Baltimore targets in the red zone and 40.0% of their throws into the end zone.

Andrews has the perfect usage we look for from a tight end.

He played in-line on just 12.3% of his snaps, the lowest rate of any tight end who was drafted in the top 36 of preseason ADP.

He was also first among that group in the rate of snaps from the slot.

Andrews was also targeted on 46.5% of his routes when he was in the slot, the highest rate at the position.

We just need him to stay on the field.

Andrews only appeared in 10 games in 2023.

He missed the season opener with a quad injury and then was knocked out for the rest of the regular season with a fractured ankle in November.

Andrews did return for the AFC Championship but was only able to play 31% of the snaps (he ran 12 pass routes).

We mentioned the splits for Zay Flowers potentially holding some signal if the Chiefs remain hyper-aggressive with blitzing and man coverage.

Andrews had the inverse rates against man coverage and the blitz.

Against man coverage, Andrews was targeted on 17.5% of his routes compared to a 23.9% rate against zone coverage.

When blitzed, Andrews commanded a target on 20.4% of his routes compared to a 22.5% rate when Lamar Jackson was not blitzed.

The Chiefs were excellent against tight ends in 2023, allowing only 6.3 yards per target (2nd in the league), 8.8 yards per catch (3rd), and a 2.9% touchdown rate (6th) to the position.

Baltimore tight ends caught 4-of-5 targets for 31 yards in the AFC Championship.

The Chiefs also moved on from their worst coverage linebacker this offseason, Willie Gay.

Andrews was a shell of himself in that game and still carries as much opportunity and upside as any tight end, but as is the case with the majority of pieces in this game, early expectations are muted to a degree.

In four matchups against the Chiefs with Spagnuolo, Andrews has had games of 3-15-0, 3-22-0, 5-57-0, and 2-15-0.

More Week 1 fantasy breakdowns from The Worksheet: