Chiefs vs. Lions Fantasy Football Worksheet, Week 6

The Worksheet, a comprehensive fantasy football preview by Rich Hribar, breaks down everything you need to know about the Week 6 matchup between the Lions and Chiefs on Sunday Night Football.

Find a breakdown of every Week 6 NFL game in our Worksheet Hub.

Trust = spike production for that player

Quarterback

Patrick Mahomes: Mahomes has been a top-seven scorer in four of the opening five games this season.

Mahomes has three games with scrambling touchdowns of 11, 13, and 9 yards.

He has thrown multiple passing touchdowns just once.

However, since getting Xavier Worthy back, Mahomes has posted a new season high in yards per attempt in each of the past two weeks.

He threw for a season-high 318 yards with a season-high 70.7% completion rate on Monday night.

In a potential high-scoring game environment, Mahomes is a front-end fantasy QB1.

Detroit has a 37.6% pressure rate (12th) and a 9.2% sack rate (3rd), but when they fail to generate pressure on the opposing passer, their pass defense has struggled.

Without pressure, the Lions have allowed 7.7 yards per pass attempt (23rd) and a 5.5% touchdown rate (22nd).

With pressure, they have allowed 5.8 Y/A (12th) and a 2.1% touchdown rate (6th).

The Lions are 20th in passing points allowed per game (14.8).

We brought this up last week, but the Detroit cornerback room is now down starting cornerbacks D.J. Reed and Terrion Arnold, further opening up the upside for Mahomes.

Jared Goff: Goff was hyper-efficient on Sunday, connecting on 19 of 23 passes (82.6%) for 258 yards (11.2 Y/A) and 3 touchdowns against the Bengals.

That was Goff’s second QB1 scoring week of the season. Those have come against the Bears and Bengals.

I prefer to use Goff as a floor-based QB2 this week, but the game environment's upside can push a higher ceiling.

The Chiefs have only allowed 10.4 passing points per game (5th).

Running quarterbacks have been a problem, but Goff is unlikely to pose as a threat in that regard.

Where Goff can find success in this matchup is in the play-action game.

Goff is using play action on 32.4% of his dropbacks, second in the league behind Daniel Jones (32.7%).

Against play action passes, the Chiefs are 31st in rating allowed (119.5), surrendering 10.0 yards per pass attempt (31st) and a 74.7% completion rate (28th).

Against non-play action passes, the Chiefs have allowed a 61.9% completion rate (5th) and 5.7 yards per pass attempt (2nd).

The Chiefs also blitz 29.6% of the time, ranking eighth in the league.

Goff has the highest rating in the league when blitzed (136.6), completing 22 of 31 passes (71%) for 10.4 Y/A and 3 touchdowns with 0 interceptions.

One thing to keep an eye on here is the availability of Taylor Decker, who missed last week's game.

The Bengals are a bottom-six team in pressure rate, but the Chiefs are first in the league (45.9%).

Running Back

Jahmyr Gibbs: Gibbs turned 14 touches into 87 yards and a touchdown on Sunday.

After handling 67.5% and 60.7% of the backfield touches in Weeks 3 and 4, Gibbs only handled 42.4% on Sunday, which was a season low.

That could have been impacted by the game script or David Montgomery returning home for the first time to play in front of his family, breaking a trend where Gibbs was taking on a larger role.

In a broader context, I could see that I was more inclined to favor Gibbs here.

That said, Gibbs has not been as dynamic this season as we are accustomed to.

He has a run of 10 or more yards on 8.6% of his attempts, 30th in the league.

In his first two seasons, his explosive run rate was 14.8% and 16.4%.

Gibbs only has one 20-point fantasy outing.

Of course, the floor has remained high due to stellar touchdown equity and receiving work.

That is what keeps him in play as a fantasy RB1.

He has been a top-15 scorer every week this season.

Gibbs has 5 touchdowns and has been targeted on 25.8% of his routes (RB5).

The Chiefs have had some struggles slowing down the run.

They have allowed 4.9 yards per carry to running backs (27th) with a 56.2% success rate versus those attempts (25th).

What has saved them from being exploited is that they have faced only 17.8 running back runs per game, the fourth fewest in the league.

Detroit running backs average a league-high 27.2 attempts per game.

David Montgomery: Montgomery accrued a season-high 19 touches on Sunday, turning those into 71 total yards with a rushing touchdown and a passing touchdown.

There was a strong narrative surrounding Montgomery returning home to play in front of his sister for the first time, paired with a softer matchup, which could have propelled a season-high in usage.

In the last primetime game Detroit played, Montgomery had only 32.5% of the backfield touches.

Of course, he still posted 164 total yards and 2 touchdowns in that game.

There are matchup advantages here if Detroit can stay in a running game script, but I am still handling Montgomery as a touchdown-dependent FLEX, given his touch counts remain volatile.

Chiefs RBs: This remains a three-person backfield.

On Monday, Isiah Pacheco led the backfield in snaps (61.9%) and touches (10), posting 56 yards.

Pacheco is a purgatory back for fantasy, accruing a surplus of low-value touches.

Kareem Hunt had 8 touches for 57 yards and 2 touchdowns.

Hunt still has a monopoly on the high-value opportunities.

Hunt has 6 touches inside the 10-yard line compared to 1 for Pacheco and 1 for Brashard Smith.

Hunt has all 4 backfield touches inside the five-yard line.

Smith did not have his role extended in Week 5, playing 6 offensive snaps and catching 3 passes for 32 yards while rushing once for 4 yards.

Hunt is the only back here that is trustworthy for fantasy due to his scoring opportunities as a touchdown-dependent FLEX.

Pacheco and Smith remain lower-end FLEX plays, who need to have fortune finding the end zone.

Detroit has allowed 11.7 rushing points per game (15th) and 7.4 receiving points per game (9th) to backfields.

Wide Receiver

Amon-Ra St. Brown: St. Brown stayed hot on Sunday, securing 8 of 9 targets for 100 yards.

He did not find the end zone for the first time since Week 1, but it was his fourth straight game with at least 7 receptions.

Steve Spagnuolo has done a good job of taking away primary targets.

The Chiefs are second in the league in points allowed to WR1 targets (9.6 per game).

The Lions do a good job of moving St. Brown around to create opportunities for him, which keeps him in play as a WR1, especially in a high-scoring game environment.

St. Brown now has 29.3% of the team’s targets (WR6).

Factoring in the points made earlier about the play action pass and facing the blitz, St. Brown leads the team with a 28.3% target share on play action passes and a 34.5% target share against the blitz.

St. Brown plays in the slot 42.9% of the time.

40% of the receptions allowed by Kansas City to receivers have come via the slot, the seventh-highest share.

Xavier Worthy: Worthy caught 6 of 9 targets for 42 yards on Monday night, adding one rush for 9 yards to his total.

While the box score was not as strong as it was in his first game back, we saw his usage rise in his second game.

After running a route on 70.7% of the dropbacks in Week 4, Worthy was on the field for 80.4% of the dropbacks on Monday.

He has received 22.9% and 22.5% of the team's targets in his two games.

After having 17.6% of the first read targets in Week 4, Worthy had a 23.1% rate in Week 5 per Fantasy Points data.

With added playing time and the state of the cornerback room for Detroit, Worthy is an upside WR2.

Jameson Williams: Williams was not part of the offensive output on Sunday, catching his lone target for 9 yards.

Through five weeks, Williams has only one week as a top-50 scorer, posting 43 yards receiving or fewer in all but one game.

In his lone game as a functional scorer for fantasy, he only had 2 catches, but they went for 104 yards.

Williams has been targeted on only 14% of his routes, which would be the lowest rate of his career.

He is running more routes (96.2% of the dropbacks), which has lowered that rate, but it is still a lackluster total.

Additionally, the few targets Williams has received have not been catchable, as he is now relying on more downfield targets again.

Williams is averaging 20.8 air yards per target after 11.4 air yards per target last season.

42.9% of his targets have been 20 or more yards downfield after a 14.3% rate last year.

As a result, 33.3% of his targets have been inaccurate, following a 12.1% rate in the previous year.

We could get more dropbacks here in a high-scoring game environment to keep the lights on for gamers, but Williams is a splash-play or bust fantasy option on his current usage.

Chiefs WRs: The Chiefs had a rotation once again behind Worthy in Week 5.

After Worthy was on the field for 80.4% of the dropbacks, the wide receiver with the next-highest rate was JuJu Smith-Schuster at 60.9%.

Smith-Schuster caught 2 of 3 targets for 17 yards.

Marquise Brown (4-48-0 on 8 targets) was at 54.3%, and Tyquan Thornton (3-90-0 on 5 targets) was at 50%.

Thornton remains the most appealing single-game DFS target of this group due to his big-play ability, especially with Detroit down multiple cornerbacks.

Brown is the best bet for targets, seeing a target on 25.2% of his routes.

Thornton leads the Chiefs with 20.9 yards per catch and 3 touchdowns.

Isaac TeSlaa: TeSlaa has an opportunity to have a larger role with the injury to Kalif Raymond last week.

We will follow Raymond’s status this week.

Should Raymond miss Sunday, TeSlaa saw his route rate jump to a season-high 53.6% last week.

He would still only be an option for single-game DFS and as a deep-league dart, but TeSlaa has been a big-play magnet on his small sample, averaging 18.0 yards per catch with 2 touchdowns.

Tight End

Sam LaPorta: LaPorta had his best game of the season on Sunday, catching 5 of 6 targets for 92 yards and his first touchdown.

LaPorta is a TE1 based on the state of the position and the upside of this game environment.

The Chiefs are one of two teams that have not allowed a touchdown yet to a tight end, but they have allowed an 85.7% catch rate (30th) and 7.8 yards per target (25th) to tight ends.

They have not been challenged to this point, facing the Chargers, Giants, Eagles (without Dallas Goedert), Ravens, and Jaguars.

LaPorta is second on the team in targets against the blitz, with 5.57 yards per route on those blitzed dropbacks.

Travis Kelce: Kelce also had his best game of the year in Week 5, catching 7 of 8 targets for 61 yards and a touchdown.

It ended up as Kelce’s first week higher than TE10 since the season opener, his last game with a touchdown.

Even outside of the score, Kelce was targeted on a season-high 22.9% of his routes.

As is the case with LaPorta, Kelce is in play as a TE1 due to the game environment and the state of the tight end position.

Mahomes is ramping up as a passer, as well.

Detroit is allowing 6.3 yards per target to tight ends (12th), but they have allowed an 8.8% touchdown rate (27th) to the position.

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