Broncos vs. Patriots Fantasy Football Worksheet, AFC Championship

The Worksheet, a comprehensive fantasy football preview by Rich Hribar, breaks down everything you need to know about the AFC Championship matchup between the Broncos and Patriots.

Find a breakdown of every Conference Championship Game in our Worksheet Hub.

Game Overview

The Conference Championship kicks off with two organizations that have regularly played in this spot.

This will be the 16th AFC Championship for New England, making their first trip here since the 2018 season.

They have won 11 of their 15 AFC Title Games, but if looking for something to hang hopes on as a Denver fan, two of those four losses were in Denver.

The Broncos will be playing in their 10th AFC Championship, and their first since 2015.

That 2015 game was one of the six times since the 32-team expansion that a home team was an underdog in the Conference Championship.

Of course, Denver had Peyton Manning starting in that game.

Last week’s win against Buffalo moved Denver to 12-2 in one-score games this season, but it was also marred by the loss of Bo Nix at the end of the game.

Jarrett Stidham will look to join Jeff Hostetler and Nick Foles in postseason lore as backup quarterbacks who won Super Bowls.

Denver will need a strong defensive performance, something that has been hit-or-miss to close the season.

Overall this season, Denver has allowed 4.5 yards per play (2nd), 287.7 yards per game (5th), a 62.9% success rate (2nd), and 1.68 points per drive (4th).

That has waned a bit to close the year.

Since their Week 12 bye, Denver has allowed 4.8 yards per play (9th), 308.7 yards per game (12th), a 61.9% success rate (6th), and 2.04 points per drive (15th).

That includes games against Geno Smith/Kenny Pickett, Chris Oladokun, and Trey Lance.

In the other games over that span, things have not looked as good.

Against Marcus Mariota and the Commanders, Denver allowed 26 points and 419 yards.

Against Jordan Love, they allowed 26 points and 362 yards.

Against Trevor Lawrence, they allowed 34 points and 346 yards.

Against Josh Allen last week, they allowed 30 points and 449 yards.

They only lost one of those games.

The question is can Denver win this game if they allow 26-plus points without Nix?

They will face a New England offense that is averaging 6.0 yards per play (2nd) and 372.5 yards per game (6th).

The Patriots have finally faced some resistance in the postseason, being forced to punch up against quality defenses.

They had their lowest offensive success rate of the season last week against Houston (30.8%).

Against the Chargers in the Wild Card Round, they scored only 16 points, their fewest in a game since Week 3.

New England still found a way to challenge those defenses in the context of tough games.

They had 381 yards against the Chargers, the third-most allowed by the Chargers this season.

They scored 21 offensive points against Houston, just the sixth team to do that this season.

This New England team has had a lighter schedule, which has been called out, but it has somewhat undercut how good they are.

They just won two playoff games in which Drake Maye was far from his best this season, which speaks to how complete a team they are.

The Denver defense is capable of keeping them in this game, but the Denver offense has already been a hit-or-miss unit and will need to find success against this New England defense.

Even with Nix, the Denver offense ranks 16th in points per drive (2.09) and 19th in success rate (41.5%).

They are 28th in punt rate per possession (39.3%) and 29th in rate of drives that fail to gain a first down (38.3%).

New England’s defense has allowed 1.67 points per drive (3rd) and has given up points on 30.8% of opponent possessions, trailing only Houston (26.5%) and Seattle (28.1%).

This postseason, the Patriots have allowed 1 touchdown on 24 possessions to Justin Herbert and C.J. Stroud.

Their schedule has had an impact, but this is still a team that spent a ton on defense this offseason and will be facing yet another questionable offense.

That would have been the case with Nix playing, and it is even more pronounced with his absence.

Quarterback

Drake Maye: Maye has found more resistance this postseason, completing 58.6% of his passes against the Chargers and 59.3% of his passes against Houston.

During the regular season, Maye had completed fewer than 60% of his passes in just one game.

His 42.2% success rate against Los Angeles was his fourth-lowest of the season, while his 27.8% success rate last week against Houston was his lowest as a starter over the past two years.

Even with the struggles, Maye managed to hit enough big plays in each game.

He still averaged 9.2 yards per pass attempt against the Chargers and threw for 268 yards, the second-most allowed by the Chargers this season.

Last week, he threw 3 touchdown passes, just the second quarterback this season to throw 3 touchdowns against Houston.

Maye will face this third straight tough pass defense, a top-five unit this season.

Denver has allowed a 58.2% completion rate (2nd), 6.2 yards per pass attempt (2nd), and a 3.3% touchdown rate (4th).

As noted in the open, this is a unit that has allowed some production to close the year and against the top competition they faced this season.

Since their Week 12 bye, Denver has allowed strong fantasy outings to Marcus Mariota (23.3 points), Trevor Lawrence (31.2 points), and Josh Allen (21.9 points).

They have allowed multiple passing touchdowns to all three of those quarterbacks, while allowing a handful of rushing yardage over that span to Mariota (55 yards), Jordan Love (29 yards), Lawrence (20 yards and a touchdown), Trey Lance (69 yards), and Allen (66 yards).

Maye averages 27.7 rushing yards per game, which is 10th among quarterbacks this season.

He averages 3.6 scrambles per game, which is second in the league.

They also allowed good games to Daniel Jones (22.8 points), Jalen Hurts (19.5 points), and Jaxson Dart (28.4 points), so they have not been invulnerable.

The best showing of this Denver defense, highlighting how good they can be, came against Dak Prescott in Week 8.

They held him to 188 scoreless yards and 2 interceptions.

The area where Denver has a clear mismatch advantage, and New England needs to work around, is up front.

The Broncos are third in the NFL in pressure rate (41.8%) and lead the NFL in sack rate (10.1%) per dropback.

If New England has one consistent offensive bugaboo, it is in pass protection and Maye holding the football.

Maye has been sacked on 9.4% of his dropbacks, 29th in the league.

He has taken a sack on 26.5% of his pressures, 30th in the league.

He took 5 sacks with 2 fumbles against the Chargers and then 5 sacks with 4 fumbles against the Texans.

Maye averages 2.91 seconds from the snap to throw, which is 27th in the league.

35.5% of his passes come within 2.5 seconds of the snap, which is 30th in the league.

When Maye has held the ball longer than 2.5 seconds this postseason, he has gone 11 of 24 (45.8%) for 200 yards (8.3 Y/A) with 1 touchdown, 2 interceptions, and 7 sacks (3 fumbles).

When he has gotten the ball out (or been sacked) within 2.5 seconds in these playoffs, Maye has connected on 22 of 32 passes (68.8%) for 247 yards (7.7 Y/A) with 3 touchdowns, 0 interceptions, and 3 sacks.

Denver has a 17.1% sack rate (2nd in the league) when the opposing quarterback holds the ball longer than 2.5 seconds, allowing a league-low 46% completion rate on those passes.

Will Campbell has allowed 9 pressures and 3 sacks in the two playoff games.

Jarrett Stidham: Stidham will draw the start for Denver this weekend with the injury to Bo Nix.

While I mentioned that Stidham could join names such as Jeff Hostetler and Nick Foles in backup-quarterback lore, he is actually in more rarified air than those passers.

Both of those guys took over as the starter at the tail end of the regular season.

This will be Stidham’s first action of the season.

Stidham will be just the seventh quarterback to start in the postseason after not starting a game in the regular season.

The previous six went 1-5, with the one victory one of the most memorable comebacks in NFL history, as Frank Reich and the Bills came back from a 35-3 deficit against the then-Houston Oilers.

Reich was the only success story from that group (289 yards and 4 touchdowns).

The others were:

• Taylor Heinicke in 2020 (26 of 44 for 306 yards with 1 TD, 1 INT)
• Connor Cook in 2016 (18 of 45 for 161 yards with 1 TD, 3 INT)
• Joe Webb in 2012 (11 of 30 for 180 yards with 1 TD, 1 INT)
• Gary Danielson in 1983 (24 of 38 for 236 yards and 5 INT)
• Roger Staubach in 1972 (9 of 20 for 98 yards)*

Staubach has an asterisk because he was a starter and won a Super Bowl the year prior, but was injured in the preseason that year and then served as the backup to Craig Morton.

Staubach entered the game the week before in the playoffs to engineer a comeback victory, but his first start that season was in a 26-3 loss in the NFC Championship.

For his career, Stidham has 197 pass attempts, averaging 7.2 yards per pass with a 4.1% touchdown rate but also a 4.1% interception rate.

That interception rate ranks 90th out of 102 quarterbacks to throw at least 150 passes since Stidham entered the league.

This will be Stidham’s fifth career start in the NFL.

His teams are 1-3 in those starts.

His first career start (with the Raiders) was his best.

In that game, he faced a San Francisco defense that led the NFL in points allowed that season.

He completed 23 of 34 passes (67.6%) for 365 yards, 3 touchdowns, and 2 interceptions in a 37-34 loss in overtime.

The following week was a swift setback.

Losing 31-13 to the Chiefs, Stidham was 22 of 36 (61.1%) for 219 yards (6.1 Y/A) with 1 touchdown and 1 interception.

Stidham did have some rushing production in his two starts with the Raiders, rushing for 34 and 50 yards.

He then made two starts for Denver to close out the 2023 season after the team shut down Russell Wilson.

Denver won 16-9 against the Chargers, with Stidham completing 20 of 32 passes (62.5%) for 224 yards (7.0 Y/A) and a touchdown (6 rushing yards).

They lost 27-14 in the season finale to the Raiders, with Stidham completing 20 of 34 passes (58.8%) for 272 yards (8.0 Y/A) with 1 touchdown and an interception (2 rushing yards).

Keeping Stidham clean will be vital based on his career sample (which is still only 233 dropbacks).

When pressured, Stidham has completed 40% of his career passes for 5.8 yards per pass attempt and a 20.5% sack rate.

When kept clean, Stidham has completed 70.7% of his passes for 8.1 Y/A.

New England has a 40.3% pressure rate this year (7th in the league).

In the postseason, they have a 52.1% pressure rate, albeit against the Chargers and Texans, two of the weaker offensive lines in the regular season.

Nix had the sixth-lowest pressure rate in the league (32.3%).

New England has allowed 6.4 yards per pass attempt (6th) this season, while only allowing 4.8 yards per pass attempt and a 50% completion rate this postseason to Justin Herbert and C.J. Stroud.

With Christian Gonzalez on the field this season, New England has allowed an 83.4 rating, a 62.8% completion percentage, 6.0 yards per pass attempt, and a 4.1% touchdown rate.

With Gonzalez off the field, they have allowed a 100.2 rating, a 69.9% completion percentage, 7.8 Y/A, and a 4.9% touchdown rate.

What will be intriguing here is how Sean Payton calls this game.

The Broncos have skewed towards the pass to close the season.

Over the final seven games of the regular season, Denver threw the ball 7.6% over expectations, the second-highest rate in the league.

Last week against Buffalo, they threw the ball 6% over expectations (17% on first downs).

Denver ended the game with a 73.5% dropback rate, their second-highest this season.

Their shift towards a passing team overlapped the loss of J.K. Dobbins.

Dobbins could be back this week, but it is hard to feel bullish that he will be anywhere near 100% to handle a high workload while New England has smothered the run.

Running Back

More Conference Championship Fantasy Breakdowns From The Worksheet: