Sunday Night Showdown Slate- Broncos at Chiefs
Broncos @ Chiefs (-13.5), Game Total = 51
In their first meeting in week 7 the Chiefs won 43-16. The Chiefs defense and special teams scored two touchdowns (interception return and kickoff return). Mahomes was quiet with 200 yards passing and one touchdown. Drew Lock has zero touchdowns and two interceptions. Broncos tight ends Fant, Vannett and Okwuegbunam combined for 12 catches for 123 yards.
DVOA
Broncos against the run #19
Broncos against the pass #5
Chiefs against the run #32
Chiefs against the pass #13
Before I get started I just want to make clear that we need to erase the entire Bronco game from last week from our memory. They did not have a legitimate NFL quarterback under center and the game became a joke.
I think we have a large enough sample size by now to say that we are going to need at least two of the Chiefs big three (Mahomes, Kelce, Hill) if not all three on our rosters for showdown slates. With their salaries what they are however it is going to be very difficult especially with the limited number of viable low dollar options for this game. If you want Mahomes as Captain, you are going to have to bank on lower dollar Chief pass catchers like Robinson and Hardman. Because of the narrow target tree with the Chiefs, I prefer owning Hill and Kelce in the Captain spot with Mahomes as a flex and then still have at least a little bit of cap space to work with.
Our salary cap savings for this slate is going to need to come from Bronco pass catchers. Again, we need to not look at last week’s results for the Broncos. After the first two weeks of the season where Noah Fant went 19 and 17 DK points back to back, it appeared that he was going to emerge as an upper tier tight end in the league. Fant has had only one double digit DK point since. He has continued to see targets however (33 over his last 6 games) and the Chiefs have given up the 6th most DK points to tight ends this season. In their 1st meeting he saw 7 targets and the Broncos tight ends combined had a field day. If Fant he sees that many again he should score more than the 6 DK points he had in that game.
I have a feeling that Tim Patrick or Jerry Jeudy is going to be on the winning GPP roster for this game. They are both very affordable and with such a negative game script the Broncos are going to have to air it out most of the game. Garbage time could be crucial for these two to rack up some poinst. Jeudy has seen massive volume (40 targets over his last 4 games-excluding last week). I actually even like having these two guys in the Captain position as a contrarian play. We have seen the strategy of having a player from the underdog in the game featured at Captain with most of the rest of the flex positions filled by the favorite. For example in this game having Jeudy at Captain, you could easily have Mahoes and either Hill or Kelce. Then maybe add another low dollar Chief like Robinson or Hardman and another Bronco pass catcher like Fant or Patrick. That could be the type of lineup to take down a big one this week.
As of right now Phillip Lindsay is questionable. If he plays, it becomes a backfield split. But if he is ruled out then Melvin Gordon becomes pretty much the only option. Even with a negative game script Gordon is a decent pass catcher and could see a bunch of dump offs in garbage time. The Chiefs have lousy defending the run (32nd DVOA), it is just the game script that could limit the Broncos backs from see anything more than 13-15 carries.
The Chiefs defense is very much in play as Drew Lock has been a turnover machine this season. With a large 13.5 point spread, the game script will favor the Chiefs defense, giving them plenty of opportunities for sacks and turnovers. Also, if you are looking for a contrarian correlation stack you could go with the Chiefs defense and Mecole Hardman as he should see the return duties. Byron Pringle who is now on the IR brought back a 102 yard kickoff return in their last meeting.
Must Haves:
Mahomes $13,200
Hill $12,200
Kelce $10,800
Jeudy $5,400
Favorite players for the price:
Chiefs Defense $6,400
Fant $5,000
Low Dollar Options:
Robinson $4,800
Patrick $4,600
Hardman $4,400
Best Correlating Plays/Stacks:
Kelce/Mahomes/Jeudy/Chiefs D
HIll/Mahomes/Fant
Mahomes/Robinson/Hardman/Patrick or Jeudy or Fant
Hardman/Chiefs defense
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