Thursday Showdown Mile High – KC @ DEN

This week we get week 7 started with maybe one of the more interesting matchups of the week with the Chiefs taking on a Broncos team that has just gotten its Defense rolling.

My name is Hunter Sinclair and I occasionally write about showdowns and game breakdowns for the main slate in the Slack channels. I have had a long history with DFS for football going back to the very beginning with Kevin the Football Geek.  If you were around back then you might remember me from Hunter’s Corner where I used to do heavy defense breakdowns, matchup analysis and various other write-ups.  In this article I’ll break down how how I personally approach attacking these showdown games using this weeks game as an example.

Additionally, @Burns273 and I have started a new pod for the DFSArmy called the “Off-Chalk Pod” where Burns and I go through the main slate and breakdown how we see each game playing out and which off-chalk (lower owned) plays are our favorite and which ones are most likely to pay off in GPP contests.  This is a GPP tournament focused pod as both Burns and I have chased and been successful with getting Live Final qualifier tickets over the last several years.  The plays and methods we use are also relevant for playing in most of the regular GPP tournaments as well.

So How Does Showdown/Single Game work?

If you want more detail on this – checkout @DFSUpNorth’s articles as he goes into much more detail on Showdown lineup construction.

Each site runs their contests a bit different but for the most part they are very similar. You pick 6 players from the game (5 on Fanduel), and choose one to be your Captain (MVP on Fanduel) and that person scores 1.5x points than everyone else.

On Draftkings you can play QB, RB, WR, TE, K, and DEF while on Fanduel you can play QB, RB, WR, TE, K but no Defense.

Scoring is the same as normal NFL DFS contests. On DraftKings there is a full point for PPR and that makes pass catchers more valuable while you only get a half point on FanDuel.

You need at least one player from each team on your roster. So you can’t just load up all on one team. Optimally I like to build with 4 of one team and 2 of the other on DraftKings and 3 of one team and 2 of the other on Fanduel, though 4-1 seems to be pretty solid there as well.

Looking for a podcast to listen to on your way to work or while mowing the lawn? Check out our Podcast Page for some great listens from @ffootballgeek and other coaches.

Join the DFS Army Today and gain access to the best content/tools/projections/coaching in the industry!

Game Breakdown:

The approach I take with every showdown I play is to come up with what I think it the most likely scenario to play out on the field for that game.  In order to do this I need to consider a lot of variables and then make my best educated guess of what I think all that means.  I will try and break it down in slightly more simplified version for everyone below.  We talk about doing this a lot (although maybe not exactly how I approach it with applying the theory to the projections), but we do preach about making your lineups “tell a story”.  It’s like those old “Choose your own adventure” novels you might have read when you were a kid.  You fill in the blanks, make choices along the way and in the end the story and ending can be completely different based on all those small incremental choices.  So let’s choose our adventure for this game…

One way that I breakdown rosters is through our Research Station. We will have a stand alone research station for the Thursday games this year, which I’m pumped about, check it out here! –> Showdown/Single Game Research Station

Want to try a free month of DFS Army VIP Membership? See How

Stats for this game:

I start by looking at the specific team matchup, the vegas line, O/U, and recently I have been using the Power Rankings that @statsational puts out each week for everyone to see under the Beat The Bookie NFL section.  This is where I start, and where pretty much every DFS player starts.  Let’s be honest – I don’t think there are many DFS players out there who are not at least using Vegas Lines, O/U, and DVP rankings to determine who they will play in games.  Anyhow, I get a first read on the game this way and for this game you can see on the surface that KC is a slight favorite -3.5 on the road in what should be a pretty high scoring game 49 O/U.   KC has been terrible at stopping the rush this year, getting burned every single week by RBs.  They are “slightly” better at protecting the pass, but not that much.  DEN on the other hand has been lights-out stopping the pass and on the surface it appears they are not that great at stopping the run, however if you dig a bit deeper they are actually fairly good at run stopping as well, but their numbers are skewed due to the single 225y rushing game by Fournette.

Once I have a general idea of what the teams are best/worst at and how to attack each side, I start to dig a bit deeper.  What I am looking for are anomalies or indicators where there is some match in opposing skills (like if one team sucks at protecting the QB and the other team is racking up the sacks).   I mentioned one anomaly above with the run def for Denver being better on average than the numbers suggests.

Here are Stats for this game that I specifically looked at in considering my scenarios:

• KC is 5th worst at pressuring QB (16.7% pressure rate)
• DEN is slightly better than average at pressuring (15th best) and hurrying(10th best) QB. (25.9% pressure rate)

 

• KC gives up the 5th most penalties and yards and 1st downs due to penalties to Opponents
• KC also allows 45% of drives to result in a score – 4th worst (only teams worse are Miami, ARI and ATL)
• KC DEF also creates turnovers on about 16% of drives which is 6th best (only teams better are NE, CHI, SF, CAR, and PIT)
• KC DEF is far worse to rushing than to pass, but they have been bad to both – they give up like 2nd most rushing yards and TDs but also like 10th most passing yards/completions.
• DEN OFF has about 12% of drives end in turnover
• DEN OFF has about 33% of drives end in score

 

• DEN gives up 20th most penalties, and about 15th most yards / first downs
• DEN DEF allows 31% of drives to result in a score – 10th best in nfl
• DEN DEF also creates turnovers on only bout 9.1% of drives which is 8th worst in NFL – not that great for a good def that has done well limiting opponents scoring
• DEN DEF is far better at defending pass (4th in NFL to passing yards) than to rush (18th in nfl) – although last 2 games they have done very well against the Rush limiting TEN and LAC to under 40y each and really they have done pretty well in every game except the 225y they gave to Fournette
• KC OFF has about 9.8% of drives end in turn over
• KC OFF has 49% of drives end in score

All these stats above help me to form a picture of how I might see the game playing out.  How many TDs, Field Goals, Punts, Turnovers, etc are each team likely to have.  All these individual parts are important for showdowns since we want to know how much we can expect from a kicker or defense in addition to the other skill players.

For tonights game I have a come up with three scenarios of what might happen, there are plenty more you could come up with on your own using this same method and information, but these are what I am using for my lineups.  Below is the description of each, why I think it might happen that way, and if it does what the projections for players might be in that case:

 

SCENARIO 1:

Super Close Game, could go back and forth.

DEN defense creates pressure consistently and has Mahomes scrambling to make plays (which he is pretty good at).

Out of the 11-12 drives I expect each team to make during the game if KC scores on 6 of those, punts on 3-4 and has turnovers on 1-2 then I expect them to score 2 TDs and 4 FGs – normally I would say 3/3 for a even matchup but DEN at home is better than avg match and I think this will stall out more drives to FGs than TDs.

KC defense plays about as crappy as they have been playing all year and this opens up both more Rush and Pass opportunities for DEN.

If we assume DEN can score on about 39% of drives due to bad KC def, then I would have them at 5 scores, 2 turn overs, and 5 punts. I estimate 3 TDs and 2 FGs – giving the advantage to TDs here based on opposing defense.

Based on the above scenario I think the passes from KC get spread around fairly evenly to the WRs and the catch rate is fairly low compared to normal 62% from Mahomes. The exception is that I think a higher volume of passes will go to Kelce in this matchup due to the elite CB coverage. He has historically been targeted over 10 targets in both games from 2018 and I give him the highest percentage chance of catching a TD from any player on the KC team. If they get in the RZ and use a RB, then I am giving the edge to McCoy to get the RZ TD work at about a 70% to 30% for the other 2 williams based on RZ utilization so far.

For DEN we are assuming they lean on the run game as they have been recently and play Lindsey and Freeman both – I have them close to even with Lindsey as about a 4-5 fantasy point favorite over freeman but I am projecting both of them over Sutton / Sanders currently based on this run first approach in this scenario. I have Sutton and Sanders coming in next close behind them and then it drops off to Fant and Hamilton and such.

This is basically the game flow if both teams do what they have been doing so far all year and play to their opponents weaknesses. Now since this is the NFL and teams don’t always keep doing the same shit every week we have to think that these teams will start making adjustments to offset some of their weaknesses. So check Scenario 2 for one of those.

PROJECTIONS BASED ON SCENARIO 1

Player	MyDKProj	CAPT
Phillip Lindsay	20.2	30.3
Travis Kelce	17.4	26.1
Patrick Mahomes	16.8	25.2
Royce Freeman	16.3	24.5
Courtland Sutton	15.4	23.0
Joe Flacco	14.0	21.0
Butker K	14.0	21.0
LeSean McCoy	13.4	20.1
Emmanuel Sanders	11.3	17.0
Tyreek Hill	10.8	16.2
McMannus K	10.0	15.0
Damien Williams	8.3	12.5
Noah Fant	7.2	10.8
Chiefs	6.0	9.0
Mecole Hardman	6.4	9.6
Demarcus Robinson	6.0	9.0
Byron Pringle	6.0	9.0
Broncos	6.0	9.0
Darrel Williams	5.8	8.8
DaeSean Hamilton	4.9	7.3
Jeff Heuerman	4.6	6.9

SCENARIO 2:

I call this one the Vazzini special “I clearly can’t choose the wine in front of you.”

I was reading about some interviews with the Lindsey and Freeman after the Titans game and they were being asked about what they thought coming into this KC game and that KC has given up like 180+ rushing yards to RBs per game. They both seem to not really react to it and said, you know this is the NFL and week to week teams change a lot, so you can’t go in and expect things to be as they have been. They even mentioned: you know we gave up a ton of yards to Fournette and then we made some adjustments and held TEN and LAC to like 30y rushing each. That’s all pretty common stuff – but what peaked my interest was this little quote:

“It’s the NFL. Guys change things every week,” Freeman said. “Our defense has done a great job flipping the script.” “It’s time for Denver’s offense to do likewise”, he added.

It was this last little bit that got me thinking, does freeman and Lindsey already know about a different game script DEN plans to employ in this upcoming KC game which will feature a more pass heavy game plan (ie: flipping the script) and playing against what they “believe” that KC will be planning to focus on stopping “the run”. hmmmm….. I think I really like this idea. Let’s run the scenario out and see what we get.

I am going to assume nothing much changes on the KC side of things from an Offensive perspective from the above although we could consider bumping up the projection for the KC RBs a bit if we wanted to do a similar thing both ways….but that might be a bit too cute so lets just roll with similar to above and change the DEN offense and KC defense side of things.

If KC def focuses more heavily in on stopping the run then we should see eight man box with the SS coming down, this will open up more opportunities for the pass catchers and we know that KC does not have elite CB coverage in man-free.

DEN should be able to connect with both Sanders and Sutton more in this situation. Side note: It appears that Breeland CB may also be out with personal matter as he didn’t travel with team for KC who would normally be on Sanders so not sure if they are going to play the rookie Fenton or what, but any way I think it is good news in addition to Fuller CB already ruled out. So lets up the passing plays to rush plays slightly for DEN and say that they will end up scoring by pass 2 td vs just 1 in the first scenario and only one rushing TD.

PROJECTIONS BASED ON SCENARIO 2

Player	MyDKProj	CAPT
Courtland Sutton	20.3	30.5
Joe Flacco	19.9	29.8
Emmanuel Sanders	18.6	27.9
Travis Kelce	17.4	26.1
Patrick Mahomes	16.8	25.2
Butker K	14.0	21.0
LeSean McCoy	13.4	20.1
Phillip Lindsay	13.0	19.4
Royce Freeman	11.7	17.6
Tyreek Hill	10.8	16.2
McMannus K	10.0	15.0
Noah Fant	8.4	12.6
Damien Williams	8.3	12.5
Chiefs	7.0	10.5
Mecole Hardman	6.4	9.6
Demarcus Robinson	6.0	9.0
Byron Pringle	6.0	9.0
Broncos	6.0	9.0
Darrel Williams	5.8	8.8
DaeSean Hamilton	5.5	8.2
Jeff Heuerman	5.2	7.8
Sammy Watkins	0.0	0.0

SCENARIO 3:

Lets name this last scenario “Check out my big fat Mahones”
This is the scenario where KC marches into Denver and show them their Big Fat Hairy Mahones. KC comes out swinging with a combo 1-2 Tyfreak / Kelce knockout punch and then leans on the rush later in the game once they are up by about 14-20 points. They even create several turn-overs which put them into prime scoring positions to increase the TD #s they score and potentially even get a pick-6 although I have a rule to not try to predict pick-6s so I don’t factor those into projections.

Denver struggles to get into scoring position and has to fall back onto whatever can move the chains. This likely involves more passing and getting Linsey into space and shorter dump-off plays to sanders, sutton and fant. Lets run it:

PROJECTIONS BASED ON SCENARIO 3

Player	MyDKProj	CAPT
Patrick Mahomes	29.2	43.9
Travis Kelce	26.0	39.0
Tyreek Hill	20.4	30.6
Courtland Sutton	14.8	22.1
Joe Flacco	14.4	21.6
LeSean McCoy	14.0	21.0
Phillip Lindsay	13.0	19.4
Emmanuel Sanders	12.3	18.5
Damien Williams	11.2	16.8
Chiefs	11.0	16.5
Royce Freeman	10.5	15.8
McMannus K	10.0	15.0
Butker K	10.0	15.0
Darrel Williams	7.5	11.3
Mecole Hardman	7.0	10.5
Demarcus Robinson	6.6	9.9
Noah Fant	6.6	9.9
Byron Pringle	6.0	9.0
Broncos	6.0	9.0
DaeSean Hamilton	4.3	6.4
Jeff Heuerman	4.0	6.0
Sammy Watkins	0.0	0.0

So now you have a few possible scenario outcomes you can think about when you play this game.  There are countless other ways this could go, but what I like to do each week is try to determine the most likely to happen outcomes for the game and then divi up the targets, runs, yardage, TDs based on all the factors I discussed above and that is where I come up with the projections. Best of Luck Army….

–Hunter’s Corner