KC Chiefs vs. Broncos: Fantasy football outlook for Week 13

We are here, Chiefs Kingdom, at Broncos week.  I don’t know about you, but it was certainly rough to go a whole week without watching Mahomes & Co. conduct an elegant symphony out on the field. However, as we all recoup from our turkey (or ham)-induced comas and gear up for this pivotal AFC West matchup, we must keep in mind that there is more at stake here as we enter Week 13.

For many football fans, including myself, Week 13 is the critical week for fantasy managers to either make or break their season.  While I may be involved in six fantasy leagues (too many, I know), I can attest that I have to win-out in two of them to even sniff a playoff run at sweet, sweet fantasy glory.  And of course this Sunday Night Football matchup carries some big potential to drastically swing fantasy matchups one way or the other.

Biggest Fantasy Factors 

First to address are the “staple” fantasy players.  These are the guys that are already in your lineups (and should be) and are more than likely “gonna get theirs.”  This is in reference to the Big 3 for Kansas City: Patrick Mahomes, Tyreek Hill and Travis Kelce.  There should be no question whether ANY of these guys should be starting in your lineup; the bigger question is how much are they going to provide for your team.

The biggest factor in this “fantasy contribution” analysis is going to fall almost exclusively on Mahomes.  I am sure many fantasy managers at the beginning of the season took Mahomes with the expectation that he was going to be putting up 25+ points on a weekly basis.  However, that has not been the case and he is now set to face a Denver defense that averages giving up 16.73 fantasy football points to quarterbacks.

With that being said, Denver has only played two “fantasy elite” quarterbacks at this point in the season in Lamar Jackson (Week 4) and Justin Herbert (Week 12).  Lamar came away with 316 yards through the air, 58 yards on the ground, 1 passing TD and 19.28 fantasy points, while Herbert came away scoring 19.72 fantasy points with 303 passing yards, 2 TD, and 2 INTs. On top of that, even Dak Prescott put up 18.88 fantasy points in that surprising Week 9 Broncos win. Needless to say, I believe this Broncos unit has not been tested enough to say they are a “fantasy stuffer” against opposing quarterbacks.

Given the current progression of the Chiefs play coupled with the overall vibe of a divisional matchup, I expect Mahomes to show-out fantasy wise.  I am not going to project the type of numbers he put up against the Raiders, but I think it is fair to assume Mahomes will give you 25-30 points after it is all said and done with around 300 through the air and 2-3 scores.  This in turn means you can project a little bit more stat-wise than we have already been seeing from Hill and Kelce based off pure target share alone.