The NFL season is off to a strong start, and we have another excellent contest for Monday Night Football. The Denver Broncos are coming off a season where they earned the No. 1 seed in the AFC, and they’ll travel to Kansas City to take on their biggest rivals. The Chiefs are listed as 2.5-point home favorites, while the total sits at 43.5 points.
Denver enters this contest looking to prove that last year was no fluke. If not for an injury to their starting quarterback in their first postseason contest, it’s possible that they would’ve made the Super Bowl last season. They did not rest on their laurels this offseason, bringing in a legit No. 1 wide receiver to upgrade their pass-catching corps.
Meanwhile, the Chiefs will be looking to return to prominence. They’re coming off their worst season with Patrick Mahomes at starting quarterback, dropping outside the top 20 in both points and yards per game. Mahomes also suffered a torn ACL in December, so he has to prove that he’s still the same player. The Chiefs are still getting plenty of respect from the oddsmakers, but this is the most questions they’ve had entering a season in quite some time.
Let’s dive into all the DFS options for Monday Night Football.
As news breaks throughout the week and we adjust our projections (powered by the award-winning expert ranker, Sean Koerner), player ratings in our Player Models will change as the projections change. For updates, visit the models directly.
And don’t forget about the tools that FantasyLabs has to offer, like our Lineup Optimizer to effortlessly create up to 300 lineups, or use our Lineup Builder if you like to hand-build your lineups.
Or you can just use our NFL DFS sims to effortlessly create advanced lineups.
Finally, make sure to check out all the projections available for purchase within the FantasyLabs Models. Subscribers now have the option to purchase Derek Carty’s THE BLITZ from our Marketplace.
You can also combine them to create your own aggregate projections:
NFL DFS Stud Picks
There is only one stud-level fantasy option in this contest: Chiefs RB Kenneth Walker. The former Super Bowl MVP was acquired by the Chiefs in free agency, and he could be poised for the best fantasy season of his career.
Walker has historically been an explosive runner, but his role in Seattle has limited his production. He was forced into a timeshare with Zach Charbonnet in recent years, with the latter handling most of the pass-catching responsibilities. Walker had just 51% of the Seahawks’ rushing attempts last season, and he played on just 28% of the long-down-and-distance snaps. He also managed just 32% of the carries from inside the five-yard line. With that in mind, the fact that Walker still finished as RB22 is pretty impressive. He got almost none of the “money touches” during the regular season, despite being significantly more efficient than Charbonnet.
Now that he’s freed from that timeshare, Walker has the potential to take off. We saw that in the playoffs. He had at least 19 carries in all three games, and he racked up 376 rushing yards and five touchdowns. He also caught 10 of 12 targets for another 107 yards through the air.
Walker has the potential to be a true three-down RB for Kansas City. Going from Seattle to KC is a bit of a downgrade from an offensive line standpoint – the Seahawks were eighth in ESPN’s Run Block Win Rate, the Chiefs 25th – but the increased volume should eliminate that concern.
That said, Walker will have to start his year with a brutal matchup. The Broncos allowed the fewest fantasy points per game to opposing RBs by a comfortable margin last year. They limited them both on the ground and through the air, and Walker’s -5.2 Opponent Plus/Minus is the second-worst mark on the slate.
I ultimately like Walker’s prospects this season, but it’s hard to get too excited about him in this matchup. He still has the highest median and ceiling projection among the non-quarterbacks, but he’s a middling option from a value standpoint. He ranks merely ninth in projected Plus/Minus.
NFL DFS Midrange Picks
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE
