🎆 Chiefs-Bills is poised to produce FIREWORKS

Fantasy playoffs are literally next week. Are you making your team better today?

In today’s Fantasy Life Newsletter presented by Hugo Boss:

Was it the greatest game ever? No.

Did it surpass expectations? Yeah, sure.

Was it better than no Thursday Night Football? Absolutely.

In the end, the Patriots took down the Steelers 21 to 18 behind three (!) first-half passing TDs from none other than Bailey Zappe. Reminder: Going into Thursday night, the Patriots had scored just three overall TDs ... since Week 9.

Your 261-word recap presented by Great Lakes Christmas Ale (not really, but seriously: It is tasty):

• Ezekiel Elliott dominated usage, handling all 22 of the backfield's rush attempts and chipping in a surprisingly stellar 7-72-1 receiving line on his way to supplying an elite 27 PPR points. Overall, the ex-Cowboys veteran played on a whopping 91% of the offense’s snaps. Don't expect there to be too many scoring opportunities to go around more weeks than not, but Zeke will warrant usage-based RB2 treatment down the stretch should this pass-game work, in particular, persist as long as Rhamondre Stevenson (ankle) remains sidelined.

• Thursday night, we spelled revenge J-u-J-u. Kind of. JuJu Smith-Schuster racked up a game-high 90 yards thanks in large part to being one of just three active Patriots WRs. The other big-time producer was TE Hunter Henry (3-40-2). My 11th-place best ball squads are thankful!

• Mitch Trubisky somewhat rallied late but ultimately averaged just five yards per attempt and heard rather loud “Mason Rudolph” chants throughout the first half. At least he found Diontae Johnson (3-57-1) for a 25-yard score. Sorry, George Pickens (5-19-0) and Pat Freiermuth (3-18-0) managers.

• A questionable injury designation due to a knee injury didn’t stop Najee Harris (59% snaps, 15 touches) from (again, ugh) working ahead of Jaylen Warren (52%, 11), although neither was all that effective on their way to combining for just 88-scoreless yards.

There are fewer than 30 days remaining between you and all of your fantasy hopes and dreams. We can't have anyone freak out, okay? We've got to keep our composure! Let’s start by checking out some of the BIGGEST fantasy questions ahead of Week 14.

You want answers? (I think I'm entitled) You want answers? (I want the truth!)

You can't — actually, you can handle the truth — and Ian is here to find just that with his 10 biggest fantasy-relevant questions ahead of Week 14. First up, let’s take a hard look at what’s going wrong with Patrick Mahomes and company.

💀 Is this Chiefs offense broken?

Things certainly aren’t functioning at peak efficiency right now. Since racking up 31 points and 483 total yards of offense during a Week 7 trouncing of the Chargers:

• Week 8 at Broncos: 9 points, 274 total yards

• Week 9 vs. Dolphins: 21 points (1 defensive TD), 267 total yards

• Week 10 bye

• Week 11 vs. Eagles: 17 points, 336 total yards

• Week 12 at Raiders: 31 points, 360 total yards

• Week 13 at Packers: 19 points, 337 total yards

One impressive performance in a month and a half isn’t exactly the standard inside of arguably the single-best offense over the last half-decade of football. Consider: The Chiefs have already totaled seven games with 21 or fewer points this season after totaling zero, one, two, five and three such instances from 2018 to 2022.

While the easy answer is to blame the return of Matt Nagy, the larger problems come down to the fact that nobody other than Travis Kelce and (to a lesser extent) Rashee Rice have been consistently great this season.

Mahomes’ average time to throw is longer than ever this season (3.02 seconds), yet his average target depth is a career-low 7.3 yards. These two numbers aren’t always extremely correlated, but it’s curious that no other QB taking at least three seconds to throw on average has an aDOT lower than even 7.6.

Somehow, the Chiefs have become one of the game’s least efficient offenses when throwing the football at least 20 yards downfield. Among 34 QBs with at least 15 passes thrown 20-plus yards downfield this season:

• PFF pass grade: 64.3 (31st)

• Yards per attempt: 9.2 (30th)

• Completion rate: 27.7% (31st)

• Passer rating: 32.7% (34th)

You see that last one? No QB has a worse passer rating than Mahomes when throwing 20-plus yards downfield this season.

Aidan O’Connell? Better. Jimmy Garoppolo? Better. Zach f*cking Wilson? That’s right, better.

Of course, the primary flaw with passer rating is that the metric more so encompasses the performance of an entire passing game as opposed to just the QB. This is hardly all Mahomes’ fault: The Chiefs have the third-highest drop rate (16.7%) on deep balls, and PFF considered targets open or wide open on just 23% of these – the 10th-lowest mark in the NFL.

However, Mahomes also has the fourth-lowest catchable pass rating (38.3%) on these deep balls when looking at more advanced Tru Media data. Mahomes and company used to absolutely feast downfield against defenses brave enough to try to bring an extra defender in the box and run cover-3, but that same level of success simply hasn’t been there this year:

• 2023: 4.7 yards per attempt on deep balls vs. Cover-3

• 2022: 17.1

• 2021: 16.3

• 2020: 19.9

• 2019: 20.5

• 2018: 17.6

Luckily, up next is a Bills defense that has spent far more time with two safeties back in Cover-2/4/6 shells this season. Mahomes might have lost the war against this group last season, but he did throw for 338 yards and a pair of scores despite not having the Cheetah around to help out.

This Chiefs offense probably won’t overly resemble the group we got used to seeing from 2018 to 2022 until they rediscover their fastball... which is the deep ball.

Luckily, volume is being condensed enough at the moment around the top-three skill-position parties involved to warrant every-week starting treatment in fantasy land – don’t be surprised if things go a bit smoother down the stretch with dates against the Raiders and Bengals on the horizon to assist fantasy managers in Weeks 16 and 17.

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Gambling, for lack of a better word, is fun. Gambling is right, gambling works.

But you know what’s even better than just (responsibly) gambling? Winning — and Geoff is here to help us do just that with his BEST bets ahead of Week 14.

📈 James Cook over 43.5 rushing yards (-115, BetMGM)

• Play to: 46.5  (-110)

• Projection: 55.6

I bet this total at open at 42.5 and placed it in our FREE Fantasy Life bet tracker (you can get access to notifications for these bets when they drop by joining our free discord). Since then the total on this prop has risen by a yard or two at most sportsbooks.

I would still not hesitate to play the over. The second-year back has now taken 12 carries or more in six of his last seven games. He’s also averaged 16.5 carries a game in the two starts since the Bills fired former OC Ken Dorsey. For the season he’s averaging 4.8 yards per carry and is fourth in explosive run plays (10+ yards).

The Chiefs are just 21st in success rate against the run this season and have also allowed at least one RB to post 70-plus rushing yards against them in every game since Week 7.

🐶 Cleveland Browns -3.0 (-110, BetMGM)

• Play to: Browns -3.0 (-120)

Everything considered, this seems like a widowmaker spot for the Jaguars. They’re on short rest after playing on Monday Night Football, their starting QB is on the doubtful side of questionable after injuring his ankle in that same game, and they’re facing a Browns team who is 5-1 straight up at home this year.

Oh, and those QB concerns we had about the Browns may not be all that concerning anymore. Joe Flacco – who is 9-2 for his career while playing in Cleveland (Editor’s note: That’s wild) – looked terrific in his season debut, throwing for two TDs on the day against a suddenly emergent Rams secondary.

The Jaguars may also be without starting CB Tre Hardon (concussion), WR Christian Kirk (groin) and also now have backup CJ Beatheard (shoulder) looking iffy.

All things considered, the Browns defense is far and away the best unit in this game (No. 1 in EPA per play) and with the Jaguars offense potentially down two major pieces, taking the Browns to cover a mere fg seems like the right call in Week 14.

🐏 Los Angeles Rams +7.5 (-110, BetMGM)

• Play to: +7.0 (-110)

Matthew Stafford has now thrown for eight TDs in his last three games. He’s also up to 13th in EPA per play, which ranks ahead of Lamar Jackson (15th).

Speaking of Jackson, his first game without Mark Andrews saw him complete just 56% of his passes, and throw for 5.53 yards per completion against one of the worst secondaries in the league. This week, he’ll face an emerging Rams defense that is up to 12th in success rate against the pass.

The Ravens are an upper echelon team but the Rams are showing signs of being undervalued. It doesn’t hurt that we are getting the Ravens in what has historically been a tricky spot for them, either, as Lamar Jackson and John Harbaugh are just 5-15 ATS when favored by more than 3 points over the past three years (per The Action Network).

The Rams can make a game of this and look like a bet at anything +7 (-110) or better.

#LOVEHATE is upon us, and Matthew Berry is here to take you through the Week 14 NFL slate!

😺 The Seahawks (finally) receive some good injury news in their backfield. So you’re saying there’s a chance.

👩🏻‍⚕️ QB injury updates. 1. Yay 2. Uh oh (but he’ll probably be fine) 3. Progressing.

🎯 All in on the Baker Mayfield and the Bucs? We woke up feeling pretty dangerous.

⚔️ Fireworks in the AFC, an NFC North shootout, and a sneaky battle out West. Week 14 Matchup DEEP dive.

🐻 The Bears remain confident despite, you know, their record. Just getting ready to burst.

🚀 An offense getting overlooked in an elite environment? Sign us up.

🎸 2024 NFL mock drafts regularly have this player going No. 2 overall. Should he stay or should he go (Guitar Rift)?

💎 A WR with a 30% target share at a dirt-cheap price? Are we dreaming?

😮 Just how good has C.J. Stroud’s rookie season been historically? This good.

😬 Chargers head coach Brandon Staley commented on the team’s backfield. Uh oh.

🎉 A longtime clutch kicker officially says goodbye. Happy retirement!

Week 14 features a matchup between two of the three highest-scoring offenses since 2020. You don’t need more than one hand to count the number of QBs better than either signal-caller in this game — honestly feel free to lose a finger or two. Throw in a fun recent history of down-to-the-wire thrillers, and we have some true can’t-miss television this Sunday at 4:25pm ET.

Chris is here to help you get that popcorn ready. Presenting, Fantasy Life’s Matchup of the Week: The Buffalo Bills at the Kansas City Chiefs.

I can already feel it coming.

We won’t be able to take our eyes away or cover our ears from it. Given the magnitude of this game, its strength will reverberate for what’ll seem like days on end.

And by ‘it,’ I mean the discourse after the clock hits all zeros in the fourth quarter.

Think about what you’ve heard and what you’ll hear leading up to the game.

“If Josh Allen wins, he should be the MVP front-runner.”

“If KC gets the dub, the AFC Championship game goes back to being called the Arrowhead Invitational.”

All those ifs will convert into sweeping proclamations about the future of each team. New memes will be born. It’ll be a glorious time. But before we get to all the social media fun, let’s sift through the tense matchup to set expectations for one of the biggest games of the year.

💪 Bills Week 14 Outlook

For Buffalo, it’s do-or-die time. And the heightened sense of urgency hasn’t been lost on Allen and the squad. Since switching OCs, they’ve scored more than 30 points in two consecutive games. Accordingly, we’ve seen more of the offense, which has been beneficial for fantasy purposes.

But Buffalo’s backfield has been a point of consternation all season. We all thought James Cook would ascend into an RB1 role, but he hasn’t been able to put it all together. The sophomore rusher has the fourth-most explosive plays but ranks 25th out of 29 qualifying RBs in forced missed tackle rate. However, he has a shot to redeem himself against the Chiefs.

Despite living on less than half of the snaps, Cook touched the ball 20 or more times in the two games before their bye. Latavius Murray has still taken the majority of the short-yardage carries, but Cook has retained the base-down work. And — more importantly — he’s been the passing-down RB. Since Week 8, his targets per route run rate has steadily increased from 4% to a whopping 39% against the Eagles.

In their comeback effort, it’s not just the fact that Cook was third in targets ahead of Dalton Kincaid and any of the ancillary options. Cook was Allen’s safety valve. When No. 17 was under duress, he looked the RBs way more than anyone on the team (twice as often as Diggs). And Kansas City still ranks eighth in pressure rate.

However, the Chiefs might be down a couple of defenders, and the top three rushers to face KC averaged four targets a piece. With Cook’s usage on the rise, he’s one of the keys to Buffalo’s success and continued playoff hopes in Week 14.