2020 Dynasty/Fantasy Week 6: Game Analysis: Chiefs 26, Bills 17

I take notes during the live watch. I re-watch the game on tape looking for hidden clues to report on. Here are my notes/takes on what I saw and how it related to FF 2020. I write anywhere from 1,000-3,000+ words on each game, and I have to move fast to get to all of them through the week…so, please forgive any typos/grammar.

This will be known as the game that took this from a potentially great FFM week to just an OK/decent/good one across the land.

For some, it was the one that might have near-destroyed many a fantasy season for FF teams struggling, needing a win to take their (1-4) team to (2-4) and a game out of the race and an all new season outlook ahead…instead they got dealt a loss and a drop to (1-5).

What caused such destruction from this game?

Anyone FF-tied to the Chiefs and Bills high functioning passing games…a game that was set up for an offensive explosion/battler – it instead pissed down a misting rain all game and made the passing game a challenge from the opening throw. The Chiefs started to run the ball easily and then they kept running and dominated the time of possession.

It was a 2020 low for pass attempts by Patrick Mahomes…a career low for a non-Week 17 regular season game amount of pass attempts for him. It was an Andy Reid career record (if I heard it correctly) 46 rushing attempts. That’s not ‘normal’…not what we built on for FF.

It was Josh Allen’s lowest pass attempts of 2020 in a game by far. It was his lowest total completions in a game in 2020 by nearly half of the next lowest…as they barely had the ball in the 2nd-half.

What’s scary is (if you have Mahomes-Tyreek-Kelce, etc.)…Buffalo just gave the blueprint for a way to defeat KC, and it would kill many of us for Fantasy, but I don’t think the NFL will pick up on it or try. We forget, for as sloppy as this game was, for obvious reasons, the Bills went down just 6 points with 6+ minutes left…one drive stop away from having a chance to win it late. KC converted two 3rd & longs and kept driving and took a field goal to put it out of reach. Buffalo was in this game for everything going against them, seemingly.

You think you saw ‘Buffalo can’t stop the run’. You did, but I think that was their plan – force the Chiefs to run, and run successfully it might wind up…but don’t let them get passing game momentum, give up plays, keep the clock running, hope the rookie RB pops the ball loose in the rain. The underdog Bills tried to win an actual football game with a left-handed, unorthodox strategy…but it killed Fantasy Football output. Just a theory.

You can get mad all you want about it for FF…but it was a smart underdog v. the best passing team in football in the rain strategy. And people are FF-mad…I’m FF-mad, because if this game were played in normal conditions it would have been a different strategy/outcome, and strategies against KC tend to blow up into heavy passing shootouts. The Maid of the Mist game forced this in a whole other direction…and it wasn’t good for many of us for FF on both sides spare Kelce and CEH.

I’m mad, but there’s opportunity that is going to come from this if you keep your wits about you…or for those who had nothing involved with this game and don’t much care – oh, there’s opportunity. I’ll explain in a moment.

You don’t want to be the team that faces Buffalo this week…oh, wait it’s the Jets. If you play for the Jets, you don’t want to be on the team anyway. It’s going to be ugly, taking Buffalo to (5-2) heading to a Week 8 showdown with the Patriots, where they can end the Patriots’ reign. We see Buffalo hitting 10 wins and winning the AFC East as it stands today.

KC is now (5-1) and their next test is Week 11 at LV, and Week 12 at TB…Weeks 14-15 at MIA, at NO is not easy either. The Chiefs project to (12-4/13-3) for us right now…and maybe not a #1 seed. We see the Ravens getting that still, due to their easier schedule, but a lot of football to go.

As we get into the player section, you need to put on a different set of glasses to view this game/outcome through. You have to realize the following, whether I will just have described your thoughts (this moment)…or I am exactly describing others you’re going to deal with – it’s these others that you want to go find/expose/seek and destroy in a trade.

The mindset is – more than a few FF teams lost games they thought they had won if their KC-BUF players just had a decent/normal-ish game. Many didn’t and now temper tantrums are going to be thrown. I’m not speculating that – it’s a fact. I see/hear it already. A Monday Night Game…for all the world to view…a big let down at a pivotal part of the FF season…and these stupid players can’t even act right, and they must be punished…and some we need to runaway from and seek relief from any player that had a good Week 6, unlike their terrible players who can’t even score a few points on live television.

That ‘mad as hell’ sentiment exists…it is real within many because it’s the FF-way – whatever happened last game is the truth going forward with non-star players and in order to be a good FF manager you need to punish them by trading them for things, to show them who is the boss…to show you’re not taking this loss lying down. Fire sales begin today on some players from this game/mentality/angst.

Fantasy Player Notes…

 -- This is the best window to buy Josh Allen (14-27 for 122 yards, 2 TDs/1 INT, 8-42-0). He had a mediocre Week 5 (in the rain v. TEN) and then looked bad here (in the rain) but his FF-stats actually weren’t bad. They just weren’t ‘wow’. Two weeks in-a-row of not-wow equals ‘he sucks’ to people who already fear he sucks and was a three-week hoax to start the season.

The thing is…people, by and large, don’t believe in Josh Allen. We’ve been conditioned for two years that he sucks. I, chief among them. Then he’s amazing Weeks 1-3, and we’re seeing ‘whaddya know, look who is playing awesome’ stories all over pregame shows…but it’s done in the sense of disbelief, waiting for the other shoe to drop…waiting for that old reality to strike. This ‘shoe is dropping’ sentiment seems close to becoming reality with two ‘meh’ FF games in a row. Really, it’s three in-a-row of solid/OK/good but not the Weeks 1-2-3 wow.

122 yards passing here in this game, 51.9% completions…the guy is regressing! I know that’s what many Allen owners think today.

From them, I am going to go try and buy all the discounted Josh Allen stock I can.

You know where I stand on Allen for weeks – this is real, it’s not a hoax. It’s closer to ‘special’ than ‘concerning’.

Within this ‘terrible’ game, I saw Josh Allen make some throws that were unreal. Allen was not wild/inaccurate in this game…this game with a constant wet spray all game. He was on the mark most of the night and hit several guys on the money, but they couldn’t make the play.

On the first series, 3rd & long, Allen in some muddiness just cranked off a throw off his back foot on a dime to John Brown for an easy first down, but Brown slipped in his cut and was falling as the pass came in, and it ended up hitting him (wide open) in the face mask for an incompletion. Had that subtle money throw landed, the Bills were likely scoring first in this game on the first drive. It was very wet, things happen…but subtle things like this get overlooked versus ‘just the box score’/FF numbers.

3rd-series, KC up 7-3, Allen in some muddiness in the pocket…Allen stepped up, looked like he might run, then looked like he was going to dump it short, but then just decided with no feet really planted to just flick it deep for 50+ yards to a streaking Stefon Diggs – and he hit Diggs in stride, over two defenders, the most perfect ball placement throw of 2020 perhaps, it hit Diggs in the hands running full speed near the back of the end zone, and Diggs couldn’t haul it in. It was an MVP type throw…and nobody cares because it wasn’t completed.

I’m telling you Josh Allen is playing great football. He’s better than, more of an MVP 2020 type player than Lamar Jackson right now. He’s on a level, to some degree, with what Patrick Mahomes and Justin Herbert are doing…and Allen will run on purpose, like a boss, to get things done. He had several purposeful runs in this game to convert 1st-downs and keep the drive moving.

You should invest in Josh Allen while the price has dropped…because people don’t really trust him, and the recent ‘good/OK’ games and the two back-to-back NFL losses are only confirming fears. Rotoworld notes said ‘he looked like his 2019 self’ and ‘the weather made no difference for Mahomes’.

The State sponsored media message is out there. After Week 3, the ‘cool kids’ all noticed how good Allen was and did there ‘well, lookie here…you dolts out there probably don’t know that Josh Allen is playing really well, so let us do a 2-3 minute segment acting surprised and pointing it out with a laugh’ routine. After Week 6, the ‘cool kids’ are going to turn on Allen because it’s easier to reconcile…it means all their/our prior scouting was right.

I’m telling you…it is not.

Now, I’m not saying go trade Allen for Mahomes. Come on. I’m just saying…Allen was a top 3 FF QB getting fawning press all Weeks 2-3-4, and the price was jacked. Now, he’s falling back to a ‘who cares, I could get the same numbers from Carr-Ryan-Tannehill’.

The time is now to strike.

The one issue to making a great trade this week…he faces the Jets this week. People may want to have that matchup. Make a deal right now but for after Week 7 if you have to. Agree to it now, but that you’ll execute it Week 8. If you let Allen go shred the Jets and bring his price back up, you’ll have missed your window.

Remember…we’re/I’m excited about Allen…not them. I don’t care what they tell you, believe they are panicked. Don’t fall for their words.

 -- Because of the sloppy weather, reduced time of possession/low pass attempts…all the Bills receivers go on sale…

Stefon Diggs (6-46-1/8) did good FF-numbers, but not great…and him being tied to ‘terrible, fading Allen’ – Diggs can be had, reasonably, just like the past few weeks. He’s a top 3 fantasy WR, trading like a top 12-15. Keep getting him.

John Brown (0-0-0/4)…two of the first three passes of this game were to Brown, and the one I described earlier (where he slipped) was the summary of his night. They tried to get him going at first, just back from injury, but the conditions and then lack of Buffalo time of possession of the ball started hurting everything. In a regular weather game, Brown will benefit from the attention to Diggs. He would have benefitted here if it were any type of normal game. Eventually, he was just used to clear out space for shorter throws.

You probably won’t need to trade for Brown…he might be cut by teams this week. In trade, he’s a WR3-4 now…a throw in for you. Take him. Get him for depth. You want the #2 WR on a top passing team…and remember, only we believe that, not ‘them’. Don’t overpay. Don’t even pay in many cases…just wait for him to get cut. Facing the Jets this week may keep him on people’s rosters is my angst.

 -- Devin Singletary (10-32-0, 1-13-0/2) is all but dead. Good start to this game…really good, and then the game started getting away and forcing Buffalo to pass more in the limited time they had the ball.

It doesn’t matter how good Singletary looked early in this game, or what my scouting of Singletary is…the Bills have the worst run blocking offensive line in the NFL. Not my gut feeling, but many metrics would confirm…if not the worst, one of the worst.

Devin Singletary is running behind a bad O-Line, splitting some touches with Zack Moss (5-10-0), and Josh Allen takes the bulk of the short TD runs because he can/it works. Devin Singletary is a dead RB3. He does start/play and get touches and sometimes things happen, so he has that value, but otherwise…for 2020…of what I see of this run game…he’s dead. Nearly cut-able in a 12-team/17-man roster league, but everyone needs RB depth and at least DS starts/plays good snaps/gets decent touches.

You can’t count on Singletary ahead in 2020 for FF.

 -- Clyde Edwards-Helaire (26-161-0, 4-8-0/4) blew up with a nice game…but, again, the Bills have a bad run defense, and I think the Bills were welcoming this run game to try to keep KC off balance and then try to make plays holding them out of the end zone when the field got short. They wanted KC to run, and they did.

Whatever it was…CEH is good, he had a good game…didn’t score a TD, again.

CEH will start ahead. Le’Veon Bell will slowly integrate in…and I think be more of a WR/RB than a real RB but gets goal line. If the Jay Glazer report on Bell is true (not brought in to start), and that report is the talk of FF this week AND then Bell plays like 10-15 snaps Week 7…then Bell’s value will plummet, then you can come in to make a PPR deal if you want to see if Bell is going to be a slick PPR and goal line back play.

CEH? I’d feel out the trade market and see if you can flip him to something bigger, but the Le’Veon effect is still strong. Fears abound on CEH. Like the early weeks of Ronald Jones disbelief we capitalized on to get him cheap for Leonard Fournette takeover fears. CEH has more fear than hope from people right now, hard to trade into that…but you might find a rookie lover out there to pay big. You don’t need to dump CEH…but ‘sell high’ is good…if you want.

 -- I am never going to recommend Mecole Hardman (0-0-0/1) again no matter how good the matchup looks. I already don’t like Mecole as a talent/WR to begin with but even the football genius that I am gets sucked in by ‘with Mahomes’ in a good matchup with Sammy Watkins on the shelf has to work. It rarely/never does.

I can see week-after-week that Mahomes (and the coaching staff) has little trust in Hardman. He’s just a random event every 4-5 weeks for a deep ball play in a game. Good luck guessing which week it happens.

 -- Now, get ready for your KC-DST hold to pay off nicely/higher…

Weeks 7 at Drew Lock, Week 8 v. Jets, Week 9 v. Carolina.

The Las Vegas game meltdown Week 5 is a thing of the past. It randomly happens to most good defenses in 2020. Heck, the Ravens gave up 28 points to the Eagles this week. Indy gave up 21 points in a blink to Cincy before anyone knew what happened.

The best defenses for FF are the ones that face the Jets or the NFC East/Giants or Eagles or Redskins or Dallas. Nothing else matters as much, or just randomly happens.

Snap Counts of Interest:

51 = Brown

51 = Diggs

34 = Beasley

33 = Davis

40 = Singletary

13 = Moss

49 = CEH

23 = D Williams

69 = Demarcus Robinson

67 = Tyreek

29 = Mecole

28 = Pringle