Game overview:
This is a fitting end to the regular-season for the Broncos...a must-win game against a team that is taking the week off -- you have to destroy your opponent in this situation, if you’re Denver...if you’re legit. This game was played at 4pmET+, and we all saw must-win teams struggle with weaker opponents at the 1pmET block of games...Tampa Bay nearly lost to the Saints, Washington nearly lost to Trey Lance/DAL, the Falcons DID lose to the Panthers. What looked like should-be-easy wins by the better team with complete urgency to play for...was not, for most teams Week 18 at 1pmET.
But Denver did not fall in that trap...they blew the absolute doors off of the Chiefs. This game was never in doubt from the first series on. Credit to Denver...and Sean Payton...and Bo Nix. They took care of business...they earned their playoff spot.
I would not want to play Denver (10-7) in the playoffs. A top tier NFL defense getting healthier. An offense starting to come into its own. All their recent losses to playoff level teams but one score margins where Denver coulda-shoulda won. Remember the 16-14 loss at KC, that game where a Broncos last second, chip shot FG was blocked for the heart-breaking loss? Buffalo better beware...this is not a bad/lucky team at all.
The Chiefs (15-2) already had the AFC #1 seed sewed up...and also sewed the award for ‘luckiest team in the NFL 2024’. KC is very lucky not to have been (0-2), (0-3), (0-4) out of the gates. But, if I keep calling the Chiefs ‘lucky’ week after week, year after year...is it luck? We’re about to find out in the playoffs...
Player Scouting Notes from the game:
*Note any fractional numbers in parentheses (4/2) or (2/3), etc., are a 'split' stat on our definition of a 'quality start' (or not) marker on a player -- using 14 PPR points in a game for RB-WR-TE and 21 (6pts TD pass) for a QB ...point levels that are good/productive/well above average starts for a Fantasy week. Trying to identify trends, consistency (or not) in players we might not normally realize.
A (3/2), for example, means: 3 times the player hit at/above the QUALITY mark, and 2 times they did not (this current season).
-- Let me just put these numbers out there on Bo Nix (26-29 for 321 yards, 4 TDs/0 INT, 7-47-0)...
5 TDs/5 INTs...0.71 TDs/0.71 INTs and 178.0 passing yards per game = First 7 games of 2024 season
24 TDs/7 INTs...2.4 TDs/0.70 INTs and 252.9 passing yards per game = Final 10 games of 2024 season
From Week 8 on, Nix was the #6 PPG QB in FF...ahead of Baker, Goff, Mahomes, Darnold, Purdy, et. al.
Nix isn’t going to beat Jayden Daniels out for the media’s Rookie of the Year, but it should be closer in the voting than it should be...and when we rated/graded Nix (and Daniels, and Penix) ahead of Caleb Williams in January 2024...it was the right scouting call. The NFL gets it wrong again.
Nix was excellent here in this game...he did what he had to do, in a HUGE spot and he just went out and shredded KC.
Nix is a top 10 QB1 for 2025, for sure. The debate this offseason -- is he a top 5 Dynasty QB? Is he a top 3 Dynasty QB possibly?
-- There was a time where the NFL intelligentsia thought Carson Wentz (10-17 for 98 yards, 0 TDs/0 INTs) was the next big thing at QB. ‘They’ got that wrong too.
-- The rise of Marvin Mims (5-51-2/5) continued here. Two more TDs in a game...back-to-back weeks pulling off that feat...as STILL a guy playing less than 50% of the offensive snaps.
He’s caught 13 of his last 13 targets (his last two games combined). He’s become one of the most dangerous players in the NFL...and Denver still doesn’t really lean into it on purpose as much as they should. He could be the X-factor to take down the Bills in the playoffs this week. But I can’t tell you if Sean Payton will get him the ball 2 times or 10 times in the 1st-half. I know what I’d vote for.
You can see how fast Mims is rising in our Dynasty stash rankings.
I’ve bet Mims props 39 times since Week 12, and I’m (31-8) wins/losses on those props...$445 in wagers placed, $953 paid out...a 114.2% ROI, so far this season.
-- Another week where it looks like Jaleel McLaughlin (16-39-0, 2-9-0/2) is the preferred lead back for Sean Payton, right now, in his trio-RB approach.
Audric Estime (12-34-1) took 12 carries, a big amount for him...but eight of the 12 carries came in the 4th-quarter with the score 31-0 and most of those late carries were with Jarrett Stidham at QB.
-- Carson Steele (8-25-0, 2-2-0/2) got the start for KC, in this game of backups for KC. Come 2025 initial OTAs, the RBs under contract for KC could just be -- Pacheco and Steele. However, I think KC is gonna bring back Kareem Hunt and thus slice Pacheco into an RB2/3...just a hunch/my gut feel.
The FFM era of Rachaad-Pacheco is dead, for now. We got GREAT ROI out of them over the past few years, not so great in 2024...but as a whole that investment against the mainstream was a big winner overall. We can’t complain (too much) about the 2024 fade, ignoring the nice 2022 and 2023 returns on investment.
But, with all FF RBs now/in this new era...that was then, this is now is the mindset we have to have. It’s time to move on from Pacheco-Rachaad...it was time to move on in-season 2024, as a number of you did. Time to find new RBs to ride. RBs are one-year commitments for me, anymore, for Dynasty/FF. I’m not marrying any RBs for the long-term. I’ll ride them ‘til they don’t ride anymore/the depth chart squeezes them or their head coach or O-Line or QB squeezes them. I have ZERO emotion holding any RB, right now...except my Derrick Henry stock we all stole last year.
This offseason, I will issue to all of us new edicts on RBs to consider...before and after free agency, and before and after the draft. Looking for/finding buy low and sell high opportunities. It’s very shark infested waters out there on RBs anymore...things change fast. We gotta be nimble and savvy, and not clingy and infatuated.
-- The Denver defense was about as good as it got early/midseason...and many of us rode that train to FF success. But then the train kinda derailed later in the season and we jumped off.
One of the reasons we had to jump was -- when Denver lost Riley Moss as a #2 CB...things fell to crap in the passing game defense. Moss missed several games, but now he’s back. Just note, Denver goes into Buffalo this week with a healthy, superior defense. They have an edge in this game via the defense...whether that can get them over AT Buffalo is a tall task, but it is a silver bullet hope the Broncos have going into these playoffs.
-- Two more sacks for Nik Bonitto (3 tackles, 2 sacks). 13.5 sacks this season...two defensive TDs. If he’s not the Defensive Player of the Year, there should be an investigation...but I can already tell you he won’t win it because the football media is lazy, is unstudied, doesn’t even know who Bonitto is in many cases (especially east coast media), and will give this award away to a flashier player on a flashier team...or just give it to Patrick Surtain (3 tackles), because he’s a former 1st-round pick that has a name they DO know. Surtain wasn’t the best defender on his own team, much less the league. Not that he isn’t good...really good, but Bonitto was arguably better.
Surtain is currently (-500) for the DPOY...why...I have no idea. It’s essentially set as Surtain is a LOCK to win, while Bonitto is +10,000. Insanity. I watched the Denver defense more than any this FF season...going back to the preseason when we started sounding the alarm...I don’t think Surtain is -500 the favorite while everyone is way deeper odds.
Bonitto was #3 in sacks this season...0.5 behind Myles Garrett, who will get way more votes than Bonitto will.
Will Bonitto be our FFM DPOY? We’ll see as I go through all the candidates in a slower, deliberate study of each team’s season/candidates and play it out in our annual tournament to find out who we believe are the various award winners. That tournament begins later this month.
-- IDP Notes...
Drew Sanders (2 tackles)...memba him? He’s back for Denver, back from injury...and played a few snaps here. His career is more dead than alive in Denver right now.
DEN DT Jordan Jackson (2 tackles, 1 sack)...a 2022 6th-round pick DT out of Air Force, that I liked as one of the better DT sleepers from that draft -- he got his first career sack here. 2024 season has been his first real ‘play time’. 17 games as a distant backup but starting to get a few more snaps as the season went on.
Snap Counts of Interest:
48 = Sutton
38 = Vele
26 = Franklin
23 = Mims
30 = Jaleel
23 = Javonte
18 = Estime
23 = Steele
13 = Perine
