Kansas City Chiefs Start-Sit: Week 14 Fantasy Advice for Patrick Mahomes, Brashard Smith, Isiah Pacheco, Travis Kelce, and Others
The fantasy football landscape shifts each week, bringing fresh opportunities and unexpected challenges that separate the prepared from the pretenders. Savvy managers know that last week’s performance tells only part of the story, and diving deeper into the underlying metrics reveals the accurate picture.
This week presents some intriguing decisions. Here’s insight about key Kansas City Chiefs players heading into their matchup with the Houston Texans to help you craft a winning lineup.
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Patrick Mahomes, QB
Patrick Mahomes was passing touchdowns left and right while you passed the cranberry sauce, and while it wasn’t enough for the Chiefs, his fantasy managers were left fulfilled (261 passing yards with four touchdowns, 30 rushing yards).
It was great to see him lean into his “Big Three” pass catchers with 75% of his targets going to Rashee Rice, Xavier Worthy, or Travis Kelce. That trio accounted for three of his four scores, and while I like Hollywood Brown targets as much as the next guy, this is the path to Mahomes leading your fantasy team to the promised land.
READ MORE: Soppe’s Week 14 Fantasy Football Start ‘Em Sit ‘Em: Analysis for Every Player in Every Game
The rushing numbers continue to elevate his floor, and as the passing production turns around (one score through the air in his three games before Thanksgiving), those chunk gains on the ground project as sustainable.
He’s got a 10+ yard run in six of his past eight, and that level of versatility makes him a lineup lock, even against the terrifying Texans.
Brashard Smith, RB
The idea of having a rookie who required draft capital to pick up in an Andy Reid offense with some question marks when it comes to running the ball was good.
Keep making bets like that in your drafts, and you’ll have success; it just didn’t work this time around.
With Isiah Pacheco back, a minor role got even smaller. Brashard Smith doesn’t have a touchdown this season and didn’t touch the ball once on Thanksgiving. He appears to be two injuries away from a role that matters, and at this point in the season, there’s no need to hold out hope.
Kareem Hunt will hit free agency this summer, and we can have the Smith conversation when he moves up this depth chart as a result.
Isiah Pacheco, RB
Isiah Pacheco returned last week to give this backfield an added dimension.
The dimension?
An added spectator.
In the loss to the Cowboys, Pacheco finished with a 13% carry share. He matched Hunt with two targets, but with Mahomes funneling 75% of his looks to his big three targets (Rashee Rice, Xavier Worthy, and Travis Kelce), banking on much usage in the passing game for any member of this backfield is dangerous.
Hunt has been the goal-line back for this entire season, even when Pacheco was trending toward taking the lead role, and that’s crippling any hopes of squeezing flex value out of this distressed asset.
Pacheco is a hard-nosed runner and capable of earning more work, but we need to see this offense show confidence in him, and we are running low on time. On Thursday, 10 of his 16 snaps played were routes run, and that’s not how he earns his way into fantasy lineups for the stretch run.
Kareem Hunt, RB
Hunt had 30 carries in Week 12, and while the volume wasn’t the same in the loss to Dallas on Thursday, the return of Pacheco didn’t really dent his rest-of-season outlook.
As per usual, Hunt handled all three of the red zone running back touches for KC, and he held a 40-16 snap edge over their RB2. I suppose it’s possible that Pacheco, the harder runner for my money, works into a role that truly subtracts from Hunt’s bottom line, but I’m not projecting it until we get proof of concept.
This is a brutal matchup, and with some touch variance at least in the conversation, I can’t get Hunt inside of my top 20 at the position. That said, with touchdown equity and a clear path to 15 touches, I find it unlikely that you have three better options.
Marquise Brown, WR
This offense as a whole hasn’t exactly been what we signed up for, which makes banking on the fourth option impossible.
Marquise Brown left Thanksgiving hungry after earning just two targets in the loss to the Cowboys. Yeah, he scored his fifth touchdown of the season, but he was fifth on the team in routes and receiving yards, a role that just isn’t worth chasing in the least.
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With one game of more than two receptions since the middle of October, this is a profile that isn’t worth your time, even with him being attached to a desperate Kansas City offense.
Rashee Rice, WR
The word “unstoppable” is probably a little strong, but Rice is the apple of Andy Reid’s eye, and that is about as advantageous a spot as we could ask for.
On top of the YAC skills that jump off the screen regularly and the clear slant of the playcalling to keep him engaged, we got a red zone wildcat snap last week. It didn’t work, but the idea of putting the ball in his hands and taking it out of Mahomes’ in a scoring situation tells you just how he is looked at in the building.
- 109 receptions
- 144 targets
- 1,292 yards
- 10 touchdowns
That’s what Rice has given you over his past 15 healthy regular-season games. His 37.5% target share on Thanksgiving was a season high, and he was the only Chief to see the ball thrown his way on third down multiple times.
Kansas City has no room for error, and they have no interest in taking usage off the plate of their WR1. If you told me that Rice was the top-scoring receiver in the sport moving forward, I wouldn’t blink, and you can make the case that he’ll be a first-round pick in August.
You rolled the dice on him in your draft, and you are being rewarded in a significant way for doing so.
Xavier Worthy, WR
Thursday was a reasonable step forward for Worthy, putting him back in the flex mix after being a sensible, comfortable bench for a month.
Against the Cowboys on Thursday, he caught four of six targets and offered up an explosive play with Mahomes running for his life (42-yard gain). It was the first time since Week 7 that the burner met or exceeded expectations on the type of targets he was getting, and that’s progress.
He’s far from a lineup lock given the volume that Rice and Kelce are demanding. Still, his ability to thrust himself into that conversation in terms of opportunity count is all we can realistically ask for.
His only touchdown catch of the season came back in Week 6, also the date of his last end zone target. His slot usage has decreased slightly since Rice returned, which lowers the floor; however, it’s his red-zone usage, or lack thereof, that is primarily to blame for his underachieving stat line this season.
Last year, Worthy was looked at on 24.3% of his routes inside the 20-yard line. Through 13 weeks, that rate has been more than sliced in half (10.9%), leaving chaotic big plays as his only absolute path to a ceiling performance.
There aren’t 10 players in the league more capable of making those plays, but it’s a dangerous line to walk, something fantasy managers are obviously aware of, given the recent struggles.
Houston is a Tier 1 defense in many ways, and that carries over to its ability to defend the deep pass. They rank in the top quarter of the league against passes thrown 15+ yards in terms of YPA, passer rating, and touchdown rate. It’s fine to view Week 13 as a net positive for Worthy while still not being comfortable with him in your starting lineup.
That’s where I’ve landed. With four teams on a bye, he’s a fringe top 30 receiver for me and a risky proposition if your matchup is expected to come down to the wire.
Travis Kelce, TE
Kelce’s stock is on the rise despite Kansas City’s results trending in the other direction. While he doesn’t have the top producer at the position upside that we’ve had locked in for half a decade, he’s putting you ahead of your competition more often than not at the position.
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The future Hall of Famer has a touchdown in three of his past five games and has a 20+ yard grab in five of six. His touchdown came on a fourth-down play to round out the first quarter, and it’s clear that his connection with Mahomes hasn’t faded in the least.
Rice is the primary option in this offense, and it’s not close. But Kelce has separated from Worthy as the clear-cut second option, and that’s enough to land him well within my circle of trust this week, even against one of the best defenses in the league.
