Fantasy Football Matchups Breakdown: Week 6 Denver Broncos vs. New England Patriots

The Broncos and Patriots, a game originally scheduled for week 5’s main slate, now features a marquee matchup of quarterbacks returning from injuries and ailments that we wouldn’t have seen a week ago. Who gets the victory in their return to action, Cam Newton or Drew Lock? For the 2020 NFL season, Matt Savoca will be providing his weekly NFL Fantasy Football Matchups Breakdown column, going through every single game and offensive and defensive matchup, every week of the season. For your viewing convenience, we have broken up the matchups breakdown into several single columns, each one covering a single game. You can find links to every game right here. We have 11 games on tap for Week 6 NFL DFS and NFL Daily Fantasy Football, so let’s dive in. The entire matchups article will be available in podcast form, every Friday afternoon on the Awesemo Podcast Network. Let’s get into Broncos – Patriots NFL DFS picks for your NFL DFS lineups.

And don’t forget to join Matt Savoca and Dave Loughran, every Thursday morning at 11 ET on the Awesemo YouTube channel.

The Daily Fantasy Football Matchups Column: Patriots at Broncos

New England Patriots (28.25) at Denver Broncos (17.25) – p.m. 1:00 ET

Denver Passing Game

Drew Lock makes his triumphant return to the lineup after missing the last two-plus games with a shoulder injury, and it couldn’t come at a better time for the Broncos, who now play perennial powerhouses New England and Kansas City in back-to-back weeks. Lock faces a grueling uphill battle this weekend, as the Patriots tout a top-six secondary, via PFF’s coverage rating, and a top-10 overall defense in terms of team defensive grades. That hasn’t necessarily stopped teams from scoring points, as New England ranks 18th in points allowed per play, though most of those points allowed have come during inconsequential moments games thus far.

In order to produce enough points to keep pace with New England, Lock will have to improve  vastly upon his week 1 numbers (the only full game data we have for him this season). He ranks 29th among all qualified quarterbacks this season in completion rate versus expectation (CPOE) and 39th in quarterback expected points added per play. At the very least, Lock is taking his shots downfield. Small sample size not withstanding, Lock has a top-10 average depth of target at the position this season. That could mean good things for top receiver Jerry Jeudy, who saw targets with Lock under center in week 1 but has struggled with the Broncos backups. Jeudy’s average depth of target of 13.5 is the second highest on the team, which aligns almost perfectly with Lock’s average.

Tight end Noah Fant, if he plays (ankle), will, at the very least, be Lock’s second option and remains the only Broncos skill position player to command 10 targets in a game this season. His seven targets per game average are tied with Jeudy for the team lead, but Jeudy is the clear leader in true weighted opportunity share, ranking within the top 30 at the position. Though it’s not clear how much Lock will target him going forward, DaeSean Hamilton had begun to see a nice surge in usage as well, commanding 16 targets over the Broncos’ last three games. Looking at the Awesemo.com projections for the Broncos wide receivers, Hamilton is the player that aligns closest with his salary on DraftKings. None of the Denver weaponry are considered values in the projections this week. It doesn’t mean that a big game is impossible from any of these players, but it does mean that the probability of these players hitting their ceiling, and being a value at their respective salaries, is quite low. Players like Judy are absolutely capable of producing slate-winning scores, especially with their starting quarterback back at the helm. In weeks like this, where Jeudy’s expected to be on less than 1% of rosters, he makes a very interesting contrarian play, especially in tournaments.

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Denver Rushing Game

The Broncos’ backfield projection was thrown completely for a loop with news that starting running back Melvin Gordon was arrested Tuesday for DUI and was subsequently sent home from the team facilities Wednesday morning. Even if he is active on Sunday, it won’t be surprising to see Phillip Lindsay, returning to his first action since week 1, to get a lion’s share of the backfield opportunities, as Wednesday is typically “game plan install” days for most teams. If Lindsay is to see upwards of 35% of the team’s total opportunities, he’ll be one of the best values of the weekend at his salary (he’s the 31st highest salary running back on DraftKings), but he’ll also be highly rostered as well. The Patriots don’t grade out quite as spectacularly against opposing running backs as they do against opposing quarterbacks and receivers, which could make utilizing the Broncos’ bell cow back all the more worthwhile. Lindsay will likely need to catch more passes than he did down the stretch of 2019 (he hasn’t caught more than three passes in a game since week nine of 2019), but that’s certainly a possibility this Sunday if Gordon is disciplined by the team. If not, this backfield is likely a full-blown committee, with it difficult to discern which back will receive the valuable touches. If both play, both will likely be labeled “stay away” by this article’s author.

New England Passing Game

With a one-week postponement of this matchup, it appears both teams will get their starting quarterback’s back from extended absences. Newton practiced for the first time since testing positive for COVID-19 prior to week 4, and with him, a return to the Patriots’ run-oriented, smash-mouth style they were just beginning to hone when Newton was forced from the lineup. Even with the one-week absence, New England leads the league in rush attempts per game, and this Sunday should not change that ranking whatsoever. But the passing game, which struggled mightily against the Chiefs in week 5 (with the combination of Brian Hoyer and Jarrett Stidham targeting them) should also see a significant improvement. Newton was playing some of his best football to begin 2020, and currently ranks inside the top 10 quarterbacks in expected points added per play and true drive success rate, good for 11th in composite quarterback efficiency.

The Broncos, as it seems they do every year, sport a top-10 secondary (via PFF grades) and don’t rely on any singular player in order to be productive defensively. Cornerback Bryce Callahan is the only Denver player in the top 50 in PFF’s individual coverage grades, and he’ll likely spend a majority of his time covering wide receiver N’Keal Harry, which PFF ranks as one of the least advantageous matchups for wide receivers on the entire slate. That could possibly mean a bounce-back game for Julian Edelman, who had a very “un-Julian Edelman” game against the Chiefs in week 5, making multiple uncharacteristic mental errors in the Patriots’ loss. With Cam under center, Edelman had been seeing over 53% of the Patriots’ air yards and 27% of the team’s targets. If he sees that type of workload in week six, he will almost certainly pay off in fantasy lineups, he’s the 22nd highest salary wide receiver on the main slate.

Damiere Byrd is the clear-cut third option on this team and was seeing 18% of the team’s air yards, 13% of the team’s targets with Newton at quarterback. Byrd’s average depth of target actually outpaced Harry through the first three weeks of the season, so Harry was significantly more utilized in the red zone. As the 66th-highest-salary wide receiver on the slate, Byrd looks like a very intriguing play in a game with the Patriots favored to win. His projection on Awesemo.com slides Byrd in nearly 30 spots higher than his salary implies.

New England Rushing Game

Cam Newton leads all quarterbacks in rushes per game with 10, even outpacing last year’s Most Valuable Player Lamar Jackson. The quarterback rushing game was, as expected, entirely abandoned with Newton on the shelf, but it should return as fast as it went away with him back in the lineup this weekend. The Broncos represent the toughest rush defense the Patriots have faced all season, in fact they are now ranked as the most difficult rushing matchup in the entire NFL via PFF rush defense grades. New England’s offensive line prowess is equally effective, however, as they rank second in PFF’s team run blocking grade. Regardless of the difficulty of the matchup, as long as the patriots reach the opponent’s red zone, Newton will be unleashed on the ground, once again, as the unique rushing weapon that he is. New England will continue to create advantageous looks for their running backs if defenses overpursue Newton (Rex Burkhead already has a three-touchdown game this year for this exact reason). A surprise blow-up day from a Patriot back is never out of the question. But Damien Harris (who rushed for 100 yards in his 2020 debut in week 5), pass-catching specialist James White and the aforementioned Burkhead most likely will cannibalize each other’s workloads just enough so that Newton is the only player worth rostering in lineups this weekend.

Prediction: Patriots 31, Broncos 17.

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Author
A middling athlete who was offered his first sports analytics position at age 14, I've been working on NFL and fantasy football data science since 2017. With a particular passion for data visualization and dashboard building, I love to make data accessible by using graphs and charts to communicate ideas that are difficult to explain with words alone. You can contact me by e-mailing [email protected].

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