Thursday night games are not a must for your daily fantasy football leagues, but having a firm grasp on how to incorporate them into your lineup can be helpful. On Thursday, September 17th, the Denver Broncos play at the Kansas City Chiefs. You don’t need to use any players from this matchup on your fantasy roster, and you can easily win a contest without doing so, but knowing who’s out there and how they can help you is important. Let’s start by looking at the visitor, the Denver Broncos.
Last weekend, the Broncos won against the Baltimore Ravens, but it was an ugly game and quarterback Peyton Manning performed dismally. He was one of the lowest fantasy point scoring QBs in the NFL, even though he was one of the most expensive. This week, he is again near the top of listed QBs, but he now has a lot of eyes on him. Will he turn his performance around, or will he have another poor showing? It’s not an easy question to answer, but Manning did look out of shape last weekend and it’s pretty risky to try and justify spending a lot of money on him when he’s currently a question mark. As great as he’s played in the past, right now he isn’t worth putting money into as there are other quarterbacks with a higher likelihood of scoring more points at cheaper prices.
Moving to the Chiefs QB, Alex Smith had a great game last weekend. He threw three touchdowns and 243 yards. As of the end of Week #1, Smith was ranked 6th in the NFL when it came to QB Rating. And on the daily fantasy sports sites, Smith is definitely not ranked anywhere near the top 10 in QBs when it comes to price. Smith, however, is a much better choice in this game than Manning and if you are going to go with a Thursday night QB, he is the one to choose. He’s cheaper and has already shown what he can do with his receivers. Manning has a longer track record of success, but hasn’t shown us much in his current setting.
Looking at wide receivers is also a good idea, particularly because wide receivers have so much potential for scoring points. The top WR on Denver last week was Emmanuel Sanders with 65 yards and 0 touchdowns. On Kansas City, the top WR was Travis Kelce with 106 yards and 2 TDs. Kelce is clearly the better choice in this situation, but before making a decision, you need to look at pricing. Sanders is much more expensive than Kelce, and much of the reasoning is because the Chiefs are ranked so poorly when it comes to defending against wide receivers. At DraftKings, Kelce scored more than twice as many points as Sanders, but is $2,500 more expensive. Again, it’s really tough to justify spending so much on someone that hasn’t put any sort of evidence forward this year that he’s worth it. Instead, it seems much smarter to spend less on proven results. Kelce has been battling a hip injury this week, but is currently listed as a probable for Thursday’s game and he has been in full practices all week. It seems pretty likely that he will start against the Broncos and be fully healthy.
This information is designed to get you thinking about how to use Thursday night games in your fantasy drafts. There are leagues that do not include Thursday games at all in their rankings, so you don’t need to feel obliged to act on this, but it is a good way to gain an edge over those that will use it.
