The Worksheet, a comprehensive fantasy football preview by Rich Hribar, breaks down everything you need to know about the Week 10 matchup between the Bills and Broncos on Monday Night Football.
Find a breakdown of every Week 10 NFL game in our Worksheet Hub.
| Denver | Rank | @ | Buffalo | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7.5 | Spread | -7.5 | ||
| 19.5 | Implied Total | 27.0 | ||
| 21.5 | 16 | Points/Gm | 26.7 | 5 |
| 28.3 | 31 | Points All./Gm | 17.8 | 5 |
| 56.6 | 32 | Plays/Gm | 62.8 | 19 |
| 64.0 | 17 | Opp. Plays/Gm | 60.0 | 5 |
| 5.3 | 12 | Off. Yards/Play | 5.9 | 3 |
| 6.3 | 32 | Def. Yards/Play | 5.6 | 26 |
| 42.83% | 14 | Rush% | 40.35% | 25 |
| 57.17% | 19 | Pass% | 59.65% | 8 |
| 44.92% | 23 | Opp. Rush % | 39.26% | 8 |
| 55.08% | 10 | Opp. Pass % | 60.74% | 25 |
- Over the past four weeks, Buffalo is last in the NFL in turnover differential (-6).
- Buffalo has forced a turnover on a league-low 2.6% of opponent drives over their past four games after a 24.1% rate prior (first).
- Buffalo is allowing 36.8 yards per drive since Week 5, 31st in the league.
- The Bills have failed to cover the point spread in five straight games, the longest streak in the league.
- The Broncos have scored a touchdown on a league-high 41.2% (7-of-17) of their first-quarter drives, the highest rate in the league.
- Denver has scored a touchdown on 15.6% (10-of-64) of their drives over the final three quarters of games, 24th in the league.
- Denver has allowed a touchdown on 9.5% (4-of-42) of opponent drives over their past four games, the lowest rate in the league.
- 70.0% (28-of-40) of the Buffalo scoring plays have been touchdowns, second in the league.
- Over their opening four games, Denver allowed a touchdown on 47.6% (20-of-42) of opponent drives, 32nd in the league.
- The Broncos have forced a punt on a league-low 26.2% of drives over that span.
Trust = spike production for that player
Quarterback
Josh Allen: Allen threw for just 6.8 yards per pass attempt with just one touchdown and an interception Sunday night, but with another 44 yards and a touchdown on the ground, Allen turned in another top-five scoring week.
Allen has now been a top-five scorer in five of his past six games and a QB1 scorer in seven of his past eight games.
Allen has rushed for a touchdown in six of his past seven games.
We are locking in Allen as a front-end QB1 because he has that rushing upside, but he still has drastic splits with and without the use of play action.
Allen is averaging 9.9 yards per pass attempt (seventh) with seven touchdowns and two interceptions (12.18 rating) using play action.
Without the use of play action, Allen is averaging 6.6 Y/A (19th) with 11 touchdowns and seven interceptions (92.0 rating).
That is relevant here because the Broncos are allowing a league-high 136.2 rating facing play action.
With play action, the Broncos have allowed a league-high 76.5% completion rate, 10.0 Y/A (29th) with seven touchdowns and zero interceptions.
Denver has played better defense over the past month against Patrick Mahomes (twice), Zach Wilson, and Jordan Love, but those passers have also gone 22-of-26 (84.6%) for 300 yards (11.5 Y/A) and two touchdowns (140.4 rating) with the use of play action.
Russell Wilson: Wilson comes out of the bye leading the league in touchdown rate (6.9%) and touchdown passes over expectations (6.5).
16-of-17 (94.1%) Denver touchdowns this season have come through the air, the highest rate in the league.
Despite that, Wilson has not been a QB1 scorer since Week 5.
He has averaged 5.9 yards per pass attempt over his past four games compared to 7.7 Y/A over his first four games of the season.
He has faced the Jets and the Chiefs twice over that span.
Buffalo has allowed a QB1 scorer in three straight games with multiple touchdown passes in each of those games.
Two of those quarterbacks have been Mac Jones (19.9 points) and Baker Mayfield (21.4 points).
The past two quarterbacks to face the Bills have thrown 42 and 44 passes.
I would prefer to use Wilson as a higher-end QB2 over 1QB formats since he is due some touchdown regression at some point, but the Bills should push the scoreboard and create a game environment to offer upside here.
Running Back
Javonte Williams: Before the bye, Williams finally took over the Denver backfield, turning a season-high 30 touches into 98 yards.
His 76.9% of backfield touches was a season-high.
We have talked about it all season long, but the Bills are a tough run defense to tie down.
They are fifth in the league in rate of runs that fail to gain yardage (21.8%) but are 30th in explosive yardage allowed per game (65.7) on the ground.
57.4% of their rushing yardage allowed this season has come via explosive runs, the highest rate in the league.
But when they do tackle and prevent those big plays, you see how good they can be. Over the past three weeks, no running back has reached 40 yards on the ground against them.
Williams is in play as an RB2 based on his usage entering the bye, but as a massive road underdog and this Buffalo run defense playing their best stretch of the season, there is fragility here.
James Cook: With 10 touches for 39 yards on Sunday night, Cook has now been outside of the top 30 running backs in four of his past five games.
Cook still handled 76.9% of the backfield touches and has hit 70% of the touches in each of the past three games. The Bills just are not running, and Cook does not get enough touches that translate to fantasy points.
Cook has now run 37 more pass routes this season than he did all of his rookie season and has six fewer targets and just one more reception than he did as a rookie.
Cook only has six goal-to-go touches this season and two touches inside of the 5-yard line.
Latavius Murray has 13 goal-to-touches and 10 inside of the 5-yard line.
To Cook’s credit, he has converted two of those touches for touchdowns, the same amount as Murray.
That is where we could see Leonard Fournette come in and make an impact.
But based on his current usage, Cook is on the RB2/FLEX line.
Denver was a run defense that was historically brutal to open the season, but they were better going into the bye.
Over their three previous games before the bye, Denver did not allow more than 62 rushing yards in a game to a back.
They had a 70.4% success rate against those runs (fifth in the league) after a 56.0% success rate (29th) before.
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Wide Receiver
Stefon Diggs (TRUST): Collecting 6-of-7 targets for 86 yards and a touchdown on Sunday, Diggs now has at least six receptions in every game this season and leads the NFL with 70 receptions.
Diggs is the WR5 in target share (31.6%) and WR7 in the share of air yards (41.0%). He has been targeted on 28.5% of his routes, fifth in the league.
Tying this into what we mentioned with Allen and this matchup above, Diggs has 31.6% of the targets when the Bills use play action, averaging 4.17 yards per route run.
Even with Denver’s improvements defensively, this is still a unit we can target with wide receiver production.
This is where their recent quarterback and wide receiver schedule has helped them.
Even facing the Packers, Jets, and Chiefs twice over the past four weeks, Denver is allowing a league-high 72.3% catch rate, 9.1 yards per target (28th), and a 6.9% touchdown rate (30th) to wide receivers.
