FanDuel Single-Game Daily Fantasy Football Helper: Week 15 Thursday Night (Chiefs at Chargers)
We're on to Week 15 of the NFL season with a stellar matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and Los Angeles Chargers, an AFC West matchup with plenty of playoff implications.
And with plenty of scoring potential.
FanDuel Sportsbook lists the Chiefs as 3.0-point road favorites in a game with a total of 52.5 points, so a back-and-forth affair is in the cards in Los Angeles.
Before we dig in more, don't forget to brush up on some single-game perfect lineup trends and leverage our Sharpstack single-game optimizer for correlated lineup plays.
High-Level Simulation Results
I simulated this game a thousand times -- using numberFire's projections -- to see some high-level takeaways. Here's what I found.
| Player | Position | Team | FanDuel Salary |
Median FanDuel Points |
Value | Top Score Odds |
Top-5 Score Odds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Patrick Mahomes | QB | KC | $17,000 | 21.1 | 1.24 | 33.9% | 82.4% |
| Justin Herbert | QB | LAC | $16,500 | 20.4 | 1.24 | 29.5% | 79.7% |
| Tyreek Hill | WR | KC | $13,000 | 15.2 | 1.17 | 9.9% | 56.0% |
| Austin Ekeler | RB | LAC | $14,000 | 15.0 | 1.07 | 10.8% | 54.4% |
| Travis Kelce | TE | KC | $12,500 | 14.2 | 1.14 | 6.1% | 51.7% |
| Keenan Allen | WR | LAC | $12,000 | 12.8 | 1.06 | 3.4% | 42.2% |
| Clyde Edwards-Helaire | RB | KC | $11,000 | 11.0 | 1.00 | 3.0% | 32.6% |
| Mike Williams | WR | LAC | $11,500 | 10.0 | 0.87 | 1.8% | 26.5% |
| Harrison Butker | K | KC | $9,000 | 9.5 | 1.06 | 0.5% | 18.9% |
| Dustin Hopkins | K | LAC | $8,500 | 8.6 | 1.01 | 0.2% | 11.5% |
| Darrel Williams | RB | KC | $9,500 | 8.3 | 0.88 | 0.8% | 19.1% |
| Jared Cook | TE | LAC | $7,500 | 7.0 | 0.93 | 0.2% | 10.4% |
| Mecole Hardman | WR | KC | $7,000 | 5.6 | 0.80 | 0.0% | 3.2% |
| Jalen Guyton | WR | LAC | $9,000 | 4.1 | 0.46 | 0.0% | 2.0% |
| Byron Pringle | WR | KC | $6,500 | 3.9 | 0.60 | 0.0% | 1.7% |
| Justin Jackson | RB | LAC | $10,000 | 3.9 | 0.39 | 0.0% | 3.3% |
| Joshua Palmer | WR | LAC | $7,500 | 3.3 | 0.44 | 0.0% | 0.4% |
| Donald Parham Jr. | TE | LAC | $6,000 | 2.8 | 0.46 | 0.0% | 0.7% |
| Joshua Kelley | RB | LAC | $8,000 | 2.4 | 0.31 | 0.0% | 1.5% |
| Stephen Anderson | TE | LAC | $5,500 | 2.4 | 0.44 | 0.0% | 0.4% |
| Derrick Gore | RB | KC | $6,000 | 1.2 | 0.21 | 0.0% | 0.8% |
| Demarcus Robinson | WR | KC | $6,000 | 1.2 | 0.20 | 0.0% | 0.1% |
| Michael Burton | RB | KC | $5,000 | 1.0 | 0.20 | 0.0% | 0.6% |
| Marcus Kemp | WR | KC | $5,000 | 0.9 | 0.18 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
Slate Breakdown
Across 76 single-game slate optimal lineups in my database since 2019 that have had a 50-plus-point over/under and a spread between 1.5 and 5.5 points, quarterbacks have finished as the MVP at a 48.7% rate, a bump up from the full-sample average of 47.0%.
Running back odds drop from 28.7% to 19.7%, and if we aren't getting a full go of Austin Ekeler, we probably won't see enough work for any of the running backs to make it into the MVP slot with two star quarterbacks in play.
Tight ends and receivers, then, are a little more likely than usual to be optimal MVPs than the full rate, and that includes receiver (26.3%) overtaking running back (19.7%) overall in this split. That fits this game well.
But back to the quarterbacks.
Patrick Mahomes draws a matchup with a Chargers defense that ranks 9th in adjusted pass defense but 32nd against the run. In six games against top-13 adjusted pass defenses this season, Mahomes hasn't been particularly good. He has averaged 15.5 FanDuel points per game via 223.2 yards and 1.0 touchdowns per game with weak passing efficiency. Against the Chargers in Week 3, Mahomes was good, though. He accrued 260 passing yards and 3 touchdowns on plus efficiency.
Justin Herbert has a similarly tough matchup: the Chiefs are 11th. In his five games against top-13 adjusted pass defenses, Herbert has averaged 21.6 FanDuel points per game with 295.2 yards and 2.4 touchdowns while easily overperforming expectation relative to the defense's strength. His Passing Net Expected Points (NEP) per drop back over expectation is +0.10; Mahomes' in a similar split is -0.09.
Another notch in Herbert's favor is that across all five positions and underdog/favorite splits, the underdog quarterback is most likely to be the optimal MVP in comparable game scripts to this one (28.9%). Also, when the MVP in games like this has been an underdog, it's been the team's quarterback 57.9% of the time.
Austin Ekeler is practicing in a limited fashion, a good sign for his role in Week 15. He's the non-quarterback favorite to be the MVP tonight, per the sims. In his absence last week, the Chargers ran 22 plays. Joshua Kelley played on 13 of those snaps and had 7 carries (2 in the red zone) while Justin Jackson played on 9 snaps with 5 carries (3 red zone). Without Ekeler, the anticipated split likely would take both out of primary MVP consideration but keep them in flex potential.
With Keenan Allen set to return, we have to rule out the Week 14 results when he missed. In games with Allen and Mike Williams playing normal snaps (so, excluding Week 6 when Williams was limited and Week 14 without Allen), Allen has a 28.1% target share (10.8 targets per game) while Williams is at 20.8%. Ekeler has a 15.1% target share, Jared Cook has a 12.3% target share, and Jalen Guyton has a 6.4% target share. That's the hierarchy in this offense. Josh Palmer's Week 14 results likely will be irrelevant for Week 15's tilt.
In the Chiefs' backfield, we saw a three-man committee in Week 14 with Clyde Edwards-Helaire (38.6%), Derrick Gore (31.6%), and Darrel Williams (29.8%) splitting work in a blowout. The first-half work really favored Edwards-Helaire (seven carries) over Williams (two) and Gore (one), and Williams had two targets with CEH and Gore each getting one. Edwards-Helaire makes for a sneaky MVP option going against the grain of historical trends and against the league's most vulnerable run defense while being the team's top option early on in Week 14.
Tyreek Hill and Travis Kelce continue to offer elite yardage ceilings but one has touchdown concerns. Hill paces the team with a 26.2% red zone share and a 35.3% end zone share; Kelce has a 15.4% red zone share and a 5.9% end zone share. Kelce has the much better matchup: the Chargers are 29th in adjusted FanDuel points per target allowed to tight ends and 2nd against receivers.
As for the tertiary and quaternary pass-catchers, Byron Pringle (71.9% of routes in two post-bye games), Demarcus Robinson (57.9%), and Josh Gordon (31.6%; on the COVID-19 list) have overtaken Mecole Hardman (28.1%). Even without Gordon, Hardman is not a priority play.
Of note, kickers have been part of the optimal lineups in comparable games to this one at just a 31.6% rate, shy of the full-sample split of 34.1%.
