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Week 6 Fantasy Football Cheat Sheet: Swoon for Mike Boone

The Broncos could flip the script after a dreadful start, spearheaded by Mike Boone and a dominating ground game.

Matt De Lima

Welcome to the Week 6 Cheat Sheet. What exactly is the cheat sheet? There are no rankings, no single-page printout. It's not a traditional cheat sheet. It's more like the article equivalent. I want to give you some quick and easy advice, highlight a few players I'm higher or lower on than the average analyst for this week's slate of games and provide links to our other content here on SI Fantasy.

One of the befuddling aspects of covering fantasy football for a living is that I often get a lot of start/sit questions throughout the week that don't make much sense to me. For example, I was asked whether someone should start George Kittle or Taysom Hill this week. Look, if this is the sort of problem you're creating for yourself every week when setting a lineup, then you're overcomplicating the game. You likely drafted Kittle in Round 4 or 5, right? Sure, he's started off slow but Hill is a boom-or-bust player. If anyone could successfully separate the booms from the busts, they'd be a bajillionaire, not answering fantasy lineup questions. I'm fine being wrong with a player but again, Hill has five touchdowns in four contests (he sat out in Week 3). Does he keep it rolling? Is Hill going to score 20 touchdowns this year? No.

Try to have some awareness of what is a fluke -- or at best uncommon -- versus what a player is actually capable of repeating, Lean toward the safe, boring side when setting your lineups. If you're trying to make big calls every week, you're going to whiff far more often than you hit on those calls. If safe and boring aren't your cup of tea, I get it. We want to appear smart. We want to appear one step ahead of the masses. "Look at me, I predicted this statistically average player would outperform a known stud; I'm great at fantasy football!" No.

There has to be some kind of nuance to how you play. If you're going to make a call, find some statistical evidence. Maybe a team's top cornerback is hurt so their opponent's No. 1 wide receiver has a better than average game. Maybe it's going to be really windy so there's more rushing attempts. If there's no logic, then you're reducing the game to a lotto scratcher.

Let me get off my high horse. I do get way too comfortable up there, don't I?

In this Week 6 Cheat Sheet, I don't want to spend much time focusing on the marquee fantasy players across the league, and instead I want to focus on borderline players who are either at the end of your starting lineup, the end of your bench or near the top of a 12-team league's waiver wire.

Denver Broncos Mike Boone
At the very least, expect Mike Boone to see third-down opportunities for the Broncos :: Mark Konezny/USA TODAY Sports

1. Broncos Backfield Coming Out Party

Just when we all became very comfortable dumping on Russell Wilson and Nathaniel Hackett, we will have to hold our tongues. While the safe play is Melvin Gordon against the Chargers' backfield. I'm going to take a step further and also recommend Mike Boone, especially in DFS. His price point will be great. The Chargers are league-worst in the tried and true stat of fantasy points allowed to running backs , giving up to the position 619 rushing yards, five rushing touchdowns, 31 receptions for 191 yards and three receiving touchdowns. Let me ramp up the nerd-dom by pointing out the Chargers are also dead-last in yards before contact (1.95, next-worst is 1.64).

I know the Broncos added Latavius Murray, so this backfield isn't exactly clear-cut. All three backs should earn some playing time here, but I feel Boone will earn a lot of third-down playing time as he has outsnapped Gordon on third down two-to-one. And just to be clear, Gordon is still a solid play in this matchup, I just wanted to give Boone some love as well if you need to dig deeper. Because to Gordon's credit, he ranks tied for 14th with 13 tackles avoided, tied for 13th in red-zone carries and tied for 12th in inside-the-5 carries. 

On the whole, the Broncos (read: Wilson and Gordon) have just not been able to execute in the red zone. In 14 red-zone trips, they've scored a touchdown just three times (21.4%, last). Approaching the league average TD rate in the red zone (57%) would be a game-changer for the Broncos' narrative. Their offensive line is graded eighth-best in PFF's offensive line rankings so there are a lot of factors that could trend in their favor. A Boone breakout feels right with all that in mind.

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2. No Good, Very Bad Panthers

This is not the week to dip your toe back into Carolina waters. While their Week 6 opponent, the Los Angeles Rams, aren't really wowing anyone, this matchup does the Panthers no favors. The Rams have allowed the fewest points to running backs and while they've given up the fourth-most points to receivers, almost 40% of that point total comes from receptions. Plus, you'll have to count on Baker Mayfield's backup, P.J. Walker, to get something going in the passing game. With the running game potentially ground to a halt, that's a big reason why Mayfield and Co. are gaining so little traction with the pass.

Let's just cover Mayfield so we know what we're up against and how Carolina's performed. He is averaging 6.7 intended air yards per pass attempt (IAY/PA), nearly two yards below his previous career-low. That's translated to  4.7 completed air yards per completion (CAY/Cmp), 1.6 yards below his career-low. Last year, he had 11 balls batted down, yet he already has 12 through five games. His 64.1% on-target percentage this season is nearly 10 points below his 2021 percentage (73.6%). The Rams grade out as tied for ninth in pass rush and as long as Aaron Donald plays (did not practice Wednesday), they should be as good as advertised.

Mayfield will likely not play because of a high ankle sprain, leaving Walker to get the start. The Rams have a fair number of corners injured, but there's just too much trending in the wrong direction in Carolina to consider the whole offense as anything more than a fade.

3. Failing Justin Fields

Ahead of Week 2, after the Bears somehow managed to take down the 49ers, I wrote about Justin Fields:

If Justin Fields is your QB1, why? But it’s going to be a very long season. It should be a red flag that in almost every game, Fields’s best-scoring pass plays are breakdowns where he scrambles for four seconds and chucks it deep. It’s not sustainable! I understand the Bears’ offense isn’t good, except for Khalil “stuck behind David Montgomery” Herbert but Fields isn’t doing anyone any favors.

And ahead of Week 8 in 2021, I wrote about Fields (and Jets QB Zach Wilson): "On Fields and Wilson, we are at DEFCON-1. S.O.S! MAYDAY! ABANDON SHIP!"

Fields looks exactly the same with happy feet in the pocket, not trusting his reads, not making decisive throws and allowing himself to be consumed by  coverage sacks. It's not all on him. Fields's limitations come from an inflexible and indelicate coaching staff with mediocre play-calling. Coming into this game, the Commanders had 14 sacks (2.8 per game) through five contests. Washington sacked Fields five times.

Here are two advanced stats for you: Expected points added per play (EPA/play) and completion percentage over expectation (CPOE). EPA is a "metric that quantifies the number of expected points that a play adds (or loses).” CPOE contextualizes "how good a quarterback’s completion percentage is while controlling for the difficulty of the throws they attempt." If you composite these two stats for this season, the top-six quarterbacks are Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, Geno Smith, Tua Tagovailoa, Jalen Hurts and Lamar Jackson. Not bad, right? Who's second-worst? Justin Fields. Worst? Well, it's Baker Mayfield, of course.

Something has to change. And I don't know what this team is going to do as almost all of the coaching staff was brought on this year. So they inherited Fields and it's not a given they will stick with him indefinitely. Coaching staffs typically want "their guy," so I'd speculate they trade Fields and draft a quarterback next year. Or maybe the Bears owner or front office decides to hit the reset button on the coaching staff. Something has to change.

4. My Week 6 Friggin' Bums

Every week, I'll highlight eight players (two at each position) that I like who are rostered in less than 50% of Yahoo leagues. You can think of them as desperation plays or salary punts in DFS contests.

  • QB Bailey Zappe, NE (at CLE)
  • QB Zach Wilson, NYJ (at GB)
  • RB Mike Boone, DEN (at LAC)
  • RB Eno Benjamin, ARI (at SEA)
  • WR Marvin Jones, JAC (at IND)
  • WR Alec Pierce, IND (vs. JAC)
  • TE Will Dissly, SEA (vs. ARI)
  • TE Daniel Bellinger, NYG (vs. BAL)

5. Week 5 SI Fantasy Must-Reads

Before setting your lineups, make sure you check out some of the world-class fantasy lowdown from our SI Fantasy analysts:

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Matt De Lima
MATT DE LIMA

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