Kansas City

Chiefs

Pacheco on Tuesday was designated for return from injured reserve but will miss at least one more game as he comes back from a broken leg he sustained in September. Kareem Hunt will continue operating as the team’s lead back and has a fairly soft matchup against Buffalo in Week 11. Look for Pacheco to seize lead back duties upon his return.

As expected, JuJu got in a limited practice on Wednesday, putting him on track to return from a hamstring injury he suffered in late October. Since then, the Chiefs acquired DeAndre Hopkins from the Titans. It’s a move that will make Smith-Schuster a tertiary pass catching option in the balanced Kansas City offense. He should be picked up in deeper formats in case Hopkins misses time in the second half of the season.

That doesn’t mean Pacheco will suit up for Week 11 against the Bills. He’ll be eligible to practice for up to three weeks, and could return to the playing field any time between Week 11 and Week 13. Kareem Hunt should get at least one more week as the Chiefs’ lead back. When Pacheco returns, look for Hunt to function, at best, as the 1B option behind Pacheco. Hunt’s reliability on short yardage carries could threaten Pacheco’s high value opportunities near the goal line.

Worthy had successfully defeated Riley Moss deep in the fourth quarter for what would have been a 50-plus-yard gain, but in a continuation of the greater Worthy story of this year, the ball was thrown out of bounds and Worthy came up favoring his shoulder. He’ll be hard to trust going forward and unstartable outside of deep formats against the Bills in Week 11. Worthy has six targets and one catch over the past two weeks despite running as many routes as any receiver in this offense.

Patrick Surtain blanketed him all day, to the point where an illegal use of hands to the face penalty showed the two of them tussling each other out of bounds. Hopkins still got his, including a 31-yarder on an all-out blitz on third-and-13 that the Chiefs ran with for the go-ahead field goal. It wasn’t a great fantasy day, but Hopkins was easily No. 2 in the pecking order and will remain on the WR3 line even with a tough matchup against the Bills due in Week 11.

Patrick Mahomes missed him high on what should have been an easy second touchdown on Kansas City’s final offensive play of the game. Almost all of Kelce’s work was of the checkdown-and-falldown variety, with his touchdown coming as a Denver defender fell to leave him uncovered at the two-yard-line on fourth-and-goal. Rejuvenated with 40 targets since Week 8, Kelce figures to be back in the TE1 overall picture against Buffalo next week even if he doesn’t exactly show much juice in the open field at this point.

If you were curious: Hunt’s previous career-high in targets was nine, and he had not been targeted more than seven times in any game since the novel coronavirus hit. Denver’s defense came after Patrick Mahomes with such gusto that he was forced to make Hunt a checkdown target, and a 26-yard catch-and-run after avoiding the sack narrowly edged Hunt over Travis Kelce as the No. 1 Chiefs receiver by yardage on the day. Non-Hunt running backs received two carries on the day in 19 snaps, almost all of which were on passing downs. Hunt will be a volume low-end RB1 play against the Bills next week.

He missed an open Travis Kelce in the end zone for what would have been a six-point lead assuming the Chiefs hadn’t gone for two, but Kansas City’s special teams came up with a blocked field goal to win the game at the last minute. Mahomes took four sacks and escaped several others, scrambling three times for 19 yards and having another sack waived off by penalty as backup tackle Kingsley Suamataia was abused several times by Broncos defenders. We also got a whole video package of Mahomes favoring his clearly-injured left ankle. Denver’s defense played well, but the Chiefs offense continues to not have a real second gear. They head into a Week 11 clash at Buffalo in a spot where Mahomes is a low-end QB1 at best for fantasy purposes.

He was struggling to put weight on his leg after he was rolled up on from behind, and reportedly had his hands on his helmet on the sideline before heading in to the locker room. Morris was replaced by Kingsley Suamataia, who is already struggling.

Smith-Schuster has not practiced since Week 7 and should probably have hit IR at this point. Edwards-Helaire is just a healthy scratch again as Kareem Hunt is rolling. Also inactive for the Chiefs are: OT Ethan Driskell, OL C.J. Hanson, DE Cameron Thomas, and DT Marlon Tuipulotu. Tershawn Wharton is playing off a questionable tag. Every non-Smith-Schuster inactive here is a healthy scratch.