• Isaiah probably shines in a bigger role: He was probably not involved in the Baltimore Ravens Attack last season, when Mark Andrews was healthy, but that was not the case in this game.

• The Kansas City Chiefs’ young wide receivers led them to victory: Rashee Rice And Xavier Worthy Rice’s 100 yards and Worthy’s two touchdowns were the Chiefs’ main playmakers, which could be a sign of things to come.

• Take advantage of a PFF+ subscription: Get full access to all of our fantasy tools of the season, including Weekly rankings, WR/CB Matchup Charts, weekly projectionsThe Start-Sit Optimizer and more. Register now!

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

PFF’s fantasy football review focuses on player usage and statistics, providing all the essential information you need for fantasy success in 2024.

Baltimore Ravens @ Kansas City Chiefs

• Isaiah probably: 9 receptions, 111 yards, 1 touchdown
• Xavier Worthy: 2 receptions, 47 yards, 1 touchdown, one carry, 21 rushing yards, 1 rushing touchdown

Isiah Pacheco remains strongly committed: Pacheco only left the field on a few third attempts, although Samaje Perine‘s presence.

Pacheco seemed to be on his way to a great season after the team Jerick McKinnonbut fantasy managers were concerned after the team added Perine to the backfield. This game brought more good news than bad for Pacheco, but it’s too early for Pacheco managers to celebrate.

The good news is that Pacheco played a large majority of the normal early-down situations. Last year, he played in 75% of those snaps when McKinnon was healthy and 83.3% when he wasn’t. His rate in those situations was even higher in this game, as he played all of those snaps in the first half and lost two snaps early in the third quarter when he Reportedly vomited before he later failed to make another three attempts. Perine played the majority of the third attempts as expected, but that is no big deal for its fantasy value.

The big questions are at the goal line and the two-minute drill snaps. Pacheco played just 37% of the snaps last season when the Chiefs were within five yards of scoring when McKinnon was healthy, but that percentage jumped to 68.4% when McKinnon was healthy. The Chiefs ran just one play within five yards, and Pacheco was on the field and scored a touchdown. That’s the best that could have happened to him on that one play, but it’s still just a sample of a single game. He’ll need to keep most of those snaps to keep scoring touchdowns.

He played 23.5% of two-minute drill snaps with McKinnon last season and 66.7% without. Pacheco played the only passing snap in the two-minute span of the first half. This is the situation where Pacheco is most at risk of losing snaps that matter to his fantasy value, and it’s also the situation where you least want someone on the field who’s only been on the team for a week. We may not know who’s playing most of those snaps for a month. This is the only situation to keep an eye on for Pacheco going forward. Until then, we can remain cautiously optimistic about his fantasy value.

The Chiefs follow a largely predictable rotation at wide receiver: The utilization of Kansas City’s core players in the preseason continues to be a strong indicator of their utilization at the start of the regular season.

Rashee Rice was unsurprisingly the Chiefs’ best wide receiver, playing about 80% of Kansas City’s offensive snaps, which is consistent with his usage at the end of last season. He was the Chiefs’ clear target leader and someone we probably won’t mention much in these articles now that he’s clearly the best wide receiver.

Xavier Worthy was the second wide receiver in the pecking order, which included an early touchdown run but not many targets. He was also the clear second player in the preseason, playing 19 of 24 snaps with the starters and not much with the backups. Justin Watson was the third recipient. The only question is what will happen when Hollywood Brown is healthy, which could happen as soon as next week. It’s possible that Brown is just replacing Watson’s snaps, but considering that Brown, Worthy, and Watson are all deep threats, we could see a healthy rotation between the three receivers.

What’s important is that the other backup wide receivers didn’t play many snaps. Mecole Hardman did not play in the offensive and Julie has played much less than last season. It is possible JuJu Smith-Schuster will get a little more involved as time goes on, but he will likely be just a backup to Rice. It remains possible that Rice, Worthy and Brown all have fantasy value this season.

Isaiah probably plays a big role: He was probably much more involved in this game than he was last season when Andrews was healthy.

Last season, Andrews played 75% of Baltimore’s offensive snaps when healthy, and Likely played just 7-35% in those games. When Andrews was out with injury, Likely took over completely, playing a median of 74% of the snaps.

The Ravens even used 12 people on base offense during two-minute drills so that both Andrews and Likely could be on the field at the same time. Before the final drive, they played 32 snaps with 12 people together, which was the most snaps they played together in a game. Last season, they maxed out at 16 in a game.

In 11 personnel, Andrews played 11 snaps to Liekly’s nine. In the first half, Andrews played seven of eight and in the second, Likely played eight of 13. The fact that Likely cut into Andrews’ time in 11 personnel should be a concern for Andrews’ fantasy managers. From Weeks 2 through 10 last season, Andrews played in over 90% of Baltimore’s 11 personnel snaps. Likely played with Charlie Kolar in 22 personnel, while Andrews was the primary tight end in 21 personnel.

It will be difficult for Likely to maintain that fantasy value since there were so many passing games where he wasn’t on the field, and the Ravens probably won’t run that many passes in most games. Still, it’s possible he could get more playing time, and he also has more potential than about half the other starting tight ends in the NFL. While I’d be hesitant to put Likely in my fantasy starting lineup next week, he could very well be better than anyone you have on your roster as a backup.

It’s worth noting that Likely took a hard hit with 10 seconds left in the game. He landed awkwardly on his arm and was down for an extended period of time. He sat out one play and was able to return to the game to attempt a touchdown catch to tie the game. The fact that he returned to the game is a good sign for him, but his health is worth monitoring.

A well-known running back rotation for Baltimore: Justice Hill ended up playing about as much as Derrick Henry.

Hill played 83.4% of Baltimore’s two-minute drill snaps last season, 67.9% of third-and-3 or more snaps, but only 34.2% in all other situations. Henry was the opposite of that with the Tennessee Titans Last season, he played 6.7% of two-minute drill snaps, 2.8% of third-and-3+ snaps, and 73.1% of early-down snaps.

It should surprise no one that Hill played in the clear passing situations while Henry was the clear leader in rushing situations. This was a game where Baltimore trailed late in the first quarter and played from behind the rest of the game. While it’s OK to be concerned about Henry’s efficiency, this usage should surprise no one. The Ravens should win most of their games this season, giving them different game flows and more opportunities for Henry to succeed.

Miscellaneous notes

• Travis Kelce played in over 80% of Kansas City’s offensive actions, something he only does in important games. He did this five times in the regular season, including in games against the Buffalo Bills, Philadelphia Eagles And Cincinnati Bengals. He did this in all four playoff games as well. We can expect his snap rate to dip a little below 80% in other regular season games this season.
• Zay Flowers had four targets in games that were all taken back due to a penalty. His target share was already high before taking that fact into account and seems like a bargain considering where he was drafted.
• Rashod Bateman was, as expected, a clear wide receiver for Baltimore. This was the first time since the final four weeks of his rookie season that he played over 80% of Baltimore’s offensive snaps.
• Ravens rookie wide receiver from the fourth round Devontez Walker was inactive for the Ravens due to health reasons.
• Chiefs wide receiver Hollywood Brown missed this game due to injury, while the recently added tight end Peyton Henderson was a healthy inactive person.
• Chiefs running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire is on the non-football injured list. He missed this game and will miss the next four. A month ago, Edwards-Helaire open about his struggle with PTSD.

Notes on the table

• Snaps include plays that were called back due to penalties, including offensive holding or defensive pass interference. These plays have been removed from the other three statistics.
• Targeting may vary from official NFL sources. The most likely deviation would be a clearly blocked pass, where the NFL may assign the target to the closest receiver, whereas this data does not.
• Turnovers are only allowed on planned plays. Quarterback scrambles do not count toward the total number of turnovers in the game.