Quick Slant: TNF - You Survive, or You Don't
Mat Irby’s Quick Slant
I once worked on a movie in Albuquerque and Santa Fe. Frankly, I loved it; I’m not from anywhere like the high desert, so it was a chance to experience an entirely different social and environmental context. In the middle of it all, production took a week off, and my family and I headed up to Denver. I loved that, too. I have lived in Atlanta and New Jersey, so I’ve experienced the Appalachians from north to south, but the Rockies have an entirely different majesty.
We filmed in the fall, and I realized something about that part of the country that the privileged among us may at times forget: some places don’t have an NFL team. When people in Albuquerque cheer for the NFL, most of them pull for a team roughly 340 miles away. When they go to a game? It’s a cool seven-hour drive with bathroom breaks.
From Vegas to Kansas City—from Dallas to San Francisco—a space of roughly 500,000 square miles—there is really only one NFL outpost: Denver. In fact, Arizona, which doesn’t observe Daylight Saving Time, effectively bounces back and forth between Mountain and Pacific time zones. So, in a very real sense, Denver is the only NFL team that represents the Mountain time zone; effectively, one franchise represents about one-quarter of all the continental land area in the U.S.A. For added context, if you stood smack dab in Philadelphia, then drew a radius of 400 miles and spun around, you’d hit ten franchises stretching from Cleveland to Foxboro, up to Buffalo, and down to Carolina.
However, some fans in the high desert don’t choose Denver; they opt for Las Vegas, even though Vegas is situated far closer to Los Angeles than Albuquerque. The kinship of desert life bonds some; others, in places like Albuquerque—nearly 50% of whom are Latin American—are holdovers from a time when the L.A. Raiders stood as a symbol for the Hispanic diaspora in the U.S. and are drawn to this pillar of representation.
Not to trivialize anyone’s experience, just being honest. To outsiders, the AFC West seems like a junk drawer where the NFL exiled westward AFL teams they didn’t know what else to do with after the merger. Separated by over 1300 miles—roughly the width of the Mediterranean or the distance between the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico—they are geographically disconnected teams bonded only by their capricious assignment to a canon of four.
However, the rivalries, well over half a century old, are undoubtedly real. The hills have eyes, and these four teams—the Chargers, Chiefs, Raiders, and Broncos—all vie for their attention. Throughout Colorado, Utah, and Nevada, down to New Mexico, and up to Idaho again, the spaces in between Vegas and Denver are a kingdom to be conquered, heart-aligned with their Rocky Mountain brethren.
And there is history there; dating back to their inception, the greater parts of these two franchise’s histories overlap—the Orange Crush against Stabler; the eighties Raiders that won one on the legs of Marcus Allen and the eighties Broncos that fell short of the ultimate prize three times; the Gannon/Tim Brown “tuck rule” Raiders and the Shanahan dynasty of the late nineties. Many of the division’s most significant moments hinged on the inflection points between these two teams, including who was extolled in the pages of history based on these narrow results, and who was ultimately forgotten.
Like anything in the desert, the miles are real; from the thistles and poisons that lie in wait in the sun to the teetering snow hanging by a hair's breadth from a tenner, there are traps that lie in the mountains. Establishment rules don’t matter; you survive, or you don’t.
Raiders
Implied Team Total: 16.5
Any way you slice it, the Raiders have been one of the worst teams in the NFL this year. They are the third-worst team based on Pythagorean expected wins, a formula that calculates points for and points against, pacing for 4.8 expected wins.
Offensively, they are abysmal, ranking 29th in EPA per play and 29th in offensive success rate. Defensively, they aren’t much better, ranking 23rd in defensive EPA per play allowed and defensive success rate. The Raiders are one of seven teams that are firmly below average in both offensive and defensive EPA.
The Broncos are favored by 9.5 points, the most significant spread of the week. The Raiders’ 16.5-point implied team total is the lowest of the week. The Raiders were sellers at the trade deadline, shipping WR Jakobi Meyers to the Jaguars. All things considered, it all looks pretty bleak, teamwide, in Week 10.
The Raiders are relatively slow at the line (27.8 seconds to snap, 25th). They are not as run-heavy as people assumed they would be with HC Pete Carroll and OC Chip Kelly taking over (41% run rate, T-19th). The same is true regardless of context; they are even slightly pass-heavy, with a pass rate over expected (PROE) of -0.9 (14th).
QB Geno Smith has dropped back 34 times per game (25th) and 30.1 attempts per game (23rd). Smith has generally maintained a decent rushing platform throughout his career, but he has been ineffective as a runner this season, ranking 27th in QB rushing yards (87) with no TDs and just 3.0 YPC.
As a passer, he has not been doing enough to compensate for this underachievement. He is underwater in almost every rate stat like QB rating (83.7, 36th), YPA (7.1, T-23rd), and pressure-to-sack rate (21.0%, T-27th). He is below average in both CPOE and EPA.
It is a common misconception—not as widely held as it once was, but still lurking in some dark corners of fantasy analysis—that a negative game script is beneficial for a QB. A more accurate conclusion to draw is that a negative game script keeps the possibility alive for scoring later in the game more for a QB than an RB; however, it is still bad news. It is far more preferable for a script to offer a back-and-forth affair, with each offense scoring numerous times.
With such a low team total, chances are high that Smith, who is TD-dependent in this offense, is unable to earn more than one score. In six games where the Raiders have been at least a five-point underdog, Smith has averaged 1.2 TDs/G, but those games also didn’t come against the Broncos’ defense, one of the most respected groups in the NFL. They’ve been stellar against fantasy QBs.
In recent weeks, it has even been postulated that Smith could be benched in favor of QB Kenny Pickett or QB Aidan O’Connell (who is listed as out for this game). This is purely speculative, but this is intuitively possible, and it could even happen in the middle of a blowout loss to one of the NFL’s top teams on the road.
Even without considering all other context, Smith is simply a hit-or-miss player in 2025, recording two top-12 outputs in eight games, but also five where he didn’t even rate as a QB2. These two spike-weeks were games where Smith scored three and four TDs, respectively; in his other six games combined, he has only four.
Two significant things happened regarding the Raiders’ pass-catchers this week: Meyers was traded to Jacksonville, and TE Brock Bowers finally returned from injury, blowing up with a three-TD game. These are two of five Raiders’ players with more than a 15% target share in their last five games: Bowers (31.7%), Meyers (19.3%), TE Michael Mayer (20.0%), WR Tre Tucker (16.8%), and TE Albert Okwuegbunam (16.7%). This desperately needs to be unpacked, however, as there is a lot of context owed to these numbers.
Let’s start with Albert O. In Week 5, the Raiders were without each of their top two TEs, Bowers and Michael Mayer, for a game they lost to the Indianapolis Colts by a score of 40-6. TE Ian Thomas drew the start, but Okwuegbunam outpaced Thomas 12 routes to five in the fourth quarter of a game that was already 40-3. Not only is that a lot of garbage time, but Bowers and Mayer are now healthy, so Okwuegbunam is no longer a factor. He hasn’t even been active for any other game (which has preserved his high target share, all consolidated to this one-game sample).
Next, let’s discard any added context or commentary about Meyers, who is no longer in the building.
This leaves us with three viable target shares to dissect: Bowers, Mayer, and Tucker.
We admittedly have very little to go on based on this. The three have played together for five total games; however, Meyers also played in those games. Meyers also overlapped in each game Bowers played in general. Only Tucker and Mayer have played a game without Meyers also in the lineup. In that one game experiment, Mayer’s targets dropped from 2.8/G to one solitary target, while Tucker’s targets climbed from 5.14 to six.
We could try to chase Week 7 usage outputs to see how the Raiders adjusted in their lone game without Meyers, but against Kansas City, the Raiders logged 16 total targets and 12 receptions, and Bowers didn’t even play. We probably won't get anything useful from such a study.
What we do know is that Meyers played 60.6% of snaps out of the slot. WR Tyler Lockett slid into that spot last week, but he is barely recognizable from his old self, ranking 127 of 128 qualified WRs in PFF grade. We had probably hoped that rookie WR Jack Bech would start to make headway down the stretch with extra room to grow, but as of now, the Raiders seem content to pull Bech from three-WR sets and put Lockett outside along with Tucker.
While the exact details are unclear, it is safe to assume that Tucker is the unquestioned WR1 for the Raiders for the time being. Vegas may also lean more on 12-personnel, taking advantage of Mayer, a former second-round pick who can play a little (which would further stifle Bech until he can surpass Lockett in two-WR sets).
But, without a doubt, we will assume that the passing offense should run through Bowers no matter what. It is conceivable that last Sunday was the first time Bowers had been fully healthy all year, and the Raiders put up their best scoring output. In that game, Bowers ran 50% of his routes from the slot and an additional 13 routes out wide. He drew a 44.4% share and 57.1% first-read targets.
Bowers is definitely back in auto-start territory for fantasy, but no other pass-catcher on the Raiders bears that distinction. Tucker has proven upside, but thus far, his anomalous three-TD game looks like the sporadic blip of the field stretcher, which happens from time to time, and never when you have it in your lineup. The Broncos have been one of the toughest matchups for fantasy WRs thus far.
It's not perfect, but fantasy TEs have performed better against Denver. It is worth noting that this is largely TD-driven, which is a volatile metric. Additionally, most teams don’t have a singular player who is so obviously the key in every passing situation as Bowers is on this current Raiders roster.
Denver has one of the best defenses in the league. They rank fourth in EPA per play allowed and first in defensive success rate.
Their strength is in the passing game; even without reigning DPOY CB Patrick Surtain II, who is on IR, the Broncos were still -6.5% in defensive EPA per dropback last week.
The Broncos run man at a 40.1% rate (2nd) and more single-high (53.7%, 12th) than two-high (46.3%). Their favorite alignments are Cover 1 (29.1%) and Cover 3 (22.6%), which are essentially the man and zone versions of the same defense, and are among the most popular alignments in the league. The Broncos blitz on 27.4% of their plays (7th).
Fantasy Points’ coverage matchup tool assigns a zero-based matchup grade to each pass-catcher based on their opponent’s use of specific types and rates of coverage and how that pass-catcher performs against them. Positive numbers indicate a favorable matchup and negative numbers indicate an unfavorable one.
Of the players that are still on the roster, Bowers and WR D’onte Thornton grade out with favorable matchups based on this criteria, while all other Raiders’ pass-catchers either come up negative or don’t qualify.
PFF’s matchup tool is player-based, pitting the PFF ratings of individual players against each other for an expected number of plays based on historical tendencies and rating on a scale from great to poor. In this model, Bowers’ matchup grades out as great, while all other pass-catchers of significance grade out as fair (and Smith grades out as poor).
The Broncos have the most team sacks in the NFL (40), led by DE Nik Bonitto (8, 4th). They have a pressure rate over expected (PrROE) of +12.27% (4th). They should have a fairly significant advantage, according to Fantasy Points’ OL/DL matchup tool.
Smith has struggled with handling pressure. His QB rating falls from 100.5 when clean to 42.6 when under pressure—a drop of 57.9 points. This marks the seventh most significant drop-off in QB rating under pressure.
The Broncos, who allow only 1.32 adjusted yards before contact per attempt (adj YBC/Att, 2nd on the week), should enjoy the most significant advantage of the week against the Raiders’ run blocking unit, which only generates 1.37 adj YBC/Att (28th on the week).
The Raiders have not been a successful team on the ground, ranking 32nd in offensive EPA per rush and 30th in offensive success rate on rushes.
RB Ashton Jeanty entered the league as one of the most heralded RB prospects of a generation, but he’s had a tough time getting going. Jeanty has a top-ten snap share (71.5%, 10th) and percentage of team rush attempts (65.6%, 4th). But, according to RotoViz data, he has 0.8 yards before contact (YBC, T-6th-lowest), and he is met at the line of scrimmage on 53% of his runs (T-5th).
Despite profiling as a capable pass-catcher coming out of college, Jeanty has not enjoyed the safety net of being a big part of the passing game out of the backfield. However, he has been efficient when given opportunities, recording three receiving TDs (T-4th) and 9.0 YAC/reception (12th).
Denver has been just as stubborn in their last five games against RBs as they have against other positions.
Note that the expected points (EP) are higher for QBs, WRs, and TEs against the Broncos than they are for RBs. The simple reason for this is game-script related, as their opponents are throwing more as they fall behind. EP is generally more predictive, so this is just another indicator that the Raiders will throw a bit more in this game, which we already expect, as we would anticipate them to be chasing points most of the game.
Jeanty is definitely the second most trustworthy asset in the Raiders' offense this week; he is given so much volume that there are a lot of places where he is worth the shot, but he’s also far from automatic. Jeanty has been a volatile player with as many RB1 weeks as total duds, where GMs regretted having him in their lineups.
In a game with such a low implied team total, going against such an incredible rush defense, we can’t depend on a great deal of fantasy scoring from Jeanty this week either. He’s probably starting in plenty of leagues, but an RB-rich fantasy GM could justifiably consider looking elsewhere.