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Fantasy Football: 4 Bold Predictions for Week 6

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Fantasy Football: 4 Bold Predictions for Week 6

There's nothing quite like the NFL.

Football is one of the most intense, exciting sports on the planet. The source of the now-ubiquitous saying "Any Given Sunday," the NFL is a place where even struggling teams have a chance to topple the best in the league. Anything can happen when you only play 17 regular season games a year.

That uncertainty is a huge driver behind the excitement the NFL generates each and every season. What's more fun than watching something totally unexpected unfold before your eyes?

That's why, this year, we'll be bringing you four bold predictions to watch for in each week the 2023 NFL season.

NFL Bold Predictions for Week 6

Jimmy Garoppolo Will Be a Top-6 QB Against His Former Team

Who doesn't love a good "Revenge Game" narrative? This week, the Las Vegas Raiders, with Jimmy Garoppolo at quarterback and Josh McDaniels as head coach, will get the better of their former team, the New England Patriots. We haven't actually seen any real evidence of either individual harboring feelings of ill will towards their former team (though wide receiver Jakobi Meyers might feel otherwise), but who wouldn't want to notch a win against their old team?

The Raiders' offense has been a major disappointment this season. Despite boasting some of the best skill position players in the game in Davante Adams and Josh Jacobs, they have yet to score more than 18 points in any game so far this season. They're leading the league in percentage of offensive drives to end in a turnover (22%) and rank fourth-worst in the league in third-down conversion rate, generating a new set of downs on just 32.7% of their chances. They need to figure something out quickly before their season ends up being completely lost.

Fortunately for them, the Patriots are faring even worse this season. The Pats' offense has been arguably the worst in the entire league, scoring just three points over their last two games. On the defensive side of the ball, they've given up at least 24 points to every opponent they've faced this year when excluding the Zach Wilson-led New York Jets, and they are now faced with having to replace studs like Matthew Judon and rookie cornerback Christian Gonzalez going forward. In other words, the Patriots could be just the opponent the Raiders need to get their season back on track.

Garoppolo is currently projected to finish as the QB17 in Week 6, which is fair considering his middling output so far this season. With offensive weapons like Adams, Meyers, and Jacobs, though, the Raiders should have a serious skill gap between their playmakers and the Patriots' banged up defense. Garoppolo and McDaniels should be able to leverage that advantage, launching Jimmy G to a top-six finish at the quarterback position in Week 6.

Isiah Pacheco Will Be the RB1 Overall

The Kansas City Chiefs might be running their wide receiver room by committee this year, but their running back opportunities have been consolidating into one back since the start of the season -- Isiah Pacheco. The angry runner has been garnering more and more of the running back touches for the Chiefs since entering the season a little banged up and has made former first-round pick Clyde Edwards-Helaire a virtual afterthought in the offense. Even veteran pass-catcher and pass-protector Jerick McKinnon has ceded work to the the second-year back this season, paving the way for Pacheco to have one of the best week-by-week workloads in the league at the running back position.

For fantasy football purposes, Pacheco has been a steady, consistent RB2 so far this season with rushing touchdowns in each of his last three games. He has only had one 100 rushing yard game in 2023, but it's hard not to see him repeating that feat in Week 5 as the Chiefs take on the Denver Broncos.

The Broncos are a mess this year. Their defense has been the worst in the league in pretty much every department; they "lead" the league in points allowed, yards allowed, yards per pass attempt allowed, yards per rush attempt allowed, and much more. Last week, we predicted that the Broncos' poor rushing defense would set the stage for Breece Hall to assert his candidacy as an RB1 for fantasy this season. This week, we're predicting they'll hoist Pacheco up onto the podium as the RB1 in Week 6.

As a unit, no team in the NFL is allowing more rushing yards per game than Denver's 187.6 per game average. The Cincinnati Bengals are allowing the second-most at 154 per game -- over 30 fewer yards per game than the Broncos. Denver just can't stop the rush this season, something we're sure Chiefs head coach Andy Reid has noticed. With the league's best pass-catching tight end Travis Kelce managing an ankle injury, the Chiefs could lean on the run more than we're already used to seeing them do in Week 6.

Unlike the Jets last week, the Chiefs already have a successful running game this season heading into their matchup with the Broncos. Their offensive line has generated yards before contact at the third-highest rate in the league (an average of 3.4 per carry), illustrating how they're opening up lanes for their rushers. Pacheco, specifically, is getting an average of 3.0 yards blocked for him before contact on average, the ninth-best rate in the league. We're expecting the Chiefs' offensive line to get plenty of push against the Broncos' flailing defensive front. The Chiefs under Andy Reid have never been a team to shy away from capitalizing on good matchups, meaning this could be Pacheco's best chance all year to churn out over 100 rushing yards and multiple rushing touchdowns. He's primed to finish as the overall RB1 in Week 6.

Jordan Addison Will Finish as a WR1

The 2023 season can't get much worse for the Minnesota Vikings -- in addition to dropping to a 1-4 record, the Vikings are expected to place All-Pro receiver Justin Jefferson on the injured reserve ahead of their Week 6 tilt with the Chicago Bears. Their season is unfortunately all but over just five weeks into the year.

You can't simply replace one of the best wide receivers in the league, but this offseason the Vikings did at least attempt to prepare for a situation where they wouldn't be able to rely on their star when they drafted former USC Trojans wide receiver Jordan Addison in the first round of the 2023 NFL Draft. Addison was an elite receiving prospect in the college game. After a productive freshman campaign with the Pittsburgh Panthers, Addison won the Biletnikoff Award for wide receiver play in his sophomore season, during which he caught 100 passes for 1,593 yards and 10 touchdowns. There's an argument to be made that Addison's elite sophomore season was largely responsible for the Pittsburgh Steelers' drafting of quarterback Kenny Pickett in the first round of the 2022 NFL Draft. Addison's raw production numbers dipped when he transferred to USC for his final collegiate season, but the then-junior still posted elite marks in efficiency metrics like yards per route run during that season.

Addison's transition to the NFL has gone relatively smoothly already, too -- especially compared to some of his 2023 wide receiver class mates. The rookie has already put up 3 touchdowns -- tied with Jefferson for the most on the Vikings -- and has caught 19 of his 29 targets for 249 yards. It has been frustrating from a fantasy football perspective that the Vikings have had him trailing teammate K.J. Osborn in routes run so far this season, but with Jefferson's injury, we should see Addison step into a full-time role against the Bears in Week 6.

No team in the league has attempted more passes than Minnesota (204) so far this season. Kirk Cousins is going to have to throw to someone against the Bears. Tight end T.J. Hockenson and his 6.6 average depth of target (aDOT) have made for a fine extension of the running game, but the team will need someone on the outside to push the ball down the field. That's where Addison -- and not Osborn, who plays more like a big slot receiver with his 8.8 aDOT -- can thrive.

Production black holes like Jefferson can garner so much attention in an offense that it becomes difficult for any other receivers to produce; Jefferson having 571 receiving yards in 5 games means there really isn't a lot of meat left on the bone for some of his teammates. However, we can get a sense of how those teammates stack up against one another on their levelled playing field, and Addison looks like the better bet for fantasy production than Osborn. The rookie's 1.49 yards per route run trails only Jefferson's 2.87 mark on the Vikings while Osborn's 0.82 mark sits dangerously close to running back Alexander Mattison's 0.69 mark this season.

Addison is the second-most efficient pass-catcher on the team behind Jefferson and should see a potentially massive uptick in opportunities while the super star receiver recovers from his hamstring strain. Against the Bears' struggling defense, the 23rd-overall pick of the 2023 NFL Draft will do his best Justin Jefferson impression and finish inside the top-12 wide receivers.

The Chargers Will Topple the Cowboys

It's kind of starting to look like the Dallas Cowboys made a mistake when they let former offensive coordinator walk out the door earlier this offseason.

Their offense, which ranked no worse than sixth-best in the NFL in quarterback Dak Prescott's three healthy seasons with Kellen Moore as OC, has put up concerningly average numbers with head coach Mike McCarthy handling play-calling duties in 2023. Meanwhile, Moore has appeared to help Justin Herbert and the Los Angeles Chargers turn the corner as an offense this year despite injuries to key players like Austin Ekeler (ankle) and Mike Williams (knee). If you remove the whopping four defensive touchdowns the Cowboys' defense has scored this season, the Chargers have actually scored more points on offense in just four games (110) than the Cowboys have in five (106). It's not a total apples-to-apples comparison, but with a bottom-five red zone-to-touchdown conversion rate, it's starting to feel like the Cowboys' offense is missing their former offensive coordinator.

The difference between these two offenses could play a major role in their upcoming Week 6 matchup. According to the FanDuel Sportsbook's NFL Odds for Week 6, the Cowboys are 2.5-point favorites to take home the win on Monday night. Our final bold prediction of the week sees things going the other way with Los Angeles and Kellen Moore getting the better of Moore's former employer.

We mentioned above that the Cowboys' offense has been forced to settle for three points in the red zone at a shockingly high rate; the New York Giants have had more success in the red zone than Dallas this year. While Dallas' red zone conversion rate flounders, the Chargers' rate is among the league's best, ranking fifth in the league. Those kinds of four-point plays -- scoring a touchdown instead of a field goal -- can be the deciding factor in a game and could put the Chargers on top in Week 6.

We do need to talk about defense, though, which is where the Cowboys would certainly appear to have an edge. By most statistical measurements, the Cowboys' defense has been one of the best units in the league, while the Chargers' defense has been one of the worst. Has the Cowboys' defense actually been as strong as their numbers suggest, or have they just benefitted from playing a string of the worst offenses the NFL has to offer in 2023?

Through the first four weeks of the season, the Cowboys had the privilege of playing against the New York Giants, the New York Jets, the Arizona Cardinals, and the New England Patriots -- the two worst offenses in the league and two more offenses that rank in the bottom half of the league even through optimistic lenses. The Cowboys' defense shut down three of those teams but still coughed up 28 points in their Week 3 loss to the Cardinals, who entered the season with the longest Super Bowl odds of any team in the league.

We all saw what happened when the Cowboys had to take on the San Francisco 49ers in Week 5 on Sunday Night Football. The 49ers posted 42 points on the Cowboys' "elite" defense, tied for the most any team scored on the week. It was the Cowboys defense's first real test of the season, and frankly, they did not pass it.

So if the Cowboys' offense isn't the juggernaut we're used to seeing, and their defense's production has been puffed up by soft matchups, are we really sure this is a team that can make a good playoff run this season? Their Week 6 matchup will be an important test of the team's actual strength heading into their Week 7 bye, but the L.A. Chargers seem queued up to pull off the upset as 2.5-point dogs on Monday.


Interested in playing NFL DFS? Head over to FanDuel’s daily fantasy football lobby to see all the offerings for this week's slates.

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The above author is a FanDuel employee and is not eligible to compete in public daily fantasy contests or place sports betting wagers on FanDuel. The advice provided by the author does not necessarily represent the views of FanDuel. Taking the author's advice will not guarantee a successful outcome. You should use your own judgment when participating in daily fantasy contests or placing sports wagers.

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