Courtland Sutton — Week 1: Five Targets, Eleven Yards
2026 NFL Season · Half-PPR Scoring · Tuesday, Sep 15
Sutton was targeted five times and caught two for 11 yards; the first throw to him, deep middle on third and eleven with 13:39 left in the first quarter, was intercepted by Mansoor Delane and cost 5.2 points of win probability. The throws to him were worth minus 4.8 expected points, the lowest on the team, in a 31–10 loss to the Chiefs.
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Nothing to nothing, 13 39 left in the first quarter, third and 11 at the Denver 34, Denver's first possession of the season. Bo Nix threw deep middle for Courtland Sutton, and Mansoor Delane intercepted it at the Kansas City 49 and returned it to the Denver 46. −3.1 expected points added — expected points added is what a play was worth given down, distance and field position — and −5.2 points of win probability, the chance of winning the game after the play against before it, the costliest Denver pass or run of the night by win probability. Kansas City scored on the drive that followed.
The line: five targets, two catches, 11 yards, no first downs, −4.8 expected points on the targets, the lowest of any Denver receiver. The catches were six yards on first and 15 from the Kansas City 15, on the drive that came away with a field goal from the five, and five yards on second and 10 with 14 27 left in the game. The incompletions were the interception, a third and five with a minute two left in the half, and a first-down throw early in the fourth. Both third-down targets failed. Two targets before halftime, three after. The throws to him traveled 40 yards in the air, the most of any Denver receiver.
The split: Pat Bryant six targets, Sutton five, Evan Engram five, RJ Harvey four, Adam Trautman three, Jaylen Waddle three, Troy Franklin one. 28 throws on the night against 12 designed runs, and Denver's hundred 31 passing yards were the fewest of any team this week.
Back in June the preview leaned underpriced on Sutton — the 30-sixth receiver at pick 86 after a WR11 finish on a hundred 24 targets, the market having over-corrected for Waddle — and named two things to watch: the target split with Waddle, with Sutton's X role as the baseline, and Bo Nix's ankle and development. Monday's split went Sutton's way, five targets to three, and he was still the deep option — 40 air yards to Waddle's 13. What did not arrive was the conversion: two catches, 11 yards, and the first throw of the year was a turnover. One game against a defense that allowed the fewest passing yards in the league this week is the wrong game to grade a target share on. The split held; the yards did not. The Broncos are home to the Jaguars on Sunday the twentieth.
_Data via nflverse._
When Courtland Sutton's week moves the numbers, you'll know — every episode, in one weekly email.
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