Welcome to Statistically (in)Significant, the place to find great stats that probably only matter at the water cooler (or bar). Each week I'll dig through the stats of the week gone by and deliver you some choice conversation starters. All fantasy stats are half PPR scoring unless otherwise noted.
8 Rushing Attempts
The best running back in fantasy football received as many carries as the third-string QB slash gadget player on his team. Don’t worry, Alvin Kamara is still the best RB in fantasy, but his 8 carries for 15 yards is kind of funny to look at. He did find the end zone twice on those carries, but his 1.9 yards per carry versus Taysom Hill’s 5.6 yards per carry. Kamara owners are most thankful for the passing game, where he led the team with 7 receptions for 83 yards and another touchdown. This puts Kamara 56.1 fantasy points ahead of all but Dalvin Cook, who plays tonight and is the only other RB with any distance between him and the rest of the league. Cook has his work cut out for him, trying to keep up with Kamara. Kamara put up his third 30+ point performance this week, despite being out-rushed by a gadget QB. Cook has to face a Bears defense that hasn’t allowed 100 rushing yards to an opponent’s entire RB group since week 3.
14.5 Fantasy Points
Sounds like an OK game, right? What if it was a season total? What if this total was from a player who was drafted in the first round? What if this player, though injured, did manage to play 3 games this season? Well, this would be one of the more epic busts of the year, I suppose. Michael Thomas has a grand total of 18 targets with 10 receptions for 95 yards and 0 touchdowns in 3 games this season. Last season Michael Thomas had 300.1 fantasy points, so he’s not even reached 5% of those points so far this year. Let’s compare, for a moment, another first round pick who has played only 3 games. Christian McCaffrey, also facing a terrible disappointment of a season after having missed a majority of the season, has managed to put up 81.9 fantasy points in just 3 appearances, good for the RB31 on the season. He’s at least looking at nearly 20% of his points from last season. Thomas’s outlook for the rest of the season just looks bleak, with Drew Brees looking at a possible multi-week injury. Perhaps the injection of last year’s passing yards leader, Jameis Winston, can get him going again.
163 Fantasy Points in 5 Games
Kyler Murray has taken over the NFL in the past few weeks. His team now sits atop the toughest division in the league (by tiebreaker), he’s in the MVP conversation now, and he’s far and away the QB1 on the season. Over the past 5 games, Murray has averaged 32.6 points per game and scored at least 1 rushing and 1 passing TD in each game, an NFL record. He’s only thrown 3 interceptions during that stretch, compared to 10 passing TDs and 6 rushing TDs. Murray is now 32 points ahead of the pack at the QB position and has already had his bye week. Checking in on the running back, Kyler Murray, he’s currently sitting at 604 rushing yards, good for 8th in the league. He has an average of 6.9 yards per carry, which leads the league and his 10 TDs are 2nd in the league on the ground. His 120.4 points on the ground would make him the RB11 on the season. We all get to watch Kyler on Thursday night in Seattle, so tune in to see what ridiculous shit he can come up with!
3-50+ Yard Field Goals
Tyler Bass (who?) had a hell of a day for the Bills. He finished the week as the top kicker, netting his owners a cool 19.7 points. Of course, the problem here is that he’s only owned in about 25% of fantasy leagues. Bass went 3 for 3 on Sunday, both in extra points and field goals, from 54, 55, and 58 yards. With this performance, Bass now finds himself on top of the kicker list, and hey, who doesn’t want to be K1? As the weather starts to really turn – we saw at least a couple of games really affected by the weather yesterday – nabbing kickers who will be indoors could be a very smart streaming move. We all also need to stop worrying about a name when we grab kickers. Of the kickers who have made 20 or more field goals this year, the highest ownership rate is Jason Sanders of Miami, only at 68%. Justin Tucker will not save you, or your fantasy team, especially since he’s outdoors in crummy weather cities for all but one game to close out the season.
728 Days
It’s been basically two full years since the #1 overall pick in the 2005 NFL draft, Alex Smith, started a game. To celebrate, he went ahead and put up career highs in pass attempts (55), pass completions (38), and passing yards (390). Unfortunately for his Football Team, he was unable to find the end zone, and ultimately, they fell to the Lions after some exciting back-and-forth in the 4th quarter which saw 5 scores between the two teams. Smith looks like he’s set to start the rest of the season in Washington, and in an incredibly down NFC East, they could make the playoffs if they could just win a couple of games. The Eagles are currently in 1st place with only 3 wins on the season. This is the latest into a season that a division winner has had only 3 wins. So, congrats to Alex Smith, for completing his return to the NFL. Now he’s got the first game out of his system, he can focus on the work of actually turning his team around, and with great young players like Terry McLaurin and Antonio Gibson in a division as historically bad as the NFC East, no Football Team can be counted out.
