Fantasy football strategy, rankings, and podcasts

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.

10 for 10 on Field Goals

Also, 5 for 5 on extra points. This week saw the two kickers top the season-long scoring charts, and go perfect along the way. Brett Maher kicked 4 field goals and 4 extra points as the Cowboys destroyed the Vikings. His 23 fantasy points are better than anyone in the first 10 weeks of the season. Tyler Bass, meanwhile, made the most out of not having to kick outdoors in 6’ of snow. He went 6 for 6 on field goal attempts and, appropriately, added an extra point. Bass’s 26-point performance is the best of any kicker this season, with Maher’s week 11 the second best. Bass was the 10^th highest-scoring player in all of fantasy football this week. He scored the most fantasy points in his game and Jacoby Brissett was right behind him at 25.86 points. If you had Bass and Brissett as the two highest scorers in a game that included Josh Allen, Stefon Diggs, and Nick Chubb, then I’m calling you a liar.

10’s Wild

Derrick Henry has 10 rushing touchdowns on the season and 1,010 rushing yards so far. A very nice total after 10 games in the season. Henry has 7 games over 15 fantasy points, after starting the season with 2 games under 9 points. Six of those games are over 22 points. Three of his last four games have two touchdowns each (one of those a passing score this week). Henry is now the fifth player in history to rush for at least 10 touchdowns in five straight seasons. He’s the RB2 on the season, just 1.54 points behind Austin Ekeler, without ever leading the league in scoring in a given week.

11 Receiving Touchdowns

Travis Kelce leads the league in receiving touchdowns. His 3 on Sunday night, including the seemingly inevitable game-winner late in the 4^th quarter. He’s now at 11 receiving scores on the season and just utterly dominating at his position. He’s the 4^th highest-scoring non-QB fantasy player, but what’s perhaps more amazing is that he’s ahead of the TE2 by an astonishing 78.7 points. Mark Andrews, the TE2, has only 58% of Travis Kelce’s season-long point total. Kelce is officially an all-time great, as if there was any doubt, when he passed the one and only Gronk for most 100-yard receiving games by a TE in league history.

11 QBs with 20+ Points

For the second time this season, 11 QBs scored at least 20 fantasy points in one week. As of halftime on Monday night, Jimmy Garoppolo has a shot at being the 12^th, which would be the high-water mark of this season. Included in these 11 QBs is Joe Burrow, topping the weekly list for the third time this year. Jacoby Brissett and Andy Dalton, are on an average of just 34% of rosters. Justin Fields for his 6^th straight top-10 finish. And, though he’s pushed it the last two games, did not include Aaron Rodgers in the realm of 20-point scorers, yet again, like he has…all season long.

$20 Million in Salary Cap

If you told Jerry Jones that the $20 million in cap space that he’s devoting to the running back position produced 6 touchdowns and 573 yards from scrimmage from just one of the players, he might be pretty happy. If you told him that all that production comes from the guy who is using up less than 6% of that cap space, well, maybe his eyes might finally pop out of his head. Tony Pollard has been outstanding in his contract year with the Cowboys. While Ezekiel Elliott is looking at getting his contract picked up or not, Pollard is looking at dollar signs coming up in 2023. Pollard put up his second 33-point fantasy performance this season and is now the RB8 on the season – a far cry from his ADP of RB35. This guy is someone who is propelling your team to the playoffs if you landed him in the second half of your draft.

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.

14.6 Fantasy Points

This week, 14.6 fantasy points are more than the RB16, Ty Johnson scored. Josh Jacobs accomplished that on one play in OT. In total, he gained 109 yards and scored 1 TD in overtime – whatever fantasy player always dreams about when their players make it to overtime. On the day, Jacobs had an astounding 303 yards from scrimmage, scored 2 TDs, and added 6 receptions. He touched the ball 39 times and he was only tackled for a loss twice, losing just one yard each time. His grand total was 45.3 fantasy points, good for the second-highest total on the season among all players. Jacobs is now the RB1 on the season and is the only RB averaging more than 20 points per game. He’s leading the league in rushing yards and yards from scrimmage. Having 303 in one game will do that for ya.

81.1% Completion Rate

Well, it’s only fair that I praise Kirk Cousins a bit for showing up on a prime-time game after I was so rough on him last week. Kirk has a reputation for turning in clunkers when he’s playing in the only game on, but that was not the case on Thanksgiving night. It was probably Kirk’s best game of the season, completing 30 of 37 passes and throwing for 299 yards, his second-highest total of the season, as well as the first time he’s thrown for 3 TDs all year. Cousins has the 4^th most passing attempts in the league on the season, which is pretty necessary considering the Vikings' defense is giving up the most passing yards of any team in the league.

145 Receiving Yards

The player who’s sure to be the hottest waiver pickup of the week, Zay Jones, helped his team clinch a win over Baltimore in a really exciting finish. The Ravens-Jaguars game featured 4 touchdowns, 1 field goal, and two 2-point conversions all in the 4^th quarter. Jones led the way for his team through the air, catching 11 passes for 145 yards and the all-important 2-point conversion at the end of the game. He caught two other passes on the final drive (5 total in the quarter) and finished as the WR5 on the week. He's only on 40% of Fleaflicker rosters at the moment, and that’s certain to shoot way up after waivers go through tomorrow night. Jones has now been targeted at least 8 times in 6 out of 10 games this season. This is his first time over 100 receiving yards this year, and only the second time in his career. He's starting to be a very important piece of a passing offense that is starting to click in Jacksonville.

76 Receiving Yards

There was only one TE this week who had more than 50% of Zay Jones’ yardage total. Josh Oliver of the Ravens topped the charts with 76 yards. He was also the TE2 on the week with 15.6 points, thanks to a touchdown late in the 4^th quarter of their game. Oliver is rostered in only 1% of Fleaflicker leagues, and he is one of three TEs in the top 10 this week who are rostered in less than 10% of all leagues on Fleaflicker. If you extend the list a little, there are 6 of the top 15 TEs that were free agents in over 90% of Fleaflicker leagues when their game kicked off on Sunday. This is only the second time all season that Travis Kelce has finished outside of the top 3 TEs in fantasy points for the week. He finished 4^th. What a bum. Time to drop him and pick up Josh Oliver.

0.38 Fantasy Points

Sometimes, a leader is hard to spot. Technically, Patrick Mahomes is ahead of Josh Allen in season-long fantasy points, but damn are they close. Mahomes has 288.80 points, while Allen has 288.42 points. That’s a difference of just 10 passing yards. Or 4 rushing yards. Hell, a touchdown would swing this wildly in someone’s favor. Both QBs have been at or near the top spot all season, and Allen really closed the gap with the best QB performance of the week in the very first game we got to watch this week. Allen threw two passing TDs and ran in another one, and added 78 rushing yards to top 30 fantasy points for the third time this year, but the first time since week 5. Allen doesn’t lead the league in any significant stat categories, showing that he has a well-rounded game. Oh wait, he leads the league in interceptions with 11 (tied with Davis Mills). I suppose that’s significant in a different way.

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.

54 Points

The Dallas Cowboys scored 14 more points than any other team on Sunday, putting up a whopping 54 on Sunday Night Football against the Colts. The Colts would have needed the help of all 3 other teams in the AFC South to beat the Cowboys on Sunday, and that would have only been by a field goal. One of the stats that stuck out to me about the Cowboys is that they scored so many points with so few yards. They had only 385 yards of offense. Tony Pollard led the team with just 106 yards from scrimmage. No other player had over 100. Dak Prescott threw for just 170 yards. Dallas didn’t even have more time of possession than the Colts. What they did do is score 5 touchdowns in the 4^th quarter. Helps when your average starting position is on the 33 yard-line.

29.1 Fantasy Points

Amon-Ra St. Brown had 11 receptions on 12 targets (both season highs) on Sunday and showed why he’s one of the best WRs in the league when healthy. In the games he’s not injured, he averages 17.8 points per game, good for 5^th in the league. Despite missing a game for injury and being hurt in 2 others, he’s still the overall WR7 on the season. He is a target machine, averaging over 10 targets per game in those 9 games where he’s started off healthy this season. It’s very important to get St. Brown involved early and often in games. This year he has 5 games with 8 or more receptions. While the Lions are a respectable 3-2 in those games, both those losses have come against the Eagles and Bills – two teams clearly out of their league. St. Brown is going to be perhaps the most important part of the Lions if their team has any measure of success in the near future.

34.40 Fantasy Points

Jalen Hurts leads the league in fantasy points this week with 34.40 points. He’s only scored more than that once in his career, but it’s his consistency that I’m amazed by. This year, he only has 2 games below 20 points and only 3 games below 24. Throughout his career, he has 21 games with at least 20 fantasy points, and he’s only started 31 games in his career.  Hurts is really developing into a top-tier QB before our eyes. He’s an MVP candidate this year, if not the leading one right now. He did almost all his damage on Sunday with his arm – he only ran 5 times for 12 yards, though he did find the end zone, which always helps the old point total. He’s now the QB2 on the season, just behind Patrick Mahomes and just ahead of Josh Allen. The top tier of QBs has more than 50 points on the QB5. They have truly separated themselves from the rest of the pack.

3-0 in 2022

Joe Burrow has now played the Chiefs 3 times in 2022. Twice last season and once this season now. He’s 3-0. He’s only played 3 times against the Chiefs – a perfect record against them is basically unheard of. In those 3 games, he has 8 touchdowns and just one INT, along with a rushing TD on top of that. He is especially good in the regular season, averaging 366 yards per game (thanks to an epic 446-yard performance last year, following up his 525-yard one the week before). On Sunday he completed over 80% of his passes and ran the ball a career-high 11 times. His career stats only get better as the year goes on. He’s great in December, completing almost 73% of his passes, and even better in January, so watch out. Sure, he’s never beaten the Browns (0-4) and has a losing record when playing inside his own division (5-8), but he’s taken down Patrick Mahomes 3 times, and that’s plenty for Bengals fans to hang their hat on.

27 Points on D/ST

Not just a fantasy stat, this is also a real-life stat! The Cleveland Browns scored 27 points against the Texans, none of them on offense. Thanks, Deshaun. No, I’m not salty that I started him this week. Not at all…but I digress. The Browns D/ST had an incredible fantasy day. They scored 27 fantasy points, now the high-water mark on the season after 3 teams were tied at 26 points. The Browns scored two defensive TDs and had a punt returned for a touchdown as well. A pair each of INTs and fumble recoveries capped off an impressive day over the hapless Texans, who were powerless, despite shutting the Browns' offense out.

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.

33.70 Fantasy Points

This week’s best performance by a WR/RB/TE came from a very unexpected place. Evan Engram had a monster game, putting up 33.70 points in the best game of his career by a long shot. He caught 11 passes on 15 targets for 162 yards and found the end zone twice. That’s a career-high for targets, yardage, touchdowns, and tied his high in receptions. He increased his season total in yardage by 42%. He scored more than 31% of his fantasy points this season this week. It took him the first 6 weeks of the season to get to 33.7 points. He has jumped all the way up to TE4 for the year – he was the TE15 going into the week. He’s increased his weekly average by 2.2 points. He scored more than the TE1 and TE2 combined last week. He scored more than the TE2 and TE3 combined this week.

4 Touchdown Passes

Russell Wilson threw 4 touchdown passes on Sunday, though one of them was to the wrong team. It took Russ 4 games to throw his 4 first TDs of the season. Over his next 7 games, he only threw 4 more. Then on Sunday, he managed to throw another 4 – with three of them going to his own team! It’s only the second time all season that he’s thrown for more than one touchdown. He improved from QB22 to QB19 – almost worth starting in a superflex league. He’s averaging more than a point per game less than Marcus Mariota. Russ finally got to cook in Kansas City, but he provided his opponents a little too much of their own home cookin’ to be able to try and avoid his 5^th L in a row.

223 Receiving Yards       

Marking a new career high, Justin Jefferson caught 11 passes for 223 yards. He did not make it to the end zone but still was the WR2 on the week with 27.8 points. He’s less than 2 points behind the unexpected 3 TD performance of Jerry Jeudy. But back to Jefferson – it’s the 6^th time he’s had 139 or more receiving yards. He’s at an even 1,500 yards for the season, and with 4 games left, he has a real shot at passing 2,000 yards receiving, which would be a first for any NFL receiver. I suppose it helps when your QB throws the ball 41 times in a game – the 5^th time Kirk Cousins has done that this year. Amazingly, Cousins is only 4^th for attempts this season – Tom Brady leads the way with 89 more attempts than Kirk!

99 Rushing Yards

So close to that mostly meaningless mark of 100 yards – unless you’re in a league with bonuses. In which case, I offer my condolences to those with Josh Jacobs on their team, but not really. Honorable mention goes to those with Joe Mixon on their team, 96 yards. Jacobs finds himself as the RB1 on the season, a spot he’s held the last couple of weeks. He has 1,402 rushing yards, which is 203 more than the second-place RB, Derrick Henry. He has 1,748 yards from scrimmage, which is 224 more than the aforementioned Justin Jefferson. Jacobs is averaging just over 134 yards from scrimmage per game. He has 11 touchdowns on the season, but if he had zero, his yardage and receptions would make him the RB7.

3 D/ST Teams with Negative Points

The Tennessee Titans became the 6^th team this season to post the absolute failure of a fantasy stat line. -4 points from your D/ST. That means that they gave up 35+ points to the opposing team, while not forcing a single turnover or sack or really blocking anything or doing a single thing of note all game long. Joining them in their failure are the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Minnesota Vikings. All three teams gave up at least 34 points and over 400 yards of offense. It’s the third time this year that the Titans have finished with negative points. I don’t understand what the people who roster this team were thinking, going against the upsurging Jaguars – 45% of leagues in Fleaflicker have the Titans rostered. And while, yes, I’m responsible for the Titans being on a roster in two of those leagues, I must defend myself by pointing out that in two other leagues, I have the Buccaneers.