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The number 13 has an odd aura around it.

The NFL seems to be doing its part to add to that way of thinking with some of the matchups in Week 13.

This season, Week 13 gives us plenty of matchups that are simply toss-ups. Sure, we still have a couple that are sure things and a couple that deserve to be at the bottom of the list, but there are a LOT in the middle that can go either way!

So, in times like this, we know that this is where we are going to further the gap between us and second place!

Week 13 – HERE WE GO!!!!

(HOME TEAM IN CAPS)

15 – BALTIMORE over Denver – Russell Wilson’s contract info made the rounds on the internet this week. As a Raiders fan…it made me very happy!

14 – DALLAS over Indianapolis – Jeff Saturday seems to be learning on the job. AT&T Stadium isn’t the best place to still have to bring your textbook.

13 – TAMPA BAY over New Orleans – This is more of a having no confidence in the Saints than it is having confidence in Tampa.

12 – MINNESOTA over New York Jets – Hard to think that even a Jets team led by top-tier quarterback Mike White can keep up with the Vikes.

11 – SAN FRANCISCO over Miami – Over…take the over…

10 – PHILADELPHIA over Tennessee – Super Bowl preview? I mean, probably not, but makes it sound a little more exciting, right?

9 – NEW YORK GIANTS over Washington – This will be a solid NFC East battle…yet, somehow, still just has the aura of a game that I just don’t care about.

8 – LAS VEGAS over Los Angeles Chargers – This was supposed to be a matchup to see who would be the real one to challenge Chiefs for the division…maybe next year, I guess.

7 – CINCINNATI over Kansas City – I feel like the Bengals have been motivated by the shots I have taken at their expense. My BOLD PREDICTION for this week is even after the slow start, THE BENGALS WILL MAKE IT TO (at least) THE AFC CHAMPIONSHIP GAME.

6 – Buffalo over NEW ENGLAND – There’s just something about this one that has me putting the Bills lower than they probably should be – follow your hunches, folks!

5 – DETROIT over Jacksonville – I can’t be the only one that thinks this could actually be an intriguing and entertaining game to watch, am i?

4 – ATLANTA over Pittsburgh – I’d like to welcome the Steelers to the world of games being decided just by who the home team is.

3 – Seattle over Los Angeles Rams – Oh, poor Rams! Literally, poor Rams – they’ll have hundreds of millions of dollars injured and sitting on the sidelines for this one.

2 – HOUSTON over Cleveland – I would say that Deshaun Watson may need to “shake off” the rust in his return to the league…but that may sound a little too suggestive for his return to Houston.

1 – CHICAGO over Green Bay – This is obviously if Aaron Rodgers can’t go this week. If the Bears’ majority owner can go, then you’ll definitely want to switch this, but still keep the Pack on the one-point line.

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.

With the league extending to 17 games and 18 weeks this season, bye weeks have also been extended.

Unfortunately this year the league gives us another super bye week with six teams taking a breather. As was said before, weeks like this are where we need to hit as much as we can. And with the roll we’re on after last week, I’m not too worried!

Week 14 – HERE WE GO!!!!

(HOME TEAM IN CAPS)

13 – DALLAS over Houston – The Cowboys just put up 54 points at home…but at least the Texans will have Davis Mills back!!!

12 – CINCINNATI over Cleveland – It’s a little more difficult to win a game without any offensive points against the Texans than it will be against the Bengals.

11 – SEATTLE over Carolina – The Panthers don’t exactly have an offense that makes me feel they can score against the 12th Man.

10 – SAN FRANCISCO over Tampa Bay – Barely winning at home against the Saints means you don’t get to travel cross-country and beat the 9ers.

9 – TENNESSEE over Jacksonville – King Henry always seems to have fun hosting the Jags. My BOLD PREDICTION for this week is that DERRICK HENRY WILL RUN FOR AT LEAST 200 YARDS.

8 – Kansas City over DENVER – Remember people thinking this game would go a long way in determining the AFC West race? Not me, but other people? Remember?

7 – BUFFALO over New York Jets – Weird to think that the Bills will come out on top in this one just because they are the home team.

6 – Las Vegas over LOS ANGELES RAMS – As a Raiders fan, I was very happy to see Baker Mayfield get picked up by the Rams this week.

5 – ARIZONA over New England – This is a Monday Night matchup that will have Buck and Aikman looking at their bank accounts to remind themselves why they took the Monday Night Football job.

4 – LOS ANGELES CHARGERS over Miami – This is a game the Chargers should win – all depends on their defense that has not lived up to expectations.

3 – Minnesota over DETROIT – I feel that this game should be higher on our list…but there’s just something about this that makes me keep it this low.

2 – PITTSBURGH over Baltimore – No Lamar…the Steelers offense…take the under!

1 – NEW YORK GIANTS over Philadelphia – Pure “Home Team Hunch” on this.

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.