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.

1005 Rush Yards

Ezekiel Elliott leads the NFL on the season for both rushing yards and total yards from scrimmage. His 1250 yards from scrimmage put him in exclusive company with Eric Dickerson and Adrian Peterson as the only rookies to reach that mark in the first 9 games of the season. Those are pretty big names to be compared to, but so far, Elliott looks like he belongs. His play puts him on everyone's MVP list after an off week by Tom Brady and Matt Ryan.

5-4 First Place Lions

Sometimes the best thing you can do is nothing. In typical Detroit Lions fashion, they moved up to first place in the division while watching the three other NFC North teams lose with various levels on incompetency. The Packers were perhaps the most shocked of the afternoon. They found themselves down by 21 and Rodgers did not throw a TD in the second half - a stat that you normally see when the Packers are winning, not losing.

28.60 Fantasy Points

Marcus Mariota abused the Green Bay Packers yesterday, putting up 4 passing TDs after letting Demarco Murray throw one of his own. Mariota is on an amazing streak of games since their Week 5 win in Miami (the team was 1-3 going into that game). Over that time he is averaging 25.4 points per game, has at least 2 TDs in each of those games, only 3 INTs and is 4-2, taking his team back to .500. The Titans finish the season at home against Houston, a game that could certainly decide the division if they keep playing well.

4th & Goal

Isn't it fitting that the team in Sunday night's rematch of Super Bowl XLIX ended up with a team at the goal line trying to score a TD to keep from losing the game. And of course, that that team, being on the goal line and having a bruising running back, chose to throw the ball. And that team lost. It's like poetry. It was a great way to cap perhaps the best Sunday we've had all year. There's been lots of talk about weak prime time games, we got two classics back to back yesterday.

25-23 Bayou Backbreaker

The early games did not lack for the dramatic either. The Broncos and Saints played a good game in New Orleans. Brees struggled early but looked like himself in the 4th quarter when he threw what looked like the go-ahead touchdown late in the game. Looks, of course, can be deceiving. The extra point was blocked and then Will Parks scooped it and 85 yards later he scored the go-ahead two-pointer for the Broncos. This may be the first time I've seen a game losing touchdown scored, but hey, it still counts for fantasy football!

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.

199 Yards Kicked

Justin Tucker kicked 3-50+ yard field goals in the first half of Sunday's game - two of them coming inside the final two minutes of the half. For the game, he kicked 4 FG's totaling 199 yards - a completely meaningless and thus fitting stat. Just the kind of stat that is followed by a slow-clap worthy dad joke to begin a press conference. Or perhaps a play where an entire team is held, and then gives up a safety in order to secure victory. The Ravens aren't pretty to watch, but damn it's interesting.

3 Plays in a Row

The Chiefs had a sequence of three plays in a row where they scored points in Sunday night's game in Denver. A safety, followed by a return of the ensuing free kick and then the extra point locked up 9 points in just 16 seconds for the Chiefs. It's not unheard of to have several plays score points a row in a game, however, the same team doing it on more than two plays in a row is not something I remember seeing. This game also had another fun stat I appreciated. Emmanuel Sanders had 99 yards (and a TD) on a drive that started from the Denver 12. Yay, penalties! Also, my dynasty team thanks you, Sanders.

7 Fourth Quarter Comebacks

The first place, 7-4 Detroit Lions have won all of their games after being down in the fourth quarter. It's not often a result of a pretty Matt Stafford performance, but he has figured out how to just win games this year. The Lions essentially have a 2-game lead over the Vikings, by virtue of the tiebreaker, and there are only 5 games left in the regular season. Meanwhile, the collapse continues in Minneapolis, where it'll be a cold, cold winter if they miss the playoffs after starting the season 5-0.

34.14 Fantasy Points

Colin Kaepernick lead all fantasy players in Week 12 with 34.14 points, and is the 3rd best QB over last 4 weeks, averaging 25.18 points per week. The Niners have not, of course, won a single game with Kaep at the helm, but it shouldn't stop you from winning fantasy games! He's owned in only 24% of leagues (it was 18% going into yesterday's game). His superpower this year is garbage time, so as long as the 49ers stay awful, he will have plenty of room to run in the 4th quarter, and opponents will be lulled into sleeping after three quarters of nothing going on. I dunno, I just see a guy with a really high fantasy floor who has outperformed most other QBs when it comes to fantasy production.

6% Owned in Yahoo Leagues

I swear this isn't turning into a waiver wire article - I'm just borrowing a few stats. Taylor Gabriel is owned in only 6% of Yahoo leagues (3% before the game yesterday). He's quietly been the second best WR in all of fantasy over the last 4 weeks, nearly a full point per week ahead of Mike Evans and trailing only Antonio Brown, who just scored another touchdown on his way out of Indianapolis. I'm not saying that this kind of production can keep up, but over the last 4 games, the Falcons have found a guy who knows how to find the end zone. The Falcons have won every game where he has at least 2 catches and are 1-4 when he doesn't. Now if that's not misleadingly insignificant, I don't know what is. Or is it? I've had too much turkey this weekend, and it's going to my head.

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.

239 Yards from Scrimmage

Kareem Hunt had a hell of a game on Thursday night, after an inauspicious start to the game. Thankfully, Andy Reid stuck with his rookie and he broke the record for the most yards in a debut game since the merger in 1970. Hunt's performance included 3 touchdowns and landed him the top fantasy points spot in Week 1. His teammate Alex Smith finished second, putting up a very un-Alex Smith like 368 yards and 4 TD. Both players are the only ones to score above 30 points in both standard and PPR formats, topping a rather pedestrian fantasy football Sunday to start the season.

2 of the top 10 ADP

Only two of the top 10 ADP players scored in double digits yesterday. Antonio Brown put up 18.2 points, followed by LeSean McCoy with 15.9. Granted, two of the top 10, Ajayi and Evans, were on that always fun Week 1 bye, but a lot of big names really struggled. Bell & Johnson had all of 55 yards on 21 carries between the two of them. Maybe Melvin Gordon can save this group tonight with a good performance, but really, the fantasy stars of this past week were mostly not the guys who we expected.

4 of the top 15 Point Scorers

Rookies have four of the top 15 point totals so far this week in fantasy. Lead by Hunt, we also saw DeShone Kizer, Kenny Golladay and Leonard Fournette turn in big fantasy performances. While I don't know what to expect long term from the Browns QB, I do expect the other three guys to be impact fantasy players all year long. Other rookies making big contributions to their team were Cooper Kupp, Christian McCaffrey and Tarik Cohen. The league is always getting younger, your fantasy team should reflect that. Don't get stuck using veterans all the time.

29:23 TD to INT Ratio

I'm sorry that I don't have a better theme than "lackluster" for the first week of the NFL season. So far, NFL passers have a pitiful 29:23 touchdown to interception ratio. This pales in comparison to the past two opening weekends, which were 48:19 in 2016 and 50:31 in 2015. We're down nearly 20 touchdowns to last year's opening count, so maybe Drew Brees and Philip Rivers can help close that gap. I don't expect that Sam Bradford and Trevor Siemian will contribute much to that department, but hey, it's been a strange Week 1.

31 Years Old

31 Years Old? What is this, some RB playing beyond his years? A WR that refuses to slow down? Nope, it's the Rams new coach, Sean McVay, the youngest coach in NFL history. McVay's Rams had, hands down, the most dominant victory of the day, beating the Colts 46-9. There were a lot of encouraging fantasy players in this game. Jared Goff got his first 300 yard game, Cooper Kupp had 4 receptions and a TD and Todd Gurley had 24 touches and also found the end zone. The Rams defense may be the bright spot, even without Aaron Donald playing this week. Even more credit goes to McVay, who helped orchestrate the return of Donald to the team after his holdout. With him in the lineup next week, the Redskins are going to have a very long day.

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.

27 Fantasy Points

Greg Zuerlein was an offensive force to be reckoned with on Sunday. He's personally responsible for 23 of his team's 35 points after making 7 field goals and another 2 extra points. His 27 fantasy points make him the 8th highest scorer for the week. It was a hell of a week for kickers, with 7 of them scoring 15 or more points - all of them in the top 42 players of the week. Of these 7 kickers, only Stephen Gostkowski is owned in a significant number of leagues. Young GZ is next, owned in 38% of Yahoo leagues. Looks like there will be a lot of kicker swaps coming up this week.

5 Touchdowns

DeShaun Watson, the rookie QB who apparently couldn't start over Tom Savage week 1, tied a rookie record with 5 touchdowns. Four passing and one rushing TD from Watson lead the way for the Texans, as they scored a franchise record 57 points. Watson has had growing pains, throwing 3 INT's in the last 2 games, however he is clearly getting better with each game. Can we finally put to bed the thought that a bad veteran QB is a better option than putting a rookie or otherwise still-developing QB out there? Indy has figured this out, and it seems like Chicago might join the party this week and start Mitch Trubisky.

39 Touches

Le'Veon Bell looks like he's back to his old self, which is fitting since in the past couple of years he hasn't played until Week 4 anyways. Anyways, that's no way to talk about a guy who won me a couple of fantasy matches this week. Let's get back to the old tradition of gushing about him, shall we? Bell's 35 carries were the second highest in his career, as were the 39 touches. The 144 rush yards are tied for 6th highest total in his career in the regular season.  His 30.6 total fantasy points are easily his highest total since we celebrated Le'Veon Bell Week last year.

1 Out of the Top 20

There is only one WR in the top 20 players, Jordy Nelson, and he didn't even play on Sunday. By contrast, there were 7 RB's in the top 20, and yes, we're counting Greg Zuerlein in the top players. Didn't you hear me earlier? This was a good week for RB's, but really it was a down week for higher end WR's. None of them reached 20 points this week in standard scoring, and a couple of the top 5 WR's, Devin Funchess and Will Fuller, both are owned in less than 32% of Yahoo leagues. That's definitely a waiver wire tip for you guys.

146.0 Passer Rating

Andy Dalton's week 4 quarterback rating lead the league, as he went 25 for 30 for 286 yards and 4 touchdowns, 0 interceptions. Since the Bengals got a new OC, Dalton's completion percentage is way up, his touchdowns are way up (from 0 to 6) and his INT's are way down (from 4 to 0). It's been a large swing for the Bengals this season, who can finally feel good after getting a very convincing win last week. In comparison, the team that intercepted Dalton on the way to getting a shutout in week 1, the Ravens - yes, the very same Ravens - have yet to recover from getting pantsed by the Jaguars in London just a week ago. The Ravens looked awful again against a Steelers team that has looked very good, but also lost to Mike Glennon, a guy who is about to get benched. Maybe the only consistent thing we can find in the AFC north is that the Browns are still 0-4. The Browns losing is like comfort food to unstable Ravens, Steelers and Bengals fans.