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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.

40+ Points in 2 Weeks

For the first time in his career, and perhaps the first time in history, Lamar Jackson has put up two straight 40+ point fantasy games. Through his remarkable career, he had tons of big games, but never reached the 40-point mark until week 5 of 2021. Now after week 3 in 2022, he has two more of those games on record. During those two games, he has 536 pass yards, 7 pass TD to only one INT, 226 rushing yards and two more TDs on the ground. In both games, he passed 100 rush yards, the 12^th of his career. One remarkable quirk of this stat is that Jackson wasn’t even the only 40-point scoring QB during this time – he was joined by his opponent in week 2, Tua Tagovailoa, who had 40.86 points of his own.

14% Average Ownership Rate

Two of the top 5 WRs this week basically came out of nowhere. Mack Hollins (5% in Fleaflicker) and Zay Jones (23% in Fleaflicker) are not owned in many leagues, and were started in even less. They combine for an average of just 14% ownership in Fleaflicker leagues, and also just barely combined to top Lamar with 45.46 points. Hollins was the WR2 on the week with 25.96 points, putting up 8 catches on 10 targets with 158 yards and 1 TD – he even added 4 passing yards for a cherry on top. In the drinkfive.com league, 9 of the top 20 WRs were free agents when their games started on Sunday, so it’s clearly time for us to start working the waiver wires. Pitter-patter.

16 Points on DST

Three separate teams scored exactly 16 points on their D/ST in week 3. The Panthers, Bengals, and Broncos all found different ways to lead the week with 16 points. Both the Bengals (27%) and Panthers (2%) had incredibly low ownership rates. Only the Panthers were aided by a touchdown on their way to the top spot of the week. Both the Bengals and Broncos recovered 2 fumbles and had 4 sacks. All 3 teams won their game. Special credit goes to the Broncos for doing it with the most style, getting the safety, though it was basically an unforced error by Jimmy Garoppolo. Honorable mention goes to the Eagles, who were juuust short of the party with 15 points. Turns out 9 sacks just wasn’t enough.

49 More Offensive Snaps

The Bills offense was on the field for more than 2/3rds of the game on Sunday, and moved the ball at will on the Dolphins. But the Dolphins ended the week in first place with a shiny, 3-0 record while handing the Bills their first loss. The Bills ran 92 offensive snaps, to the Dolphins’ measly 43 snaps, more than doubling them up in both offensive snaps and time of possession. The Bills also out-gained them 497-212, and couldn’t win in a game where their opponent had a “butt punt” and caused a safety against themselves. Are the Dolphins suddenly incredibly relevant and winning in many different ways? That’s a Texas-sized 10-4.

0 Rush Yards, 12.4 Fantasy Points

Does a running back need rushing yards to have a good game? That’s a hard no. In what is surely the best fantasy stat of the week, Chiefs running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire rushed 7 times for zero yards. He did score on the ground, though 4 of his 7 carries went for zero or negative yardage. His 5 receptions for 39 yards are what keep his stat line from being embarrassing. On the season, CEH is the RB3 (though Saquon Barkley will probably have something to say about that on Monday night). Edwards-Helaire has 47.1 points on the season, on only 22 carries. He has 12 receptions on 12 targets, a perfect rate which has really been the difference for him.

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.

45 Years Old

Tom Brady became the oldest player to start a game at 45 years hold. While this is not necessarily a fantasy stat, it’s appreciated by someone who feels themselves getting older all the time. There were also zero rookie QBs starting this week. Finally, it’s time for middle-aged men to shine.

10 Players Scoring 2-TDs Each

Through Sunday, there are 10 players who scored 2 TDs each, and in an interesting quirk, half of those players are free agents in the drinkfive fantasy league. Those players – Jamaal Williams, Dontrell Hilliard, Devin Duvernay, Jahan Dotson, and O.J. Howard – are free agents, owned in just an average of 29% of Fleaflicker leagues. Week 1 is always a fun time to revisit your entire draft and blow your team up with the waiver wire, so put your claims in now!

34.9 Fantasy Points

The high-water mark for Week 1 is 34.9 fantasy points – achieved by two players who are common subjects in this space. Patrick Mahomes threw for 360 yards and 5 TDs. Mahomes now has 18 touchdowns in 5 opening days, a low QB rating of 123.3 on opening day, has not thrown a pick, and is 5-0.  Justin Jefferson also put up 34.9 fantasy points, having 9 receptions and 11 targets (on 9/11) and was one of the players who are owned in our league who had 2 TDs. His 184 receiving yards are a career high and his 15^th 100-yard game in his 34-game career.

8 D/STs with 10+ Points

Week 1 saw a lot of fantasy value coming from the defense/special teams slot. The Pittsburgh Steelers led the way with an astonishing 26 points. It helped a bit that they had a sack/fumble in bonus time to pad their numbers a bit. This performance was very impressive considering it came against the AFC Champion Bengals and Burrow had 2 more turnovers than he ever had in his career before. In an interesting tidbit, Burrow had the most rushing yards of his career in a single game. The Steelers are only owned in 51% of Fleaflicker leagues and play against New England next week, the offensive team that surrendered the second most points to their opposing D/ST in week 1.

5 WRs on New Teams with 14+ Points

Sometimes, a change of scenery works wonders. 5 Players on new teams – Tyreek Hill, Christian Kirk, Jarvis Landry, A.J. Brown, and Davante Adams – all scored at least 14 fantasy points for their new teams. Both Brown and Adams put up monster games over 20 points, picking right up where they left off with new QBs. A.J. Brown had the most receiving yards for any Eagles player in their debut game. In a case of good old home cookin’, Michael Thomas played his first game for New Orleans in 21 months, and had his best performance since December 2019. Thomas scored 2 touchdowns on his way to 20.2 fantasy points, good for WR7 on the week.

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.

4 Lost Fumbles

I’ve been talking up Trevor Lawrence, so it’s only fair that I talk about when he’s remarkably bad as well. He’s the first player this century to lose 4 fumbles in one game. Those 4 fumbles canceled out Lawrence’s 2 TD passes. He finished the game with 6.66 points – truly not a great sign for what I thought was a step forward in his second year. Lawrence added one pick to his total, for 5 overall turnovers – the most he’s had in a single game in his career. Sometimes I wish that there was still someone on TV to hype the Jaguars so I didn't feel so alone in this. Meanwhile, their opponent the Eagles D/ST has been having a great year – they now have 5 INTs, 5 fumbles recovered, and 16 sacks through just 4 games. They are now the D/ST2 on the season, but have 2 tough matchups leading into their bye week, so – maybe time to try and trade a D/ST? Is that even a thing?

2 Quarterbacks Over 30 Fantasy Points

…And neither of them are owned in the drinkfive.com so-called “Experts League”. Well, let’s not be too tough on everyone, here. Geno Smith threw for 2 TDs and ran in another while accounting for 369 total yards on the day on his way to leading the Seahawks to 48 total points – and they needed nearly every one of them. More on that in a moment. Joining Smith in the 30+ territory was his opponent, Jared Goff. For the second time this year, Goff threw for 4 TDs and he’s now the QB5 on the season. Goff is also tied for the league lead with 11 passing TDs. This is likely a trend that can continue for Goff, considering his team has given up the most points in the league so far this year.

140 Points Scored on the Season

The Detroit Lions are leading the league in scoring, having scored 140 points on the year so far. Unfortunately for them, they have given up 141 points – also the most in the league. This is why they have a very disappointing 1-3 record. The Lions have scored 35 and 45 points in games they lost this season. They are leading the league in passing TDs (tied), rushing yards per attempt, and total yards. Second in the league in rushing TDs, and top 10 in lots of other important offensive milestones. Unfortunately, they are dead last in defense when it comes to points, yards, first downs given up, rushing TDs, and rushing yards per attempt. It’s really an extreme experience being a Lions fan this season.

5 of 5 Field Goals in the Home of the Hotspurs

Kickers haven’t come up much this year so far, and props go to Greg Joseph of the Vikings who completed 5 of his 5 field goal attempts in England on Sunday morning. He kicked for a total of 181 yards, including one with under 30 seconds left to answer Will Lutz’s 60-yard field goal which had tied the game just minutes earlier. The fans in England were treated to a good game, one that had 5 scores in the 4^th quarter alone. Unfortunately for Joseph, he can’t claim he had a perfect day, as he did miss 1 extra point. In fact, each of the top 4 scoring kickers missed one kick this week – 3 of them missing extra points attempts. Perhaps this shows that the NFL moving the extra point back is accomplishing what they wanted. Perhaps this shows that kicking is pretty damn random indeed. Perhaps they don’t even belong in a column about fantasy football. My apologies, it’s getting late.

35.9 Fantasy Points

I tried my best, but I just couldn’t avoid talking about one more Detroit Lion. It’s not as if he doesn’t deserve it. T.J. Hockenson scored 35.9 fantasy points, the most of any TE this season – by more than 10 points. Hockenson had 8 receptions for 179 yards (lead the league in receiving yards) and scored 2 TDs. He even tacked on a 2-point conversion catch just for the cherry on top. This catapulted him all the way to TE3 on the season, even though he had only 19.2 points going into week 4. He has 65% of his points in just one game this year. Sometimes a small sample size is really fun to play with.

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.

The NFL season is in full swing. There have already been two games in London, bye weeks are kicking in, and Thursday Night Football is as bad as we all make fun of it for being. Meanwhile, House of the Dragon is nearing its peak of the season. We’ve had weddings, funerals, dragons, and the Greens fighting the Blacks. In that spirit, here are some stats from Week 5 inspired by my favorite show on TV right now.

Fire

125 Points in the Last Two Weeks

Like a couple of random soldiers in the Stepstones, Austin Ekeler and Josh Jacobs are on fire. The two running backs have combined for 125.6 points over the last two weeks. Jacobs has 368 yards from scrimmage over that span, giving him 619 on the season, good for third in the league – ahead of all wide receivers. It took Jacobs until week 13 to reach that mark last year. This season, the Raiders are not particularly dominant on offense – just 8^th overall in points and 10th or lower in most offensive categories. Credit for these performances lies with Jacobs, who is averaging a career-high 5.4 Y/A and has caught 17 of his 18 targets. Ekeler has 5 touchdowns in the last 2 games after not finding the end zone in the first 3 games. He started the season with 32.4 points over weeks 1 through 3, then averaged 32.9 points per game in the next two. He finds himself as the RB2 on the season now. In week 5 @ Cleveland, Ekeler posted his career high in rushing yards, 173, blowing away his previous career high of 117. It’s only his third time posting 100+ rushing yards in a game. Ekeler has gotten going, and so have the Chargers, putting up 30 or more in the last 2 games. Ekeler is paying off his very high overall ADP3 going into the season.

Ice

5:7 TD to INT Ratio

After winning the Super Bowl last year, Matthew Stafford just can’t find fantasy success this season. He’s throwing INTs at a rate he hasn’t seen since his rookie year (though it can be noted that he led the league in INTs last year). This season he leads the league in sacks and has his worst QB rating since 2012. The Rams are now the most imbalanced offense in the league, passing on 66.7% of their plays. As we learned last week, this is not a recipe for success. Stafford is just the QB23 on the season, after being drafted as the QB12 coming off a season where he averaged 20.4 points per game. Stafford has only one game over 12 points this season and is coming in behind players like Jacoby Brissett and Marcus Mariota, who are not even sniffing the chance at being rostered in single QB leagues. Stafford and the Rams are cold as ice, and as long as they keep putting the 29th-ranked offense out on the field, you can go ahead and just send him to the wall.

Green

50 Yards Per Reception

Double green bonus points here. Not only is Breece Hall green – as in, he’s a rookie. He also plays for Gang Green. Hall had his breakout game this week, making his dramatic entrance in green, if you will. He scored 26.7 fantasy points as the Jets demolished the Dolphins, 40-17. Hall had 197 yards from scrimmage, featuring 2 catches for 100 yards. Hall’s 79-yard reception (an early leader for the longest non-scoring play of the season) to close out the first quarter kept him from an even bigger game. Being tackled at the 1 is never fun, and then Michael Carter came in to vulture his touchdown. Hall is now the RB10 on the season and is trending up over the last 3 games – something we love to see here. Another green player on Gang Green – Tyler Conklin, came up totally empty on Sunday, though I suspect that is more of a bump in the road, rather than an omen of things to come.

Black

3 Games with 2+ Passing TDs in a Row

Fitting (or forcing) our Game of Thrones/House of the Dragon theme, we’ll have a vet represent the black side. Geno Smith is easily playing the best football of his career, and it only took him 8 seasons to get there. Smith is like Daemon, just leaning against the wall smirking, biding his time. Daring someone to start him again. Smith has never had consecutive games with 2+ passing TDs until this year. Over the last 3 games, Smith has 2, 2, and 3 passing scores on his way to 9 on the season. His previous career high is 12, and that’s for a full 16-game season. Smith is leading the league in completion percentage, and perhaps even more unexpectedly, QB rating. He’s the QB7 on the season, and is still only rostered in 51% of Fleaflicker leagues. What’s going on guys? He’s doing better than Brady, Herbert, Rodgers, Stafford, and Wentz, though only barely on that last one. OK, I’ll grant you some things are just statistical oddities. Regardless, Geno Smith is playing very well, and the Seahawks would probably have a more impressive record if it wasn’t for them giving up the 2^nd most points in the league. This journeyman, as they say, has found the fountain of youth in the pacific northwest.

The Stink Eye

25 Yards, 4 Touchdowns

Travis Kelce earns a major stink eye this week. Like Aemond Targaryen, he just hung back all night and made the most of his modest contributions. Kelce’s 7 catches went for just an average of just over 3.5 yards each. Discarding one game where he had one reception, this game featured both his lowest yards per catch of his career, and the most touchdowns of his career. Four touchdowns double his previous career high of two. Kelce is somehow turning up the fantasy juice with the exit of Tyreek Hill. He’s leading the league in receiving TDs, he’s near his career high in receptions per game, and does have a career-high catch rate of 78.6%. As the TE1 on the season, he’s absolutely dominating the field. He’s 20 points ahead of Mark Andrews at TE2, and nearly 40 points ahead of Taysom Hill, even with his huge breakout in Week 5.