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.

162.1 Total Fantasy Points

Derrick Henry didn’t score another 3 TDs this week, but he didn’t need to in order to finish the week as the highest scoring player in all of fantasy football for the 2021 season. Henry, who scored just 15.4 points this week, actually brought his average down to 27 points per game, in part because he failed to find the end zone. He did manage to throw a touchdown, however, salvaging his worst fantasy performance since Week 1 of this season. Speaking of bad fantasy performances, Patrick Mahomes put up his second worst fantasy game ever (Week 7 of 2019 was the only game worse). This poor performance left just enough of a window for Henry to pass Mahomes for the season-long lead. The last time a non-QB finished with the most fantasy points at the end of a season was Todd Gurley in 2017, who manage to do that in only 15 games.

201 Receiving Yards

This week, Ja’Marr Chase announced his presence as not only an Offensive Rookie of the Year candidate (he was already in the lead for that) but as one of the best wide receivers in the game right now. Chase is now the WR2 through 7 games on the season, finished just behind Cooper Kupp for both the season and Week 7-point totals. Chase had a career high 201 receiving yards, helped along by an 82-yard touchdown reception – a short pass where he got the ball over the middle and did the rest of the work himself. This was Chase’s second game with 10 targets. He leads the league with 21.5 yards per reception and is second only to Kupp in season long yardage. Chase is doing the most with what he’s given. He has only 35 receptions on the whole season (on pace for 85 for the year, though I would bet on the over for that). By contrast, Kupp has more receptions (56) than Chase even has targets (51). Chase’s 3.6 points per touch is an amazing number, one that is unmatched by anyone in the league so far.

28.54 Fantasy Points

The best free agent of the week, at least in the drinkfive.com “experts” league, is Tua Tagovailoa, owned in 71% of Fleaflicker leagues, but not this one. Tua is not only the best free agent of the week, he’s the best QB of the week, out of all players. Tua just edges out his 2020 draft mate, Joe Burrow, who led his team to a very impressive 41-17 victory over the Ravens. Tue finishes as the 4^th highest scoring player on the week, before the two WRs mentioned above and the man who gave away Tom Brady’s 600^th touchdown catch. Thankfully for Mike Evans, the fan gave it back, so he doesn’t have to get the cold shoulder from Brady for the rest of the season. Tua had a rough start to this season, but after a few weeks off for injury, he has returned and played very well at QB. In 2 games he has 6 touchdowns (and 3 picks, yuck). He has also run for over 20 yards in each game, and is averaging 25.45 points per game during this stretch. With games against Houston, New York Jets, and Carolina coming up, he’s a great streaming option to keep around for a while.

89.47% Catch Rate

The highest catch rate in the NFL belongs to Bengals TE C.J. Uzomah, who has caught 17 of his 19 targets so far this season (Pat Freiermuth leads the league at 90%). Uzomah has had quite the up-and-down season. He’s currently the TE10 on the year with 64.1 total fantasy points, however, 46.6 of those points (almost 73% of his total points) came in weeks 4 and 7. He finished as the TE1 in week 4 and currently leads the field in week 7 with no looming threats to overtake him on Monday night. Despite his fantasy high points, he’s a very tough player to start. He has only one week with more than 3 targets, and that was just 6 in week 4. Despite this, he’s managed to find the end zone 5 times in the last 4 games, so perhaps it’s time to find a way to insert him into your lineup, and maybe more than just a streaming option. Oh yea, and if you’re wondering, Rondale Moore has the highest catch percentage among wide receivers at 83.87%. Jaylen Waddle has the highest catch percentage among WRs with more than 50 targets with 77.19%.

602 Career Touchdowns

There was one thing happening this week that I just had to mention, and no, it’s not National Tight Ends Day. Raise your hand if you’re sick of hearing about that. No, this week Tom Brady threw his 600^th touchdown in the regular season. And his 599^th, and numbers 601 and 602 if we’re counting them all. Of course, we are. This season, Brady is leading the league with 21 passing touchdowns. Matthew Stafford is in 2^nd with 19. Brady also has a rushing touchdown, for good measure. He has 26 of those in his career. In addition, the ageless one is leading the league in completions, passing attempts, passing yards, and yards per game. Pretty good for anyone, unprecedented for a 44-year-old in the NFL. The yards per game mark is his second highest in his entire career, and he’s ahead of his career averages in completion percentage, interception percentage, and QB rating. I suppose if you’re going to play so many years in the NFL, you might as well make them count instead of just playing out the streak. In a league with so much great young QB talent, Brady might still be the best one each and every Sunday that he steps on the field. And I don’t mean that as an overall picture, I mean that right freaking now, he’s the best QB in football.

Am I the only that thinks this season has had too much of a hint of…mediocrity?

Perhaps it’s just the fact that the national games have just been atrocious (speaking of, buckle up for a prime-time week of NO/ARI, PIT/MIA, and CHI/NE) but there just doesn’t seem to be too many dominant teams this year. Previous perennial powerhouses (3-pointer) like the Packers and Bucs have issues that have bled over to the field – three divisions don’t have a team above .500 –the Eagles are undefeated…but are you putting money on them to win the Super Bowl? Not to mention the fact that BOTH Super Bowl teams from last year are currently 3-3.

Maybe that’s a good thing though. We are at the height of parody this season – nothing wrong with that! Aside from the Bills, who are far and away the best team so far this season, there really isn’t another dominant team. A lot of really good teams for sure, but not too many that you have total confidence in.

So, that being said…let’s show some confidence to 14 teams :)

Week 7 – HERE WE GO!!!!

(HOME TEAM IN CAPS)

14 – NEW ENGLAND over Chicago – If the Bears can’t beat Washington at home…eesh…

13 – CINCINNATI over Atlanta – The Falcons have been a hard team to peg this season. If you want to move this game down your sheet I’d understand…but still take Cincy.

12 – LAS VEGAS over Houston – It starts NOW! My BOLD PREDICTION for this week is that THE 1-4 RAIDERS WILL FINISH WITH DOUBLE DIGIT WINS THIS SEASON.

11 – BALTIMORE over Cleveland – How can you pick against Baltimore now that they have DeSean Jackson?! Oh yeah, by the way, that happened this week.

10 – TENNESSEE over Indianapolis – If there is still no Jonathan Taylor, you could very well put a Titans win on the top line.

9 – ARIZONA over New Orleans – De …   Andre … Hopkins

8 – DALLAS over Detroit – “I’m the better Thanksgiving host!” “No, I’M the better Thanksgiving host!”

7 – MIAMI over Pittsburgh – Yes Miami will get Tua back – but let’s be honest, they’ll win this game because the Dolphins have a better color scheme, right? ;)

6 – Tampa Bay over CAROLINA – I can’t fully express to you just how happy it makes me that Tom Brady vs PJ Walker now looks like more of an even matchup!

5 – LOS ANGELES CHARGERS over Seattle – At the beginning of the season you would have thought this would be on the 14 point line. You can’t underestimate Geno and the boys anymore.

4 – Green Bay over WASHINGTON – Remember what I said about Tom Brady and PJ Walker? Yeah, we’ll rehash that one for Aaron Rodgers and Tyler Heinicke.

3 – New York Giants over JACKSONVILLE – If the season ended today Brian Daboll would be Coach of the Year, right?

2 – SAN FRANCISCO over Kansas City – If the 9ers are able to get a big 4^th quarter lead against the Chiefs, hopefully this time they’ve learned how to keep it.

1 – New York Jets over DENVER – Wonder which Bronco will end up with a mysterious random injury after this loss?

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.

71.74 Fantasy Points

Joe Burrow has led the league in fantasy points for two consecutive weeks now. Over this time, he has 781 passing yards, 6 passing touchdowns, and two rushing TDs. He’s also completed 78% of his passes and not turned the ball over once. In fact, after week 1’s fiasco, he only has one turnover in the last 6 games. Burrow led the top tier of a very top-heavy week among QBs with fantasy points. The top 4 players all scored at least 27 points, and then there’s more than an 8-point drop to the rest of the pack. Of the top 13 QBs this week, 7 of them aren’t even rostered in our drinkfive.com league. The point drop between QB 4 and QB5 is greater than the point drop between QB5 and QB20.

14.25 Points Per Game

This stat would sound great if you were talking about an RB or WR, but it’s a bit disappointing when you talk about a QB. If I told you that the QB who had an ADP of 9 is currently trailing the guy with an ADP of 27, you’d be really disappointed. And if you drafted that QB, thinking you were being sneaky and likely to get the reigning 2-time MVP, well, then you’re surely as disappointed as I am. Aaron Rodgers is the QB21 on the season now, after failing to make his stat line look at all distinct from Taylor Heinicke. Rodgers had 194 yards and 2 TDs compared to Heinicke’s 204 yards and 2 TDs. On the season, Rodgers has not even reached 18 points in any single game. He has not reached 300 passing yards in a game, and he has not thrown for 3 TDs in any single game. The drop-off at QB is quite precipitous this year, as evidenced in the microcosm from this week I mentioned previously. After Joe Burrow at ADP7, you have to go all the way to Trevor Lawrence at ADP of 18 to find a guy who’s scored in the top 10 of QBs through 7 weeks.

147 Rush Yards Per Game

Over his last 3 games, Josh Jacobs has had no less than 143 rushing yards in each outing. He’s been remarkably consistent and is being given a huge workload, with 69 carries and 13 receptions over that span. He has accumulated 523 yards from scrimmage and 6 touchdowns during that time, which adds up to a whopping 94 fantasy points. That’s just shy of Aaron Rodgers’ season-long total, but my sections appear to be bleeding into each other, so let me go on about Jacobs. He is averaging more points over each of the last 3 games than he had in total over the first 3 games. He’s averaging 6.4 yards per carry and has charged into the elite tier of RBs. He’s 4^th in total fantasy points this season, even with his bye week already completed. With this remarkable pace that Jacobs finds himself on, he’s not even leading the league in points per game for RBs.

21.2 Points Per Game

The player that finds himself leading all RBs in points per game, and total points for that matter, is Austin Ekeler. The half PPR scoring is important here, but I feel like some type of PPR is very standard these days – after all, it’s been our default for years. Ekeler is third among all players with 53 receptions, 5^th among all players in yards from scrimmage, and tied for first with Nick Chubb with 8 total touchdowns. Like Jacobs, Ekeler had a slow start and is doing all his damage lately. Ekeler has over 30 points in 3 of his last 4 games. In previous seasons, we’ve observed that WRs often perform better in the first half of the season, with RBs performing better late in the season. This season, the opposite is true. For total points, 4 of the top 5 position players (RB/WR/TE) are running backs.

22 Fantasy Points

If you had a choice between D/STs and could know some facts going into the week, who might you pick? The team that has to go up against one of the top offenses in the league? Or maybe you want to go with the D/ST that will have two pick-sixes in just over 1 minute during the second quarter. Perhaps I’m leading you a bit with this one. The Cowboys D/ST scored 22 points on the strength of 5 sacks and 5 turnovers, edging out the Cardinals D/ST’s 18 points. The Cardinals did not have much other than the pick-sixes, just one INT outside of those two plays, along with surrendering 34 points. The Cowboys' 22 points is tied for the second-best performance of the season at the position. They are leading the league in sacks with 29, and have the most fantasy points with 79 (though the Bills took the week off).

All due respect to the great Willie Beaman, we have now seen the true Any Given Sunday.

In one week, we saw two undefeated teams go down in games that they should have easily won, plus a third top team that escaped thanks to a bad no-call! Makes it hard to have confidence in some of these teams!

So, that being said…let’s show some confidence to 13 teams ?

Week 7 – HERE WE GO!!!!

(HOME TEAM IN CAPS)

13 – SEATTLE over Arizona – Look for the Seahawks to make a statement in this one.

12 – LOS ANGELES RAMS over Pittsburgh – Hard to have any faith in the Steelers after a cross-country trip.

11 – KANSAS CITY over Los Angeles Chargers – Pretty sure you won’t be picking the Chiefs to lose against the division anytime soon. My BOLD PREDICTION for this week is that THE CHIEFS WILL NOT LOSE A GAME AGAINST THE AFC WEST THIS YEAR … … … OR NEXT.

10 – TAMPA BAY over Atlanta – If the Falcons can’t win at home anymore then they have no chance on the road.

9 - NEW ORLEANS over Jacksonville – Drop this down a few lines if Trevor Lawrence does end up playing, but still take the Saints.

8 – Las Vegas over CHICAGO – I’ll be in the stands so I can’t go against my Raiders!

7 – Buffalo over NEW ENGLAND – Bailey Zappe by halftime.

6 – INDIANAPOLIS over Cleveland – The Browns used up all of their winning points last week

5 – Green Bay over DENVER – Why would anyone have confidence in the Broncos?

4 – PHILADELPHIA over Miami – Hell, take who you want – this is just gonna be fun to watch!

3 – Detroit over BALTIMORE – This seems like another road game the Lions will somehow sneak out of with a win.

2 – MINNESOTA over San Francisco – 49ers injuries scare me more than Kirk Cousins in primetime

1 – NEW YORK GIANTS over Washington – I am very not interested in this game