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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.

4 Career Pick-Sixes

Mac Jones has played 19 home games and has thrown 4 pick-sixes. That’s the same number that Tom Brady threw in his entire career in Foxborough. (Sidebar: Tom Brady has played in more Super Bowls, 10, than games in the Wild Card round, 7). This is normally where I’d pile on the Patriots and try to roast them for losing terribly two games in a row this year. To be honest though, I really want to see Bill Belichick get that win #300. He’s a hero to curmudgeons everywhere. This game was really the pinnacle, or I suppose the nadir, of this Patriots team. Their opponent had 12 penalties for 86 yards and only converted 1/3^rd of their third downs, yet still dominated the time of possession 2:1. The Patriots only converted 1 out of 14 third downs and had 156 total yards of offense. Well, there I go piling on when I said I wouldn’t. Hopefully, the Pats can win #300 for Bill this coming week because I don’t see it happening for the rest of the month while they play the Bills and Dolphins.

12.1 Yards Per Carry

De’Von Achane, yes, it took me one whole entry until I got to this season’s statistical freak, went into week 5 averaging 11.5 yards/attempt, and he only improved on that. He has a whopping 460 rushing yards, second only to Christian McCaffrey at 510. CMC has taken 99 carries to get there, compared to Achane’s 38. CMC’s average of 5.2 Y/A is absolutely pitful in comparison. OK, that might be a little far, but Achane has 17 carries of 20+ yards. He gains 20+ yards 45% of the time he gets handed the ball! The next closest player in terms of yards per carry is Breece Hall, and he’d be noticed and lauded in any year that isn’t 2023. Hall has 54 carries for a measly 387 yards – just 7.2 Y/A – why even bother? Achane, with essentially only 3 fantasy games under his belt (he has no points week 1, 1.5 points week 2) is still the RB3 on the season.

14 Consecutive Games with a Touchdown

Moving on to the guy who keeps seeing Achane in his rearview mirror. It’s not because Christian McCaffery is slowing down. I suppose that makes Achane more impressive because McCaffrey is now on quite a streak of 14 games in a row with a touchdown. He has 18 total touchdowns during that stretch. He’s averaging almost 25 fantasy points per game this year. McCaffrey has shown time and again that when healthy, he is the best player in fantasy football. Now that he’s on one of the best offenses in the league, it has to feel like your team starts every game with a lead.

3 of the Top 14 Kickers

I love to talk about removing kickers from fantasy football, and I just can’t help myself once again. This week – using the drinkfive fantasy football league as the standard – only 3 of the top 14 are rostered. None of the top 6 kickers are rostered. Kickers in the NFL are important in some situations. Kickers in fantasy football are random! With teams going for 2 more than ever, there’s not even the one-pointers to count on. The two most rostered players in Fleaflicker leagues, Tyler Bass (96%) and Justin Tucker (94%) combined for just 5.5 points. Together they would just be the K23 on the week! If the two best position players turned in games like that, it would be front story news on every fantasy website. But no, it’s just another Sunday for kickers. OK, I promise to lay off the kickers for a while.

186 Consecutive Pass Attempts

C.J. Stroud is the best-looking rookie QB to start the season. He currently has a streak of 186 consecutive pass attempts – all of the passes he’s thrown this season – without an interception. Stroud is the QB13 on the season so far. He’s thrown over 300 yards twice already and has 3 games with multiple touchdown passes. He’s pulled the Texans out of the basement with a respectable 2-3 start, including a TD pass to take the lead late in this week’s game. Unfortunately, he was up against the man who does not lose at home. Desmond Ridder has the Falcons at 3-2. All three victories occurred at home – two of those being exciting 4^th quarter comebacks. Ridder has not lost a game at home in his professional or college career. He’s 5-0 in the NFL as a starter at home, and of course, to balance it out, he’s 0-4 on the road.

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.

33.7 Fantasy Points

This year hasn't been a good one for Cam Akers (or the Super Bowl Champion Los Angeles Rams), but they certainly took all their frustrations out on the Denver Broncos in a Christmas bashing they won't soon forget. Akers scored 32% of his season total on Sunday, and winning some bold fantasy managers their game. 23 carries, 118 yards, 3 TDs, and another 2 for 29 through the air made Akers the highest scoring fantasy player of the week. His total this week is higher than his two best previous games combined. It took Akers until week 12 to pass 33.7 fantasy points this season. Now, he's averaged 5.2 yards per carry the last 2 games and is lined up for a matchup with the Chargers next week, who are giving up the 3rd most points to opposing RBs.

67% of His Season Points

From the "most obscure name I could find" department, I present to you Shane Zylstra, TE on the Detroit Lions. Going into Week 16, Zylstra had 5 receptions on the season. On Saturday, he had another 5 receptions on 6 targets, both stats doubling his season total. He also caught 3 touchdowns, putting up 23.10 points, helping, in all likelihood, zero teams across all of fantasy football. He's rostered in 0% of leagues in Fleaflicker, so if he's actually on someone's team, it's basically a rounding error. Zylstra was one of 4 tight ends to score over 20 points this week. The previous high was only 2 different TEs scoring at least 20 points in the same week.

13 Kickers with 10+ Points

I haven’t spent a lot of time on kickers this year, usually, I’m either praising huge performances or decrying their use in fantasy football altogether. This week, I just want to say that I’m impressed that there were so many good performances, and so many of them went unnoticed in our drinkfive.com league. Going into the Monday night game, there are 13 kickers who scored 10 or more points in Week 16. Leading the pack was Rams kicker Matt Gay, who was a perfect 9 for 9 on the night. He had 6 extra points and 3 field goals – two of them over 50 yards. 8 other kickers scored at least 15 points – big swings for the fantasy semifinals, though only 2 teams in the drinkfive league had any of those kickers on their roster. Kickers can swing a game, but damn are they still just a crapshoot all the time.

21 D/ST Points

The Los Angeles Rams really did have a complete game, appearing in every category of the article so far. Well, Tyler Higbee did not get mentioned among the TEs, but he was one of them who scored over 20 points this week. The D/ST put together their best game of the season by far. They had 21 points thanks to 4 INTs, one of them returned 85 yards for a TD and 6 sacks. They crushed their previous season-high, which was just 9 points from way back in weeks 1 & 2. In another example of a positional crapshoot, there were only 1 of the top 8 defenses rostered in the drinkfive league – congrats to Tad for figuring out that the Patriots were still a good start against the Bengals. Or, maybe he just got lucky that Burrow threw a pick-six in what was essentially garbage time.

3.4 Fantasy Points

To complete my LA Rams theme today, I went digging for a wide receiver to break down, figuring they certainly had someone put up big numbers, with them scoring 51 points total. Page 1, nothing. Page 2, nada. Page 3, come on, I must have missed something. I finally reached page 4 and found Van Jefferson, the WR65 on the week, with a whopping 3.4 fantasy points. Jefferson had 3 receptions on 5 targets, good for 19 yards. I won’t claim to have done all the research, but I cannot think of a time when a team has had more than twice as many points as receiving yards of their leading WR. This game was a proper anomaly.

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.

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.