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.
3 Safeties
Safeties are coming in bunches this season. Yesterday, there were three scored by three different teams - the Indianapolis Colts, the Minnesota Vikings, and the Seattle Seahawks. The first two were via sacks and the last one was a blocked punt that was nearly recovered for a TD instead of a safety. But, as I said, these things come in bunches. Of the 15 safeties that have been scored this season, two came in Week 2, three came in Week 3, and three more came in week 11. Minnesota has been involved in 3 of them - giving up 2 of them early in the season and finally returning the favor this week against the Jaguars - a must-have score that came in a game that wound up going to overtime. Indianapolis has been involved in 4 safeties this season - 3 in their favor and one against them, on a flag for intentional grounding in the end zone. The Seahawks have also been involved in 3 safeties this season - all 3 of them in their favor and all 3 of them occurring in weeks where 2 other teams have managed to score a safety.
1,039 Receiving Yards
Vikings rookie WR Justin Jefferson is now third among all wide receivers in the league (through Sunday's games) with 1,039 receiving yards. As expected, as a rookie, he started the season slow with only 70 yards in his first two games. Since then, he's averaging 97 yards per game, has put up 5 games over 100 yards, and scored 7 touchdowns. He's now the #4 fantasy wide receiver with 178.6 points on the season, averaging about 15 points per game. With drop-offs of all the rookie QBs who were once playing well this season, Jefferson's name is now coming up in offensive rookie of the year conversations, and he could definitely be a strong contender if he keeps up this pace to close out the season. Jefferson's pace is rather historical, he has the second-most receiving yards by a rookie WR through his first 12 games. He's quite behind Odell Beckham's pace of 1,305 in 2014, but he's slightly ahead of Randy Moss in 1998 and Anquan Boldin in 2003. All three of those guys won the offensive rookie of the year award.
1,114 Receiving Yards
Travis Kelce turned in another huge game on Sunday night and is now just 5 yards behind the league leader in receiving yards - DK Metcalf with 1,119 yards. Kelce is 4th in the league with 82 receptions and naturally leads all tight ends with 8 touchdowns. Kelce is leading all TEs is all statistical categories and is just shy of 200 points on the season. His average of 16.5 points per game is almost 4 points ahead of the second-best TE, Darren Waller. Waller had a historically great game on Sunday against the Jets, scoring 38.5 fantasy points, the best mark on the season for a TE by almost 6 points (and the high-water mark for Week 13 so far). In the Raiders' last-second victory over the Jets, Waller had 13 receptions for 200 yards and scored 2 touchdowns. This is the 4th time in NFL history that a tight end has had a game with 200 yards and 2 touchdowns. He'll need a lot more games like this if he wants to catch Travis Kelce for the points total this season - Kelce still has roughly a 45-point lead with just 4 games to go in the NFL regular season.
31 Fantasy Points on a D/ST
The New England Patriots turned in the D/ST performance of the season on Sunday while visiting the Chargers in Los Angeles. Their 31 points tops the Falcons' 28 points they got just last week. The Patriots tore apart rookie QB Justin Herbert and held him to a 49.1% completion rate for 209 yards and 2 interceptions. Along the way, the Patriots returned a punt for a touchdown and also blocked a field goal attempt at the end of the 2nd quarter, and returned that for a touchdown as well. Add 3 sacks and zero points allowed to all of that and you arrive a 31 fantasy points for a D/ST that had a decent chance at being on the waiver wire, as they're only 66% owned in Fleaflicker leagues. This performance sort of came out of nowhere considering the Patriots D/ST has scored 32 total points since Week 4. Next up for the Patriots, the other Los Angeles team, again in Los Angeles, coming up on Thursday night. A quick turnaround might mean that the defense is still pumped up for this rematch of Super Bowl LIII.
4 of the Top 10 QBs
I like to use our drinkfive.com fantasy league as a way to find interesting or noteworthy stats, but often I find us a bit lacking in some areas. Often this comes in the form of nobody owning a kicker worth a damn on any given week (The top 3 this week are owned! But only 4 of the top 10). D/ST is another position where this crops up, this week nobody had the Patriots and only 5 of the top 10 teams were rostered. This also occasionally happens at the tight end position, but what I never find is a staggering lack of ownership at the quarterback position. This week, only 4 of the top 10 QBs (so far, there are 6 guys left to play) are on rosters. This is mostly due to the fact that there were lots of big performances from the middle and lower tiers of QBs. Derek Carr led the way with 4 total touchdowns, one of them a last-second bomb to keep the Jets winless. Baker Mayfield’s 4 first-half touchdown passes vaulted him into the QB2 spot of the week, scoring a Browns record 38 first-half points.
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