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 standard Yahoo scoring, unless otherwise noted.
4 of the top 8 QBs - Owned in 34% of Leagues or Less
Week 13 was a rough one for fantasy footballers. The end of the fantasy regular season brought a ton of chaos at the QB position. Only half of the top 8 QBs are likely to be owned in your league. Josh Allen (2nd - 5% owned), Derek Carr (4th - 18% owned), Nick Mullens (6th - 7% owned) and Marcus Mariota (8th - 34% owned) all put up at least 22.5 points in standard leagues. We also saw three regular starters finish outside of the top 25 QBs. Drew Brees and Matt Ryan both had terrible statistical games and were led by Jared Goff who at least won his game on the way to his 9.08 points. With all of this inconsistency at the position, we must give props to Patrick Mahomes, who once again led the way with 33 points and threw for 4 TDs for the 7th time this year (now up to 41 on the season). If the Chiefs can avoid off-field distractions and hold off the red-hot Chargers, then Mahomes is definitely in line to win the league MVP in his first year as a starter.
3 of the top 5 WRs - Owned in 3% of Leagues or Less
Whaaaaaaa? Who are these mystery men that dominated week 13's stat sheets? Well, Dante Pettis led the way with 24.70 points and is owned in just 3% of leagues. Pettis is actually a decent waiver pickup this week, with 20 targets in the last 3 weeks he is definitely trending up. Outside of the Sunday night game, where Keenan Allen and Antonio Brown put on a show, finishing 2nd and 3rd in points this week, we're right back to the guys that are not on any teams. Zay Jones (20.70 pts - 1% owned) and Jaron Brown (18.70 pts - 0% owned) both had 67 receiving yards and 2 TDs, with Jones adding a 2pt conversion. Ultimately, 13 of the top 30 WRs this week are owned in 30% of leagues or less. In a week where points were at a premium, there were sure a lot of touchdowns that made you say "That helps nobody!".
23% More Fantasy Points Than 2nd Place
Saquon Barkley is having a hell of a season. He's nearly to 1000 rushing yards, he's got over 600 receiving yards and has found the end zone a dozen times, but he's in a distant second this year behind Todd Gurley's 282.90 points at the RB position. Gurley is dominating his position in a very Mahomes-esque fashion. He has nearly doubled up the RB10 and has more than doubled up the RB12. Gurley has paid off as the consensus #1 draft pick before the season started, something that usually does not wind up happening. So far, he's racked up 1649 yards from scrimmage along with 19 touchdowns. He's still got 3 weeks to go for fantasy players, so good luck if you've in the playoffs with him. Gurley has topped 20 points in 9 out of 12 games this season. He's got a couple of tough matchups in weeks 14 and 15, but his week 16 matchup is a juicy one in Arizona, so once again he will be delivering some fantasy championships for Christmas.
3+ TDs in 8 Straight Games
Andrew Luck had a great streak of games going, throwing 27 TDs in 8 games, but that was broken on Sunday by the confusing and sometimes-decent Jacksonville Jaguars defense. The Jags blanked the Colts, 6-0 in Cody Kessler's first start for the Jaguars since the official benching of Blake Bortles. Kessler is clearly not the answer at QB, based on the 6 whole points that the Jags were able to muster. But back to the Colts for a moment - their last shutout was in week 7 of last year - also to the Jaguars. Before that, the Colts hadn't been shutout in the regular season since week 13 of the 1993 season - that's right, I had to go all the way back to the Jeff George era. The Jaguars, on the other hand, have a lot of rebuilding to do - with 4 weak opponents on the remaining schedule, they will still struggle to get another win.
135 Rush Yards
Josh Allen has been cut loose and is running free over his last two opponents. Week 13, he put up 135 rushing yards on only 9 attempts, giving him 234 yards on 22 attempts over two games, good for 10.6 yards per attempt. Allen is now third in rushing yards for QBs and has only played 8 games, compared to 12 games for the two guys above him. Extrapolated for a full season, he would have over 580 yards by now, on pace for 778 in 16 games. That's 75% of what Tom Brady has on his entire career, and yes, fine, congrats on getting to 1000 rushing yards, the most meaningless stat of your life. To wrap up on Josh Allen, his 30.74 points in week 13 were second best among all players. He's got 57 points in the last two weeks and has cupcake matchups against the Jets and Lions the next two weeks, so he could wind up as the best streaming option for the first couple of weeks of the playoffs.
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