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Here's a sneak peek of tonight's Fantasy Finish Line Podcast with Dave and I. We'll discuss news, all the rapid changes in rosters in the league, and random stuff that comes up along the way. Make sure to tune in at 9pm on YouTube.

• Where do we start? First off, there’s the covid news. Aaron Rodgers tested positive, and he’s out for Week 9’s game against the Chiefs. The Packers 3rd string QB is out too, and it’s certainly possible that Jordan Love can test positive before Sunday as well. Blake Bortles was signed earlier today and spent training camp with the Packers, so he’ll slot in if everything goes haywire for the Packers. Davante Adams was placed on the covid list on 10/25 so should be cleared to return this week. Adams and Jones remain a must start against a poor Chiefs defense. Allen Lazard has been taken off the covid list, so that’s a good sign for Adams being available on Sunday.

• Henry Ruggs….lots has been said about him, but fantasy wise - Bryan Edwards and Hunter Renfrow should see a bit more usage, but I expect Zay Jones to be the one to get the deep targets. Ruggs was in on 65-80% of snaps, but only saw about 5 targets per game. Renfrow should see an increase in snaps as he was more of a 55-65% guy and could see a bump to his 7 targets per game.

• Saquon Barkley is also on the covid list, so even if his ankle is rehabbed, he won’t be returning this week. The Giants are on bye the following week. Also with the Giants, Kenny Golladay returned to practice today, and Sterling Shepard looks like he’ll be out at least through the bye next week. The WR group for the Giants continues to be a revolving door, and your decision on who to start will likely go right up to game time on Sunday.

• Dak Prescott is back at practice this week, it would appear that the Cooper Rush era will be put on hold for now. Michael Gallup has been designated to return from IR, but still has not been active.

• Calvin Ridley stepped away from the Falcons indefinitely, and abruptly, on Sunday morning. It’s always important to watch those inactives! The biggest beneficiary of this will probably be Russell Gage, with Kyle Pitts now being the primary target in the offense. I expect Gage’s snap count to go way up, and his zero targets last week to be a fluke. 

• Odell Beckham Jr. appears to be on the way out in Cleveland. They did not find a trade partner for him, so, considering the team asked him not to come in, he will likely be put on waivers and then cut if nobody claims him. Plenty of teams would probably take a chance on him, with the Saints high on that list, but it seems like his days in Cleveland are done. He’s averaging less than 6 targets per game, and playing less than 70% of snaps. His presence won’t be missed. Jarvis Landry will continue to be the only weekly start catching passes for the run-heavy Browns.

• Christian McCaffrey has been designated to return from IR, right on schedule with his initially reported timeline. This doesn’t need to officially happen until Saturday in order to play on Sunday, so keep an eye on the news. As usual, McCaffrey should be in your starting lineup if he’s playing.

• DeAndre Hopkins is not practicing this week. He only played in 15 snaps last Thursday night, apparently on some of those he snuck in and wasn’t supposed to be on the field. He’s one of the few players that can perform well if he does not practice all week, so just keep an eye on his status on Sunday - he does play a late afternoon game. He needs to be in your lineup if he’s playing. Kyler Murray also did not practice today, but he should be good to go this week after injuring his ankle late in the game last Thursday night.

• Is there such a thing as WR burnout? Michael Thomas led the league in receptions in 2018 and 2019, with a record-breaking 149 catches in ‘19. Since then he’s played in just 7 games and has announced that he won’t be returning in 2021. He’s still under contract for 2022 and will be 29 at that time. Expect the Saints to make a play for Odell Beckham once he is finally cut, or any other free agent WR for that matter.

• Derrick Henry suffered a (fantasy) season ending injury on Sunday and is supposed to be out for 6-10 weeks. An extremely optimistic outlook might have him back in time for the fantasy playoffs, but I find that to be unlikely at best. If you have the luxury of a free IR spot, then definitely use it. Otherwise I think it’s safe to drop him and let someone else waste a roster spot on him in the hopes he returns in Week 16 or 17 of the NFL season. If the Titans are in the playoffs at that time, they would be smart to just hold him until the playoffs start. If they are eliminated, then there’s no reason to bring him back. Jeremy McNichols stands to see a big increase in carries, and the passing game will probably also see a boost for the Titans. It remains to be seen how the Titans want to use Adrian Peterson, and how much use he actually gets.

• Jameis Winston tore his ACL in the Saints win against the Bucs and is out for the rest of the season, and probably out of New Orleans, practically speaking. For now, we’ll see a combination of Taysom Hill and Trevor Siemian under center for the Saints. This doesn’t affect the Saints fantasy players much because nobody was doing anything other than Kamara anyways! (True - Marquez Callaway has been a flex play from weeks 3-5 but that’s about it, only putting up 3 fantasy points in each of the last two matchups).

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.

7,156 Pass Completions

 Yet another all-time passing record has passed on to Tom Brady. He passed Drew Brees for the most completions on Sunday, now with 7,156 and counting. In addition, Brady now holds the NFL record for passing attempts (11,152), passing yards (83,338), and passing TDs (617)…and counting! This year, at age 44, he’s leading the league in completions (378), passing attempts (554), passing yards (4,134), and passing touchdowns (36). Maybe it’s no fun for the rest of us to watch Brady week after week after week do what he does, but occasionally it’s time to reflect on just how far ahead he is of everyone else in the league (currently, and through history). Aaron Rodgers is maybe the only active QB who has a chance at catching Brady in any of these categories – he’s averaging 31.36 touchdowns per year started, vs Brady averaging 30.85 per year started. Rodgers is still 178 TDs behind Brady, which would take over 5 years at his current average – and that’s if Brady (still going strong) doesn’t throw another TD pass in his career.

1.0 Interception Percentage

Speaking of the owner of the Chicago Bears, Aaron Rodgers leads the league in interception percentage yet again. Rodgers has led the league in interception percentage (lower numbers better, of course) in 5 of his previous 13 seasons, including the last 3 in a row. Back in 2018, Rodgers finished the season with a miniscule 0.3% interception rate, throwing just 2 picks on 597 pass attempts. But let’s go back to the present – in last night’s game against the Bears, the Packers trailed by 10 points at two different times, but Vegas never made the Packers positive money on the money line during live betting. They know that Aaron, like MJ, takes that shit personally. The Packers, of course, wound up winning the game by 15, with Rodgers throwing 4+ TDs against he Bears for his 7^th time in his career (54 total starts). The game also featured an incredible 2^nd quarter where the two teams combined for 45 points, scoring 5 touchdowns of 38+ yards.

62.7 Fantasy Points

Over the last two weeks, George Kittle has scored 62.7 fantasy points, just putting up massive numbers for the 49ers with Deebo Samuel out or basically playing RB. In those games, he has 22 receptions on 27 receptions, 332 receiving yards and 3 TDs. Even with his 1.8-point game in Week 12, Kittle has the highest 3-week average among all TEs in the league with 16.1 points. Kittle now has 139.6 points on the season, 45% of those points coming in the last two weeks. Kittle has missed three weeks this year, and had two other games with less than 20 yards receiving. Both players ahead of him in points – Mark Andrews and Travis Kelce, have played a full compliment of games this year. Kittle has the highest average points per game at the TE position with 14 ppg, well ahead of Andrews and Rob Gronkowski, both tied at 13.1 ppg.

300+ Passing Yards and 100+ Rushing Yards

Josh Allen is the top scoring fantasy player in the league, and it’s an easier comparison now that every team has completed their bye week. Allen’s performance on Sunday was so good that it deserves two stats shouted out, considering he’s only the 4^th quarterback to ever throw for over 300 yards and rush for over 100 in a single game. This is the 5^th time that Allen has led the league in fantasy points for the week, putting up a massive 36.22 points against the Buccaneers this week. Allen is only the second 100-yard rusher that the Bucs have allowed all season. Allen actually leads the league in yards per carry this season with 6.1 yards/attempt. He qualifies for the minimum 6.25 attempts per game, just barely, with 6.7 rushes per game this year. He has more rushing yards than starters Miles Gaskin (526) and Josh Jacobs (496), but is only third in QB rushing yards.

205 Rushing Yards

Dalvin Cook has set the high-water mark for rushing yards this season with 205 yards on 27 attempts on Thursday night against the Steelers. His 34.7 fantasy points are also the second highest total for the week. This was a game where it was still up in the air earlier in the day if he would even be active – he wound up touching the ball 28 times, gaining 222 total yards and scoring 2 touchdowns in the Vikings wild win against the Steelers. At one point, the Vikings led 29-0, and had to hold off a furious comeback attempt by the Steelers where they scored three touchdowns in under 5 minutes at the end of the third quarter and beginning of the fourth. Cook now has the highest rushing total of any player on the season (the only player above 200 yards), passing Jonathan Taylor’s 185 yards from week 11. With retirement talk for Ben Roethlisberger surrounding him every game now, it was nice to see him put up another 300+ yard game, his 67^th of his career.

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).