Fantasy football strategy, rankings, and podcasts

It's the end of another exciting week of football which means it's time to put your claims in for available free agents in your fantasy league to strengthen your team. I'll be going over who I think are the top five picks for you to target this week so don't miss out on them. Good luck!

Note: %owned is based on Yahoo! leagues at the time of publication.

5) Rashard Higgins (CLE) - 3% owned - Higgins was signed off the Browns practice squad last week and made an immediate impact catching 7 of 11 targets for 95 yards. It was recently announced that Corey Coleman has a broken hand which means Higgins should continue to see opportunities going forward making him worth a flier.

4) Miami DST (MIA) - 5% owned - Miami will travel to play against the lowly New York Jets this week which means there is a good chance they won't get scored on much and should come away with a turnover or two. The Jets have already turned the ball over 4 times to start this season.

3) Marqise Lee (JAX) - 34% owned - Lee is the beneficiary of Allen Robinson's season-ending ACL injury and he should see a healthy amount of targets as the Jaguars primary receiver.

2) Allen Hurns (JAX) - 26% owned - Despite being the number two option in Jacksonville I like Hurns a notch above Marqise Lee due to his big-play ability although in PPR formats they are closer in value.

1) Chris Thompson (WAS) - 30% owned - Thompson has been on a tear to start the season rushing 6 times for 81 yards and 2 TDs and adding 7 catches on 12 targets for another 81 yards and a score. He is a must grab in PPR formats and is looking to have value in standard if given additional touches going forward.

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.

11/11, 5 TD in the Red Zone

Thursday night's game provided us with tons of big numbers (thank you Gurley, Watkins, Hyde, Garcon) but the most impressive numbers that I saw are Jared Goff's red zone passing stats. Through three games, he's a perfect 11/11 passing in the red zone for 82 yards and 5 touchdowns. The Rams barely eeked out a win in San Francisco, but they're now 2-1 behind impressive performances from lots of young players, not to mention the head coach. Goff has already matched his TD total from last season,  but only in 3 games instead of 7. With just one pick on the year, he's looking like one of the most improved rookies from last year, and the Rams are in a good position in a very winnable division.

2 Pick Sixes...in 10 Years!

Aaron Rodgers threw only his second pick six of his career on Sunday (thanks, pro-football reference.com for confirming and being generally awesome). Now in his 10th year of being the starter in Green Bay, Rodgers has always been known for throwing very few interceptions. Let's just put this stat into perspective, shall we? In today's game of lots of passing, Jameis Winston has three to his name. Derek Carr has 4 and Blake Bortles already has 11. All of these guys started playing in 2014 or later, which was 5 years after Rodgers threw his first pick-six. Brees, Palmer, Rivers and Manning all lead the active players with more than 20 each in their career. Of course, the king of the pick six is Rodger's predecessor, who threw 31 in his career.

24 Players Scored More than 20 Points

This was a fantastic weekend for football, and it really felt like big fantasy points were back too. 24 players scored at least 20 points in standard scoring. Granted, there were some outliers like Marcedes Lewis and a bunch of QB's that are owned in less than 10% of Yahoo leagues. I'm talking about guys like Russell Wilson, Brandin Cooks, Jordan Howard and T.Y. Hilton, who were all drafted high and finally delivered with big points this season. This week's 58:30 TD:INT ratio also was a great way to get unstuck from the muck that was Weeks 1 & 2. Even Odell Beckham Jr. got going, and got weird. He could have even joined this group if he had 1 more yard.

3 Receiving Touchdowns

Marcedes Lewis, you know, the guy who's been on the Jaguars since George W. Bush was in Office, caught 3 touchdowns Sunday morning (afternoon?) in London. This equals his total since the 2014 season started and is now about 10% of his career total. These aren't metric touchdowns either, they count for 6 points no matter how many meters or yards the touchdown actually is. On the other side, the Ravens #1 expert consensus ranked D/ST did what can only be described as crapping the bed. They managed zero sacks, picks and fumbles on their way to a -4 point fantasy finish. Blake Bortles sends his regards.

2.2 Points Per Touch

Here at drinkfive.com, we think that considering a player's potential starts with just how many points they can score when they touch the ball. A good player approaches 1.0. A great player averages just over than for their career. This season, still young, has Chris Thompson up to 2.2 points per touch. He has 350 yards from scrimmage on 27 total touches with 4 touchdowns. He's also racking up the long plays this year, with a long run of 61 yards and a long reception of 74 yards. I don't expect Thompson's touches to go up astronomically, but he could see an increase to maybe 12 per game, from the 9 he's currently getting. At his pace, that's like him scoring another touchdown. Last week was the time to pick him up in most leagues, but still look to see if he's in yours!

Bonus stat:

61 Yards

I like to pick on kickers from time to time in this column. I also like to give them props, when appropriate (but not as much as I like picking on them). But I digress, congrats to rookie kicker Jake Elliott who kicked two field goals in the last minute of the game, one to tie and one to take the lead. They were from 46 to tie and an incredible 61 yards for the win. Bravo young man, you no longer need to buy drinks in Philly, as long as you don't miss next week.

It's hard to break out as a star in the NFL at any time, much harder as a rookie, and there's a whole extra degree of difficulty added when you're on a team in chaos like the Washington Redskins in 2017. Management upheaval, refusal to commit long-term to your quarterback (Kirk Cousins), and a lack of proven depth at important skilled positions (wide receiver, running back) made sure that the Redskins would have a losing record last season. Samaje Perine was drafted by the Skins in 2017, and enjoyed much success in College at Oklahoma - going down in history as the school's all-time leading rusher with 4,122 yards and in the process beating out the inimitable Adrian Peterson's former record (4,045). It makes sense, then, that Perine would be able to quickly take over the job in Washington and run with it. 

Read comments from Rich Tandler, Redskins Blogger and NBC Sports Washington correspondent: Need to Know: Five Redskins who must step up in 2018

He did, in fact, get handed the reins early on in the season when Rob Kelley went out in Week 2 with a rib injury, but poor average YPC (yards per carry) in subsequent games along with the return of incumbent starter Kelley, forced the coaches to rethink their depth chart. Perine's big break in 2017 occurred after Kelley suffered a high-ankle sprain and sprained MCL in Week 10 and then Chris Thompson broke his leg in Week 11. With both of the usual suspects sidelined, Perine was able to carve out a few successful games even behind an injured offensive line and was also a small presence in the passing game throughout. 

The Redskins have since traded for QB Alex Smith and signed him to a four-year, $94M extension, they will have $36 Million in salary cap space to sign some help at wide receiver, and the offensive line should start off the new season healthy. No one expects that the Skins will be a competitor to win their division (the Eagles & Cowboys won't be backing down anytime soon), but they can be much improved from their 7-9 record in 2017 and Perine could be a solid RB2 going forward (think a stronger, but slower Michael Turner for comparison).

Chris Thompson is an exciting RB on the Redskins and should continue to be, but he is not the goal-line back there and can not physically hold up to a large workload. Although Perine's YPC over the season was not an impressive number, much of that was due to a weak, injury-ridden offensive line that should be improved in the upcoming season and his average YPC was still better than Rob Kelley's. Finally, there was a serious lack of consistent downfield threats on the offense until Crowder and Doctson started to come on more in the second half of the season. Getting rid of Terrelle Pryor and trying to sign a talented wide receiver in free agency (Paul Richardson, Sammy Watkins, Donte Moncrief, to name a few) should open up some holes for Perine to capitalize on and increase the number of goal-line opportunities that this offense has each week.