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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.

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).

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.