Fantasy football strategy, rankings, and podcasts

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.

14 Fantasy Points in 12 Minutes

Thursday night, we were treated to another marvelous fantasy performance from the New England Patriots D/ST. They put up a total of 28 points, good for the 7^th highest fantasy score on a week with some gigantic point totals.  The Patriots accounted for 15 of their points in just the 4^th quarter alone, starting it off with a sack of Matt Ryan on the first play of the quarter. They followed that up with 4 interceptions of three different passers, one of them being returned for a touchdown. They are now averaging 16.8 points per game over the last 5 weeks and are the top D/ST on the season, beating out the Buffalo Bills D/ST by 17 points. The Bills, the previous leaders in the position, did themselves no favors last week with a shocking -4-point performance, the worst score that can be put up by a D/ST.

1.48 Points Per Touch

Jonathan Taylor had a massive 35 total touches in his incredible game this weekend. Taylor had a career high 32 rushing attempts, scored 5 TDs (his previous career high was 2), and had 204 yards from scrimmage. His career high there is 254, so he has some work to do on that front, I suppose. Taylor scored 51.9 points on the day and managed to average 1.48 points per touch – anything north of 1 point per touch is generally considered very good from an RB. Taylor is now up to 1.10 points per touch on the season, which is incredible for a workhorse back who has 225 touches on the season now. Not to be outdone in efficiency, Austin Ekeler had a massive 2.26 points per touch on Sunday night. Ekeler might not have found the end zone 5 times, but 4 wasn’t bad, on his way to 38.5 total fantasy points and a distant second place finish for total fantasy points on the week. Ekeler is the first player in 10 years to have 2 rushing and 2 receiving TDs in the same game. The last time it happened was Maurice Jones-Drew on December 11, 2011.

253.04 Fantasy Points

The number one player in all of fantasy player this season is now Jalen Hurts, just as we all suspected. Hurts has managed this with a 61.6% completion rate, good for 34^th among qualifying QBs, and a 90.4 QB rating, good for 26^th among qualifying QBs. Hurts is making a mockery of what we once considered to be a good QB in the league, but it’s hard to argue with his 618 rushing yards (9^th among all players) and 8 touchdowns on the ground (5^th among all players). He does have a TD to INT ratio of 13:5 which, admittedly, is not atrocious, but is certainly nothing to brag about either. If Hurts only ran the ball, he would be the RB23 on the season, but when you add in his passing stats and consider the fact that there are no particularly dominant QBs this season among the traditional talents, you get the top play in all of fantasy football. Hurts was drafted as the QB12 this year, 95^th overall on average. With a big game tonight, at least 31.14 points, Tom Brady could restore some order to all of this chaos. But then again, it’s not like me to root for Brady, so let chaos reign!

23 Fantasy Points Per Game

The RB3 on the season is still Derrick Henry, with 184.3 fantasy points in just 8 weeks, he was averaging 23 points per game when he was put on the IR. That’s still the best non-QB average points per game this season. There are only 5 QBs who have a better per-game average, by the way. Henry was on a pace to have a career year, and he still is likely to finish in the top 20 of total scrimmage yards by RBs this year, and probably will be a top-10 finisher among RBs with 11 total touchdowns. I don’t normally write these blurbs about players who are done for the season (the fantasy season, anyways), but last week we were missing 6 of the top 20 scoring RBs who were out with either injuries or bye weeks, so I thought it was appropriate to make one more toast to King Henry the Titan.

4.64 Yards Per Catch

Rondale Moore has the distinction this week of leading the league in receptions with 11. No other player had more than 9 catches, so congrats to the man who had 11 catches….and 10.6 total points in half PPR. 51 yards is all he could manage on 11 catches. Moore had 2 catches netting him negative yards. His longest catch on the day was 11 yards. Moore sits as the WR27 on the week, a feat that is absurdly hard to do when you have 11 receptions. At least he was a perfect 11 for 11 on the day, catching every single one of his targets, even if maybe he should have just gone ahead and dropped his -5-yard reception. There were 8 wide receivers who had fewer yards than he did, but still managed to score more points. All of those players found the end zone. This game rivals the stat line that Cole Beasley put up in week 9, 8 receptions for 33 yards totaling 7.3 points.

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.

10 for 10 on Field Goals

Also, 5 for 5 on extra points. This week saw the two kickers top the season-long scoring charts, and go perfect along the way. Brett Maher kicked 4 field goals and 4 extra points as the Cowboys destroyed the Vikings. His 23 fantasy points are better than anyone in the first 10 weeks of the season. Tyler Bass, meanwhile, made the most out of not having to kick outdoors in 6’ of snow. He went 6 for 6 on field goal attempts and, appropriately, added an extra point. Bass’s 26-point performance is the best of any kicker this season, with Maher’s week 11 the second best. Bass was the 10^th highest-scoring player in all of fantasy football this week. He scored the most fantasy points in his game and Jacoby Brissett was right behind him at 25.86 points. If you had Bass and Brissett as the two highest scorers in a game that included Josh Allen, Stefon Diggs, and Nick Chubb, then I’m calling you a liar.

10’s Wild

Derrick Henry has 10 rushing touchdowns on the season and 1,010 rushing yards so far. A very nice total after 10 games in the season. Henry has 7 games over 15 fantasy points, after starting the season with 2 games under 9 points. Six of those games are over 22 points. Three of his last four games have two touchdowns each (one of those a passing score this week). Henry is now the fifth player in history to rush for at least 10 touchdowns in five straight seasons. He’s the RB2 on the season, just 1.54 points behind Austin Ekeler, without ever leading the league in scoring in a given week.

11 Receiving Touchdowns

Travis Kelce leads the league in receiving touchdowns. His 3 on Sunday night, including the seemingly inevitable game-winner late in the 4^th quarter. He’s now at 11 receiving scores on the season and just utterly dominating at his position. He’s the 4^th highest-scoring non-QB fantasy player, but what’s perhaps more amazing is that he’s ahead of the TE2 by an astonishing 78.7 points. Mark Andrews, the TE2, has only 58% of Travis Kelce’s season-long point total. Kelce is officially an all-time great, as if there was any doubt, when he passed the one and only Gronk for most 100-yard receiving games by a TE in league history.

11 QBs with 20+ Points

For the second time this season, 11 QBs scored at least 20 fantasy points in one week. As of halftime on Monday night, Jimmy Garoppolo has a shot at being the 12^th, which would be the high-water mark of this season. Included in these 11 QBs is Joe Burrow, topping the weekly list for the third time this year. Jacoby Brissett and Andy Dalton, are on an average of just 34% of rosters. Justin Fields for his 6^th straight top-10 finish. And, though he’s pushed it the last two games, did not include Aaron Rodgers in the realm of 20-point scorers, yet again, like he has…all season long.

$20 Million in Salary Cap

If you told Jerry Jones that the $20 million in cap space that he’s devoting to the running back position produced 6 touchdowns and 573 yards from scrimmage from just one of the players, he might be pretty happy. If you told him that all that production comes from the guy who is using up less than 6% of that cap space, well, maybe his eyes might finally pop out of his head. Tony Pollard has been outstanding in his contract year with the Cowboys. While Ezekiel Elliott is looking at getting his contract picked up or not, Pollard is looking at dollar signs coming up in 2023. Pollard put up his second 33-point fantasy performance this season and is now the RB8 on the season – a far cry from his ADP of RB35. This guy is someone who is propelling your team to the playoffs if you landed him in the second half of your draft.