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You just drafted a shiny new team and you’re ready to just let the chalk go and start all the guys you drafted in the top half of the draft. Seems like a good idea, right? After all, you did draft the best team in your league. You did the research. You’re anxious to prove that, despite the lack of preseason, you, Football Nostradamus, know exactly what to do here.

 

Slow down. Just stop. It’s Week 1 and nobody has really been hit yet. This season is going to take some time for all the players to get used to it. So, here’s five players that are going to bust out week 1 and you should keep on your bench until they’re properly warmed up for the season.

 

Le’Veon Bell (NYJ) @ Buffalo – I can’t think of a greater disparity between the talent a player has and the level with which his coach does not want him around for no damn reason. Bell has had a rough time in New York and it’s not going to get any easier this week. When asked about what to expect the first week without real practice, Jeff Fisher said on Slow News Day, “There’s going to be a lot of balls on the ground…It’s hard to hang on to that brown thing.” Fisher is truly the 7-9 of NFL poets. However, he does have a point. My prediction this week is that Le’Veon Bell fumbles twice, is benched, and that Frank Gore will lead the Jets in carries week 1. Keep Bell on your bench and hope that he has better days ahead. Or gets traded. The second one is probably a better option for him.

 

Everyone but Christian McCaffrey and Josh Jacobs in the OAK @ CAR game. I say, with great confidence that these two players will combine for about 60% of the entire offensive output of this game. That leaves little else to be spread throughout the rest of the two teams. The Raiders are stuck with two rookie wideouts and one second-year guy. The Panthers have a brand new QB after riding the backup QB carousel most of the year last year. The featured back for both teams are likely to be used so heavily that production from a third player in this game will likely be a fluke at best. The Panthers gave up the 7^th fewest points to opposing TEs last year, so even Darren Waller is a risky start here. Just start McCaffrey or Jacobs if you have them and refer to your bench if you have anyone else in this game. That’s what they’re there for!

 

Leonard Fournette (TB) @ New Orleans – Going off the board as the #20 RB in half ppr (the new official scoring format of drinkfive.com), one might be fooled into thinking that Fournette is worthy of at least a flex start. Do not fall in to this trap! Fournette is firmly behind both Ronald Jones and LeSean McCoy on the Bucs depth chart. You must wait until Jones blows a protection and gets Brady sacked (now a felony offense in on the gulf coast of Florida) and McCoy reveals that he is not, in fact, Frank Gore, the ageless one. Only then will it be safe to start Fournette. Besides, I’m imagining a game where both teams throw the ball 40+ times in what could easily be the highest scoring game of the week.

 

Will Fuller (HOU) @ Kansas City – Fuller is entering this season, presumably, as the Texans #1 WR. He’s had success on the Texans in fits and starts, even putting up an absurd 50+ points in a game last year. There’s just one problem. Fuller has never taken the field as a pro without Deandre Hopkins also being on the field. This means that he has very rarely received the attention from opposing defenses that he’s about to get this year. The Chiefs gave up the second fewest points to opposing WRs last year. They’re also set to open the season all fired up from their Super Bowl win 7 months ago. If you can, steer clear of Will Fuller this week and let the Texans find their groove in the next couple of weeks, because it’s not happening on Thursday night.

 

Bold Bust of the Week:

 

Derrick Henry (TEN) @ Denver – Derrick Henry is notoriously a slow starter. Until last year, he didn’t crack 26 rushing yards in the first game of the season. He’s never had a game with 100+ rushing yards before week 4. Last year he did have a solid showing, but that was against Cleveland, and they’re, well, the Browns. This year the Titans face the Broncos to put a cap on week 1. The Broncos are suddenly without two of their best pass rushers, which leaves the door open for Ryan Tannehill to follow up his 2019 Comeback Player of the Year award with a big performance. You probably drafted Henry too high to bother listening to me, but keep him out of your daily fantasy lineups and remember that I told you so when he puts up fewer than 10 points in the season opener.

 

 

 

 

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.

 

24.2 Points…From a Kicker

 

Brandon McManus was responsible for the entire scoring output of his team on Sunday, and it was enough to go into Foxboro and beat the Patriots. McManus was a perfect 6 for 6 on the day, converting 242 yards of field goals into 18 points on the board. His 24.2 fantasy points made him the 6^th highest scoring non-QB player of the week so far. Elsewhere, other kickers are continuing to kick butt. Younghoe Koo went 4/4 on field goals and 4/4 on extra points for a cool 20.1 points. Koo is the second-best kicker this year in terms of points per game and is very consistent. His lowest game is 8.5 points, which was his only game below 10 points all season. Then you have Justin Tucker, perhaps the most famous fantasy kicker in the game. He’s missed just one of his 34 total kicking attempts this season. His 17.7 points definitely were critical in leading at least one fantasy team (mine) to victory.

 

3 of the Top 10 Fantasy WRs

 

Three of the top 10 fantasy WRs by points in Week 6 are rookies. Leading the way is Justin Jefferson, who once again finds himself in the discussion for top WRs of the week. His 9 receptions for 166 yards and 2 TDs mark the third time this season he has broken the 100-yard mark. Jefferson is now the WR4 on the season, and he and Adam Thielen (WR2) are stepping up as the NFL's biggest power combo at WR. Last week’s WR leader, Chase Claypool, had a nice encore performance with 81 yards from scrimmage and another TD. Claypool is now leading his team in both receiving yards and receiving touchdowns. Finally, we have Tee Higgins rounding out the top 10 of the week. His 6 receptions for 125 yards are both career highs, through 6 games. Higgins has emerged as probably the best WR on the Bengals, who have shown signs of life just one season after finishing with the NFL’s worst record. Higgins has a nice rapport with Joe Burrow developing and has moved into the every week starter conversation.

 

601 Yards of Offense

 

After an odd and shortened week, the Tennessee Titans put up a franchise-record 601 yards of offense, led by the one and only, the unidread, Derrick Henry. Henry had nearly half of those yards himself, 264 yards from scrimmage, including a 94-yard touchdown run in the 4^th quarter to take the lead back from the Texans. Ryan Tannehill managed to outduel Deshaun Watson, putting up 364 passing yards and throwing 4 TDs, though really, it’s the skilled manner in which he hands the ball to Derrick Henry and then gets the heck out of the way that got him this victory. 9 different Titans had receptions in this game, led by, as expected, Anthony…Firkser? Firkser saw a larger role with Jonnu Smith sidelined by injury and had a whopping 8 receptions for 113 yards and found the end zone as well. Firkser now has a Michael Thomas-esque 78.1% catch rate on his career. He is owned in 3% of fantasy leagues and was the TE1 on the week, so place your bids now! A quick digression – not to call out our drinkfive.com fantasy league or anything, but only 4 of the top 20 TEs so far this week are even on rosters in this league!

 

39.4 Fantasy Points

 

Let’s take another look at Derrick Henry’s ridiculous fantasy performance on Sunday. 22 carries for 212 yards is a 9.64 yards per carry average, meaning that every time he carried the ball, he went 29 of the 30 feet traditionally required to make a first down. He added two receptions for 52 yards, 53 of them (what?) coming in overtime to flip the field and set up the Titans for his game-winning TD 4 plays later. This is his third consecutive season where he has a game of at least 200 rushing yards. Henry is the first NFL player to accomplish this feat. He has 9 TDs in those three games. He can add two playoff games last year where he broke 200 yards from scrimmage to that leader board as well. How dominant was Henry? Well, the second-best RB this week has only 65% of his fantasy points. He scored 3x the points that the RB10, Adrian Peterson, had this week.

 

3 Pick-Sixes

 

Aaron Rodgers threw his third-ever pick-six on Sunday in 179 regular-season games. By contrast, his opponent on Sunday has 16 on his career. How about showing that stat when you try inflating Brady’s ego, Fox? Anyways, I digress. It was one of the worst games of Rodgers’ career and the Packers even managed to lose their first-place status in the NFC North. Meanwhile, the Bucs move into sole possession of first place in the NFC South with their 4^th victory. Brady’s old team only has 2 victories…if anybody is counting. The Bucs are managing to win with defense and a solid run game, just what we expected out of the traditionally high-flying offense of Bruce Arians. Ronald Jones is the first player this season with 3 consecutive 100-yard rushing games. Even Rob Gronkowski is getting in on the action, scoring his first TD as a Buc and finishing with 16.3 points this week, his best game since Week 14 of the 2018 season.

 

 

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.

 

 

1 Pass Completion

 

A trio of position players completed passes this week. Perhaps, I should be more specific that they each completed one pass to their own team, but more on that in a moment. On Thursday, we saw Logan Thomas, a TE on a Football Team, hit Terry McLaurin on a 28-yard completion in the first quarter, the longest pass play of the day for Washington. Washington only really needed Antonio Gibson on Thursday, but we’ll get to him in a little bit. Cole Beasley joined in the fun on Sunday, throwing a 20-yard pass to Gabriel Davis in the Bills’ victory over the Chargers. Which brings us to the more infamous player who completed only one pass on Sunday. This, of course, needs a qualifier, because Kendall Hinton did complete two passes to the wrong team, and only one to his own team. A stat line of 1 for 9 with 2 INTs is not something I thought I would see in the NFL in a game that didn’t include some sort of blizzard or hurricane. Here we are, in 2020, where a practice squad player gets to start at QB because he was a backup QB in college.

 

51.4 Fantasy Points

 

We’re not here for tiny numbers, generally speaking, though sometimes they can be fun. Let’s break down the top fantasy performance of the season. Tyreek Hill did most of his damage in the first quarter, coming just a few yards shy of the all-time record for receiving yards in a single quarter. Hill started off with a 34-yard completion on the very first play of the game. He added another 23 yards on the same drive and had 57 yards total before 2 minutes had elapsed in the game. Two drives later, Hill got loose behind the defense and caught a 75-yard touchdown, his 6^th receiving TD from Patrick Mahomes of 50 yards or more. A good quarter, you say? There was still 7 minutes left to go! On the next Chiefs drive, Hill caught 3 more passes, capping it off with a 44-yard TD reception. Hill ended the quarter with 7 receptions on 7 targets for 203 yards and 2 touchdowns. In comparison, Hill slacked off the rest of the game and finished with “only” 13 receptions for 269 yards and 3 touchdowns.

 

3 Touchdowns on the Ground

 

Tyreek Hill wasn’t the only player to find the end zone three times in Week 12. A pair of running backs managed that feat. First, on Thursday, Antonio Gibson was all the offense that Washington needed to defeat the Cowboys in their annual “why do the same teams always play on Thanksgiving?” afternoon naptime entertainment. Gibson started the game just fine, scoring early to put fantasy owners at ease. It was his finish that was truly impressive. He had fourth-quarter touchdown runs of 23 and 37 yards to turn his average day into the best game of his rookie season. A pick-six by Washington on the play following Gibson’s last touchdown put away the game for the Football Team and also buried the Cowboys' last playoff hopes for this year. Gibson was outdone on Sunday by Derrick Henry, who did almost all of his damage in the first half against the Colts. Henry finished with 178 yards and 3 more touchdowns. This brings his season totals to a league-leading 1,257 rush yards and 12 touchdowns, just one behind Dalvin Cook.

 

1 WR Over 1,000 Yards

 

We’re 12 weeks into the season, so while almost every team has played 11 games, we have just one wide receiver averaging 100 yards per game, Davante Adams at 100.9 yds/gamee – a definite departure from the high-flying passing numbers that we’ve seen in recent years. Tyreek Hill is the only WR who has cracked the 1,000-yard mark (1,081) and it took a monster game from him on Sunday to do so. His teammate, Travis Kelce, who is the TE1, 2, and 3 is second in the league in receiving yards with 978. On the rushing side, we have two players averaging 100 yards per game – the aforementioned Derrick Henry with 114 yds/game and Dalvin Cook just behind him at 113 yds/game. The lack of a truly dominant top end in fantasy football has probably prevented teams from running away with it and made waiver wire moves and starting the right guys in the right matchups even more important in this chaotic football season.

 

23 Fantasy Kicker Fantasy Points

 

In a surprise to no one, kicker ownership is completely off track. This week’s top kicker was Younghoe Koo of Atlanta who went 5/5 on field goals and 4/4 on extra points for a whopping 23 points, second on his team to only the D/ST, who put up 28 fantasy points on their own. Of course, the Raiders turning the ball over 5 times helped, but I digress, this is about the ridiculous ownership numbers of kickers. Going by our drinkfive writer’s league, Koo is the only kicked owned (by yours truly) of the top 12 kickers this week. In fact, only 5 of the top 20 are on a team at all. The average ownership in Fleaflicker of the top 12 kickers is only 34.5%. So have fun picking a kicker for next week, I suggest that whatever you do, just swap out the kicker you have for someone at random!