Fantasy football strategy, rankings, and podcasts

Thanks for reading drinkfive.com this year! This week's installment of the rankings brings us to the end of the line. Week 17 is used in some fantasy leagues to determine the champion, so we're still here to help out in those circumstances. Good luck, all! Great plays this week include Blake Bortles, Giovani Bernard, Golden Tate, and George Kittle.

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 standard Yahoo scoring, unless otherwise noted.

47.80 Fantasy Points

Derrick Henry has set a new high-water mark for the 2018 fantasy football season, taking 17 carries and converting them into 238 yards and 4 TDs. That's 14 yards per carry for those of you counting at home. His touchdowns went for 3, 99, 16 and 54 yards and his 99-yarder tied a record held by Hall of Famer Tony Dorsett, which hadn't been matched since it was first set in 1982. The rest of the Titans combined for 15 carries for just 26 yards and Marcus Mariota barely needed to do more than just hand it to Henry. He was a one-man wrecking crew, accounting for all of the Titans TDs. Henry's 47.8 points were the most in fantasy football since way back in week 4, when Mitch Trubisky threw for 6 TDs. There were 4-40 point performances in the first 4 weeks of the season, and then not another until 10 weeks later. Heck, even Amari Cooper's incredible (and personally heartbreaking) 39.70 point performance is the most points in the last 10 weeks, aside from Henry's game Thursday night.

368 Passes without an INT

Aaron Rodgers has just 1 INT on the season, which isn't really a good look for those people blaming Rodgers for the decline of the Packers. Rodgers is just fine, thank you - throwing an INT on just 0.2% of his pass attempts. This was highlighted Sunday when Rodgers threw a TD to Randall Cobb in the 3rd quarter and broke Tom Brady's streak of consecutive passes without an interception. Rodgers went on to finish the game cleanly, and now the streak sits at 368 consecutive passes since his last INT. Rodgers' last pick came in week 4 when the Packers shut out the Bills. I'd like to think he threw a sympathy pick for Josh Allen, just to help the rookie feel like he belongs. Most importantly, the Packers got a win with their new interim coach, Joe Philbin - who to me is the boring version of Hue Jackson. The Packers ran the ball a whole 25 times on Sunday, which were the most since they beat Miami. What a coincidence, that's the last time they won a game too.

210 Receiving Yards

George Kittle had 210 receiving yards and a TD on Sunday, and completed a fantasy football trifecta on Sunday. The highest scoring WR, RB and TE all beat out the highest scoring QB. Kittle's day could have been much better, considering he was only targeted once in the second half. The 49ers were leading, and did win, but not without sweating a little. Kittle was also only 5 yards away from breaking the record for TE receiving yards in a game - a record held by Shannon Sharpe of the Broncos - Kittle's opponent that very day! It would have been a great time, but still, Kittle probably led a lot of fantasy teams to victory with the third highest point total of the week, a cool 27.00. Also in this game, rookie Bradley Chubb got his 12th sack of the year, which breaks his teammate Von Miller's team record of 11.5, set back in 2011. Of course, Miller is probably fine with it - he still has more than Chubb this year with 13.5.

101 Rush Yards

Since returning from injury, Josh Allen has been unleashed as a rushing QB, and the results are amazing. In the last 3 weeks, Josh Allen has 335 rushing yards, and he would have 3 consecutive 100-yard games if he didn't take a knee at the end of the game week 12, when he finished with 99 yards. This is just one yard less than Lamar Jackson's total across four games since he took over as starter. Allen is averaging 10.8 yards per carry during this stretch and is has 25.8 fantasy points per game over the last three weeks. Both Jackson and Allen are showing tremendous production as soon as they get dropped into their offenses' starting role. Being a rushing QB just provides a great instant advantage and jolt to your team. It's a shame that there's no great rushing QBs out there that a team once in the playoff hunt could have turned to once they had not one, but two QBs break their leg. Total shame. One with a much better TD:INT ratio than Mark Sanchez would be real nice.

582 Total Passing TDs

I would be remiss if I didn't give props to Tom Brady, who broke Peyton Manning's combined regular season & playoff passing TD mark on Sunday. Brady now has 582 total TDs, 511 regular season, 71 playoffs. By comparison, Manning has 539 & 40 - I'm sure that Tom is fine with having made up the difference during the playoffs. Brady did have to break the record on a bittersweet day, one where the end of both the first and second half went quite wrong for the Patriots. At the end of the first half, Brady took a sack with no timeouts left, thus blowing his team's chance for a FG as time expired. That's an uncharacteristic mistake, but at least Brady doesn't get blame for the second half. Kenyan Drake wound up scoring on a 69 yard double lateral play. That's the longest play to end an NFL game in the Super Bowl era and definitely swung some fantasy games and wrecked some parlays. Brady now has 10 losses in Miami, and it's probably the only place where he actually has a losing record.

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 standard Yahoo scoring, unless otherwise noted.

5 Players over 30 Fantasy Points

Week 3 saw the return of big fantasy totals, with Russell Wilson leading the way at over 41 points. Unfortunately for Wilson, it was in a losing effort as most of the 4^th quarter was basically garbage time for the Seahawks, who were trounced by the Brees-less Saints. We also saw newcomer Daniel Jones put up numbers we’ve never seen from a rookie before, throwing for over 300 yards and scoring 2 TDs through the air and another 2 on the ground. The big scoring numbers went deep, with the top 10 players all scoring at least 25 points, and the top 24 players all hitting at least the 20-point mark. This likely translated into fantasy success for lots of people, as the position players in the top 24 were all owned in at least 75% of Yahoo leagues.

4-4 Record

Rookie and Backup QBs were the big story this week, with 25% of NFL teams now having turned to either a rookie or a backup this season. Six of these guys were starting for the first time this week, and we saw Daniel Jones, Teddy Bridgewater and Kyle Allen lead their teams to victories in games where they were not expected to do much of the heavy lifting. Jones and Allen were responsible for 4 TDs each, while Bridgewater played an admirable game manager. Elsewhere in the rookie watch this week, Kyler Murray did what he could, but was sacked 8 times and his first victory still eludes him. Next up is a home game against division rival Seattle – a softer target that you might have thought in the preseason. Finally, we’ve got our number 1 boy, Gardner Minshew II. Minshew led the Jaguars to victory in the annual Thursday night Crap Bowl sponsored by NFL network versus the Tennessee Titans. Minshew is playing so well that whispers of what to do with Nick Foles when he comes back have turned into full on serious conversations.

0.79 Points Per Target

49ers tight end George Kittle was part of the preseason “big 3” at his position, but he’s fallen quite short of that mark so far. In 3 games, he hasn’t topped more than 5.7 points, but is remarkably consistent, with 5.4 points in the other 2 games. His targets are there, he has 21 on the season, but he’s just not doing anything with them. This is very disappointing when you consider that only Travis Kelce (1.38 PPT) has made it into the top 10 from the preseason top 3. This means that lots of guys who you could have taken very late are doing quite well at the position. Leading the way at TE is Evan Engram, a high-volume guy who will probably maintain that role with his shiny new QB, leads all TEs in scoring with 39.70 points. The most efficient so far? That’d be Mark Andrews, who has a very nice 1.48 points per target, despite his very disappointing week 3 performance.

0.20 Fantasy Points

The once great John Ross has returned back to irrelevance, at least for one week. Going in to week 2, Ross led all WRs in fantasy points, but his 2 catches for 22 yards and a fumble have dropped him down to 7^th overall at the position. He’s just behind DJ Chark, who is only owned in 41% of Yahoo leagues and will likely be this week’s hot WR pickup on the waiver wire. Chark has scored a TD in each of his first 3 games and is a clear favorite target of Gardner Minshew II. Elsewhere at WR, Davante Adams is having a very slow start to a season, which is surprising since the Packers are 3-0. Adams is averaging just 6.6 points per game and hasn’t found the end zone yet. Adams is lagging behind his usual pace of receptions and touchdowns since his 2016 breakout season, but his yards per game isn’t that terrible and his catch rate is as high as it’s ever been. Perhaps it’s just positive game script that’s keeping Adams from putting up big numbers. The Packers haven’t been challenged too much by their opponent’s offenses so far, so that’s translated into a quiet air attack so far this season. The Packers are 27^th in pass attempts and passing yardage, which is bound to improve as the season goes on, so don’t fret, Rodgers and Adams owners.

0 Offensive TDs Allowed

The Patriots D/ST keeps putting up great performances, and it’s because their real-life defense has been stellar. Through 3 games, they have only allowed 3 points to opposing offenses, a field goal early in week 1. The D/ST has double digit points in each game so far this season, and a schedule with the Redskins, Giants, Jets and Browns coming up after this week’s meeting in Buffalo show that they have a decent shot at keeping this streak alive. In Week 3, the team did give up a pick-six and fumbled a punt in the end zone, both resulting in TDs for the Jets D/ST, who led the way with 16 points this week. The Jets have a bye coming up, so they are not useful just yet, but they have 3 TDs on the season and are tied for third in total points among all D/STs.

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.

0 Wins at MetLife Stadium

Well, it’s 2020 and for football fans in the vicinity of New York City, there’s still no victories to speak of. In fact, the last team to win a home game at Metlife stadium is….the New York Guardians of the currently defunct XFL league – though that may return in 2022. If the Giants and Jets can’t get their shit together, it might be the Guardians who manage the next home victory at MetLife Stadium. As predicted, between the Jets and Giants, Frank Gore leads the way in rushing yards with a whopping 174 over 4 games. The only other rushers over 100 yards on the season are both of the team’s starting QBs. Combined, the teams only have 5 passing and 3 rushing TDs. That’s an average of one offensive TD, per team, per game. Sam Darnold and Daniel Jones have combined for 9 INTs, so that’s slightly more than one per game. It’s going to be a rough 2020 in NYC.

28+ Points in the First Half

The Cleveland Browns achieved something yesterday in Dallas that they haven’t done since 1991. They scored at least 28 points in the first half. Now, this isn’t a minor achievement to make fun of, but it is fun to point out that only 4 of the Browns who played in the game are 30 or older and were alive to see the last time they reached that milestone. This year’s Browns, however, seem to be a force to be reckoned with. After getting trounced in Week 1 by the Ravens, they have averaged 39 points per game, albeit against some weaker competition. But hey, you can only play the team that is on the opposite sideline. This year, the Browns are getting the job done on the ground. They lead the league in rushing yards and yards per attempt and have the 2^nd most rushing attempts in the league. The Browns are averaging over 200 rushing yards per game and are also 2^nd in the league with 8 rushing scores. Nick Chubb heading to the IR will hurt them, but in true next man up mentality, D’Ernest Johnson managed 95 yards on only 13 carries Sunday.

1,690 Passing Yards

Dak Prescott, mostly by necessity of his team allowing 146 points through 4 games, has aired the ball out like nobody ever before. His 1,690 passing yards through 4 games is the most in NFL history, and he’s also the first player to throw for 450+ yards in three straight games. Sunday’s performance brings him ahead of Russell Wilson as the #1 fantasy player this season. His 31.3 point per game average and ADP of 48 means that he’s likely on a lot of teams that are doing quite well this season. I will freely admit that I thought he was overhyped going into the season, but I was definitely wrong. He has to throw the ball to someone, and he has gotten 3 of his WRs in the top 30 for fantasy points on the season. If you just go by yardage, those three guys, Amari Cooper, CeeDee Lamb, and Michael Gallup are all in the top 18.

183 Receiving Yards

Your Week 4 receiving yards leader through Sunday is not a wide receiver, though he sometimes pretends to be one. George Kittle caught all 15 of his targets for 183 yards, a TD, and even tacked on an 8-yard rush for good measure. The 49ers are stumbling without solid QB play and couldn’t manage very much against the previously winless Philadelphia Eagles. Elsewhere in the strange receiving fantasy stats, 5 players caught 2 TDs each and none of them went over 100 receiving yards. Only Odell Beckham Jr managed to go over 100 yards from scrimmage, courtesy of his third TD, a 50-yard run on a 4^th quarter end-around. Meanwhile, only 4 players topped the 100 rushing yard mark, and 3 of them found the end zone twice. Way to let the rest of the group down, Ronald Jones.

18 Fantasy Points

Finally, we have a look at the D/ST spot for the first time this year. This was a bad week for them, as only 2 teams cracked double digits. The Eagles scored a TD and only gave up 20 points on their way to an impressive 18-point performance. Meanwhile, the Browns – currently a turnover machine with 10 on the season, could only manage 5 points from 3 turnovers and 3 sacks against the Cowboys. The early season leaders at the D/ST position are the Colts (52), Ravens (43), and Buccaneers (37). All still have the ability to just be a crapshoot on a weekly basis. The Colts are in their position courtesy of last week’s 26-point performance, the Bucs put up a 0 in week 1 and the Ravens have only 2 INTs and 9 sacks on the season. Coming up they play Cincy and Philly, so that’s a couple of good matchups to ride with until they hit their bye in Week 7.