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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.

45 Years Old

Tom Brady became the oldest player to start a game at 45 years hold. While this is not necessarily a fantasy stat, it’s appreciated by someone who feels themselves getting older all the time. There were also zero rookie QBs starting this week. Finally, it’s time for middle-aged men to shine.

10 Players Scoring 2-TDs Each

Through Sunday, there are 10 players who scored 2 TDs each, and in an interesting quirk, half of those players are free agents in the drinkfive fantasy league. Those players – Jamaal Williams, Dontrell Hilliard, Devin Duvernay, Jahan Dotson, and O.J. Howard – are free agents, owned in just an average of 29% of Fleaflicker leagues. Week 1 is always a fun time to revisit your entire draft and blow your team up with the waiver wire, so put your claims in now!

34.9 Fantasy Points

The high-water mark for Week 1 is 34.9 fantasy points – achieved by two players who are common subjects in this space. Patrick Mahomes threw for 360 yards and 5 TDs. Mahomes now has 18 touchdowns in 5 opening days, a low QB rating of 123.3 on opening day, has not thrown a pick, and is 5-0.  Justin Jefferson also put up 34.9 fantasy points, having 9 receptions and 11 targets (on 9/11) and was one of the players who are owned in our league who had 2 TDs. His 184 receiving yards are a career high and his 15^th 100-yard game in his 34-game career.

8 D/STs with 10+ Points

Week 1 saw a lot of fantasy value coming from the defense/special teams slot. The Pittsburgh Steelers led the way with an astonishing 26 points. It helped a bit that they had a sack/fumble in bonus time to pad their numbers a bit. This performance was very impressive considering it came against the AFC Champion Bengals and Burrow had 2 more turnovers than he ever had in his career before. In an interesting tidbit, Burrow had the most rushing yards of his career in a single game. The Steelers are only owned in 51% of Fleaflicker leagues and play against New England next week, the offensive team that surrendered the second most points to their opposing D/ST in week 1.

5 WRs on New Teams with 14+ Points

Sometimes, a change of scenery works wonders. 5 Players on new teams – Tyreek Hill, Christian Kirk, Jarvis Landry, A.J. Brown, and Davante Adams – all scored at least 14 fantasy points for their new teams. Both Brown and Adams put up monster games over 20 points, picking right up where they left off with new QBs. A.J. Brown had the most receiving yards for any Eagles player in their debut game. In a case of good old home cookin’, Michael Thomas played his first game for New Orleans in 21 months, and had his best performance since December 2019. Thomas scored 2 touchdowns on his way to 20.2 fantasy points, good for WR7 on the week.

Jason’s analysis:

Trevor Lawrence (QB, JAC) Wk 4 @ PHI - Lawrence is busting out in his second season - right when you want to see a QB take the next step. Lawrence has increased his fantasy output every week so far this year, with 14.4, 18.5 and then 25.18 points. His team has scored more points every week, he’s had more completions every week, and he’s increased his passing TDs every week. 

His ADP was somewhere around QB19 and he’s the QB10 on the season. Coming off a big win on the road, Lawrence must have tons of confidence with a new coach and a 2-1 team. I think this is the beginning of Lawrence’s breakout season. The Jags have outscored their opponents 62-10 over the last two weeks, and I expect Lawrence to be a low end QB1 - a definite starter in 2 QB leagues.

Dameon Pierce (RB, HOU) Wk 4 vs LAC - As a rookie, Pierce was always going to be eased into the regular rotation on the Texans offense. It seems like perhaps that process has been accelerated. He’s increased his carries each week, increased his overall yardage, and most importantly, gone from about 30% of offensive snaps in week 1 to 60% in weeks 2 and 3. He’s scored 4.4, 8.2, and 17.10 points. He’s also increased his receiving yards each week, though those are pretty minor overall. 

I think Pierce will continue to play well, though for a rookie RB, it will not be as consistent as someone like Lawrence. This week is a good matchup, though. Pierce will face the Chargers defense who have given up the 5th most points to opposing RBs, surrendering a TD every week so far. Pierce already has 65% of his team’s rushing attempts, so it looks like he is in line to be somewhere between a featured back and a bell cow back. Side note on this game, the Texans have the worst rushing D in the league through 3 games.

Brandin Cooks (WR, HOU) Wk 4 vs LAC - Cooks has had a very quiet start to the season, and was certainly expected to do better as last year’s WR20 finisher. He had 3 great games when he started in the last 4 weeks of the 2021 fantasy season. This year, he has 22.3 points over his first 3 games (11.7, 7.4, 3.2). Cooks is being held back by Davis Mills being an OK QB at best. Perhaps he can start to break out a bit if the running game in Houston can get going, as mentioned earlier. 

Cooks is the focus of all opposing defenses for now, and he needs someone else to take at least a bit of their attention. Each week Cooks has gone down in both targets, receptions, and yards - as well as going down in catch %, pointing to the fact that he’s being covered even more. It’s not like he forgot how to catch the ball. This week is a good place for that to start, with the Chargers giving up the 6th most fantasy points to opposing players. I think that Cooks is worth sticking with for this week at least, but the Texans offense is far from a juggernaut. Cooks won’t be a drop, but he may be tough to be an every week start going forward. You may just focus on good matchups unless the Texans offense can start overachieving.

Dave’s analysis:

Russell Wilson (QB, DEN) @LV - Wilson finished the 2021 season as the 16th best fantasy QB, but a lot of us still seem to remember him as the guy that finished as QB5 back-to-back in 2019 and 2020. What happened to him? 

Trending down so far since week 1, Wilson scored 17.8 points against his former Seahawks, 12.06 vs. Houston, and then 9.06 just last week against the 49ers. The Broncos ended up punting 10 times on Sunday, and had a total of 8 3-and-outs. He seems unable to find his footing and put up a decent effort scrambling, which used to be his forte, and the Broncos only have 2 passing TDs in their 3 games so far this season. Enough trash talk? Maybe.

Broncos’ rookie head coach Nathaniel Hackett has certainly not done himself any favors so far, attempting a 64-yard field goal instead of going for it on fourth-and-5 in their loss against the Seahawks in week 1. But this team needs to help Wilson by providing better targets (Sutton seems to be the only consistent receiver with Jeudy banged up and hyped tight end Albert Okwuegbunam (say that 3 times fast) only recording 45 receiving yards so far). Hackett needs to lead with an offense more grounded in rushing like Wilson was successful with in Seattle to give him more time for downfield attempts and prevent the defense from concentrating on taking away Jeudy and Sutton.

The Broncos do have the pieces there for a team that can make a run at it, but I think that without focusing on the run game with Javonte Williams and Melvin Gordon first and foremost, and finding another working piece for the passing game (KJ Hamler is not working out and we’re seeing Okwuegbunam trend negatively to start the season as mentioned earlier), it will continue to be a dream just beyond the horizon. Unfortunately, the smart move is to move away from Russell Wilson and any other pieces of this offense besides Javonte Williams and Courtland Sutton. He’ll continue to underperform, though it’s not completely his fault.

Clyde Edwards-Helaire (RB, KC) @TB - CEH started the season on fire with 2 receiving TDs in the first match against Arizona, and there were a lot of high-fives out there from those that selected him at his RB27 ADP in this year’s draft. We really weren’t sure how he might be utilized by this new Chiefs offense that underwent such radical change by shaking up the WRs. It turns out that the Chiefs intend to do much of the same at the RB position as they did last year, turning to a committee that will get called upon to follow the script each individual matchup might dictate. 

Edwards-Helaire scored 20.9 points in week 1, 13.8 in week 2 against the Chargers, and 12.4 in week 3 vs the Colts. In each game he had similar rushing attempts (7/8/7) and has been heavily involved in the passing game since the beginning of the season (100% catch rate, targets trending up from 3, to 4, to 5 from weeks 1-3). He won’t be phased out of this offense, by any means, but there are two things working against him as we look at what future trajectory makes sense to predict: 1 - McKinnon leads the Chiefs’ backfield (comprised of Edwards-Helaire, McKinnon, and Pacheco) with a 28% snap share, and 2 - rookie Isaiah Pacheco is starting to get more attempts and build more confidence and rapport with Mahomes and Co. 

In other words, Edwards-Helaire is a huge sell candidate after putting up some decent numbers over the first few weeks, but this is mostly backfield catches and touchdown dependent point scoring. Both other RBs are vying for opportunities in this offense, and are getting early down, third down, and goal-line work, and CEH is only averaging around 12 touches per game (with 0 rushing yards coming from his 7 week 3 carries). This is a trap, and it’s great to celebrate getting some points from a mid round draft pick but owners are about to find out very quickly that this is smoke & mirrors, and the last opportunity to sell high is right now. Definitely don’t start CEH this week against a Tampa Bay squad allowing the least amount of points to opposing RBs, and expect a sour future ahead for the 3rd year RB.

Justin Jefferson (WR, MIN) @NO - Jefferson has really fallen from grace in the eyes of fantasy team managers so far this season - he has gone from scoring 34.9 points in week 1’s routing of the Packers, to 7.8 in week 2’s loss against Philadelphia, to finally scoring just 2.9 points last week versus Detroit. His receptions have fallen from 9, to 6, to 3 over that span. So why the downward trend, and what kind of insights can stats from the last few games give us about the rest of the season moving forward? 

Well, speaking plainly about the game vs. the Lions, Cousins spread the targets out evenly among Thielen, Osborn, and Jefferson, and a lot of that was because of the clever way that Jefferson was defended by the Lions’ secondary. Cornerback Jeff Okudah was in man coverage almost the whole game, but with a high safety over the top, a bracket safety leaning towards Jefferson’s side in the slot, and the opposite safety on top for most plays was also spying Jefferson to prevent any crossover plays from developing. 

Because of this, we saw Thielen and Osborn soak up a lot more targets than they have been this year (8 each, season highs for both), as the Vikings were forced to spread out the ball to secure a win. They did just narrowly defeat the Lions, but we will certainly see similar schemes from other secondaries, focusing on Jefferson down the stretch. The Eagles also double-teamed Jefferson, and he was limited in his success in week 2, though not by as much. Head coach Kevin O’Connell has repeatedly made clear that they will continue to change their scheme and “[give] Justin different aspects of lining up in different spots, different personnel groupings, whatever I need to do to help him”.

Things will improve for him, though,  and the Vikings were able to create a good showcase in week 3 of why teams should not concentrate their whole secondary on stopping Jefferson. There are other playmakers on this squad and ignoring them can still result in a loss. I predict that Jefferson will reverse this trend, and his fantasy points should creep back up toward last year’s 16.3 points per game average - but with the enhanced coverage he has been seeing may end the season with a finish a few spots lower than last year’s WR4 overall. 

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.

33.70 Fantasy Points

This week’s best performance by a WR/RB/TE came from a very unexpected place. Evan Engram had a monster game, putting up 33.70 points in the best game of his career by a long shot. He caught 11 passes on 15 targets for 162 yards and found the end zone twice. That’s a career-high for targets, yardage, touchdowns, and tied his high in receptions. He increased his season total in yardage by 42%. He scored more than 31% of his fantasy points this season this week. It took him the first 6 weeks of the season to get to 33.7 points. He has jumped all the way up to TE4 for the year – he was the TE15 going into the week. He’s increased his weekly average by 2.2 points. He scored more than the TE1 and TE2 combined last week. He scored more than the TE2 and TE3 combined this week.

4 Touchdown Passes

Russell Wilson threw 4 touchdown passes on Sunday, though one of them was to the wrong team. It took Russ 4 games to throw his 4 first TDs of the season. Over his next 7 games, he only threw 4 more. Then on Sunday, he managed to throw another 4 – with three of them going to his own team! It’s only the second time all season that he’s thrown for more than one touchdown. He improved from QB22 to QB19 – almost worth starting in a superflex league. He’s averaging more than a point per game less than Marcus Mariota. Russ finally got to cook in Kansas City, but he provided his opponents a little too much of their own home cookin’ to be able to try and avoid his 5^th L in a row.

223 Receiving Yards       

Marking a new career high, Justin Jefferson caught 11 passes for 223 yards. He did not make it to the end zone but still was the WR2 on the week with 27.8 points. He’s less than 2 points behind the unexpected 3 TD performance of Jerry Jeudy. But back to Jefferson – it’s the 6^th time he’s had 139 or more receiving yards. He’s at an even 1,500 yards for the season, and with 4 games left, he has a real shot at passing 2,000 yards receiving, which would be a first for any NFL receiver. I suppose it helps when your QB throws the ball 41 times in a game – the 5^th time Kirk Cousins has done that this year. Amazingly, Cousins is only 4^th for attempts this season – Tom Brady leads the way with 89 more attempts than Kirk!

99 Rushing Yards

So close to that mostly meaningless mark of 100 yards – unless you’re in a league with bonuses. In which case, I offer my condolences to those with Josh Jacobs on their team, but not really. Honorable mention goes to those with Joe Mixon on their team, 96 yards. Jacobs finds himself as the RB1 on the season, a spot he’s held the last couple of weeks. He has 1,402 rushing yards, which is 203 more than the second-place RB, Derrick Henry. He has 1,748 yards from scrimmage, which is 224 more than the aforementioned Justin Jefferson. Jacobs is averaging just over 134 yards from scrimmage per game. He has 11 touchdowns on the season, but if he had zero, his yardage and receptions would make him the RB7.

3 D/ST Teams with Negative Points

The Tennessee Titans became the 6^th team this season to post the absolute failure of a fantasy stat line. -4 points from your D/ST. That means that they gave up 35+ points to the opposing team, while not forcing a single turnover or sack or really blocking anything or doing a single thing of note all game long. Joining them in their failure are the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Minnesota Vikings. All three teams gave up at least 34 points and over 400 yards of offense. It’s the third time this year that the Titans have finished with negative points. I don’t understand what the people who roster this team were thinking, going against the upsurging Jaguars – 45% of leagues in Fleaflicker have the Titans rostered. And while, yes, I’m responsible for the Titans being on a roster in two of those leagues, I must defend myself by pointing out that in two other leagues, I have the Buccaneers.