Fantasy football strategy, rankings, and podcasts

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 Targets in Week 11

The WR3 this week, (or TE1, depending on your hosting site) had exactly zero targets in the passing game this week but put up 24.42 points. In surely the most controversial issue of the fantasy season, Taysom Hill started at QB this week for the Saints, while retaining WR or TE eligibility on most fantasy platforms. This was surely a triumph of the well prepared because Hill found the end zone twice on the ground and also threw for 223 yards, more than doubling his career passing yards total. He still sits at zero passing TDs, but has 13 career rushing & receiving TDs, already halfway to Drew Brees’s career total. The fantasy football story from this game that has been buried is that Michael Thomas finally had a good game. He broke out for 9 receptions and 104 yards, more than he had combined in his previous three starts in 2020. Going into next week’s much tougher matchup against Denver, it’s anyone’s guess how Taysom Hill will perform, or even what positions he will be eligible to start in. One thing I think we might be able to speculate with some confidence is that Michael Thomas has resumed duties as the WR1 on the New Orleans Saints.

25 Fantasy Points Per Game

With 9 starts now under his belt, Chargers rookie QB Justin Herbert is averaging 25 points per game, which is good for 5^th among all QBs in the league. This week he put up his second-highest total of the year, 27.74 points, on the strength of his highest passing yards total of 366 and 3 touchdowns in an easy victory of the Jets. Herbert is now 7^th in overall points at the QB position and 5^th in points per game, which is a remarkable feat considering he was only inserted as an emergency starter in Week 2, with no apparent plans to make him a starter that early in the season. Now that Joe Burrow is done for the year and we saw Tua Tagovailoa benched against Denver in the 4^th quarter, I think it’s safe that say that Justin Herbert has the Offensive Rookie of the Year award all but wrapped up with 6 games still remaining in the season.

16 Receptions

Keenan Allen caught 16 passes on Sunday, a franchise record for the Chargers, in a game that they had to have to avoid supreme embarrassment. Let’s face it, anyone who loses to the Jets this year will be the laughing stock of the week, so the Chargers did dodge that bullet in a game where they were up 24-6 at one point. That’s very on point for the Chargers this year. But I digress, let’s go back to Keenan Allen. He’s now leading the league with 81 receptions after 10 games. A bit off of Michael Thomas’s record-setting pace last year, but still on pace for 130 on the season and by far the most he’s had in a single season of his career, which was 104 last year. Allen has been a huge part of bringing Justin Herbert along as a rookie, and I don’t think that either player would be in the excellent fantasy position they are in without the other one.

3 Out of the Last 4 Weeks

Dalvin Cook has now led all running backs in fantasy points in 3 of the last 4 weeks. In Weeks 8 and 9, it was from gaudy totals of 47 and 38 points, but last week he led a rather low scoring group with 22.50 points. Cook has 14 total touchdowns on the season and has scored in all but one game this season. He also exceeded 100 yards from scrimmage for the 6^th time this season – his 4^th week in a row. Cook is now sitting all alone as the RB1 on the season, having edged out Alvin Kamara by 5 points, though Cook does have one fewer game played on the season, putting his average points per game well ahead of everyone other than Christian McCaffrey. While it’s certainly possible that Cook is passed in points by a player tonight, let’s just suppose that doesn’t happen. That means that while Cook has been on this hot 4 game tear, his team is 3-1, sweeping through the NFC North while dropping a game to the Dallas Cowboys of the embarrassing NFC East. Of course, the Cowboys did get Andy Dalton back who threw 3 touchdowns and saw Ezekiel Elliott crack 100 yards for the first time all season.

22.86 Fantasy Points

Travis Kelce continued his utterly dominant season this week, catching a wide-open touchdown to seal the victory for the Chiefs late in the 4^th quarter last night. Kelce now has 162.76 points on the season, which would make him the WR3 on the season if he played that position. Of course, instead, he’s the TE1, but since the numbers line up so well with Taysom Hill, why not just play with positional eligibly a little bit. Kelce has now finished as the top TE of the week 4 times on the season, and 3 of the last 4 weeks, just like Dalvin Cook. Kelce has the 3^rd most receiving yards in the league and leads all tight ends in every statistical category. Kelce is on a pace to have the second-most fantasy points in a season by a TE in NFL history, right on pace with Jimmy Graham’s 2013 season. He’s still got some work to do if he wants to match Rob Gronkowski’s 2011 season, however.