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.

40+ Points in 2 Weeks

For the first time in his career, and perhaps the first time in history, Lamar Jackson has put up two straight 40+ point fantasy games. Through his remarkable career, he had tons of big games, but never reached the 40-point mark until week 5 of 2021. Now after week 3 in 2022, he has two more of those games on record. During those two games, he has 536 pass yards, 7 pass TD to only one INT, 226 rushing yards and two more TDs on the ground. In both games, he passed 100 rush yards, the 12^th of his career. One remarkable quirk of this stat is that Jackson wasn’t even the only 40-point scoring QB during this time – he was joined by his opponent in week 2, Tua Tagovailoa, who had 40.86 points of his own.

14% Average Ownership Rate

Two of the top 5 WRs this week basically came out of nowhere. Mack Hollins (5% in Fleaflicker) and Zay Jones (23% in Fleaflicker) are not owned in many leagues, and were started in even less. They combine for an average of just 14% ownership in Fleaflicker leagues, and also just barely combined to top Lamar with 45.46 points. Hollins was the WR2 on the week with 25.96 points, putting up 8 catches on 10 targets with 158 yards and 1 TD – he even added 4 passing yards for a cherry on top. In the drinkfive.com league, 9 of the top 20 WRs were free agents when their games started on Sunday, so it’s clearly time for us to start working the waiver wires. Pitter-patter.

16 Points on DST

Three separate teams scored exactly 16 points on their D/ST in week 3. The Panthers, Bengals, and Broncos all found different ways to lead the week with 16 points. Both the Bengals (27%) and Panthers (2%) had incredibly low ownership rates. Only the Panthers were aided by a touchdown on their way to the top spot of the week. Both the Bengals and Broncos recovered 2 fumbles and had 4 sacks. All 3 teams won their game. Special credit goes to the Broncos for doing it with the most style, getting the safety, though it was basically an unforced error by Jimmy Garoppolo. Honorable mention goes to the Eagles, who were juuust short of the party with 15 points. Turns out 9 sacks just wasn’t enough.

49 More Offensive Snaps

The Bills offense was on the field for more than 2/3rds of the game on Sunday, and moved the ball at will on the Dolphins. But the Dolphins ended the week in first place with a shiny, 3-0 record while handing the Bills their first loss. The Bills ran 92 offensive snaps, to the Dolphins’ measly 43 snaps, more than doubling them up in both offensive snaps and time of possession. The Bills also out-gained them 497-212, and couldn’t win in a game where their opponent had a “butt punt” and caused a safety against themselves. Are the Dolphins suddenly incredibly relevant and winning in many different ways? That’s a Texas-sized 10-4.

0 Rush Yards, 12.4 Fantasy Points

Does a running back need rushing yards to have a good game? That’s a hard no. In what is surely the best fantasy stat of the week, Chiefs running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire rushed 7 times for zero yards. He did score on the ground, though 4 of his 7 carries went for zero or negative yardage. His 5 receptions for 39 yards are what keep his stat line from being embarrassing. On the season, CEH is the RB3 (though Saquon Barkley will probably have something to say about that on Monday night). Edwards-Helaire has 47.1 points on the season, on only 22 carries. He has 12 receptions on 12 targets, a perfect rate which has really been the difference for him.