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.

14 Fantasy Points in 12 Minutes

Thursday night, we were treated to another marvelous fantasy performance from the New England Patriots D/ST. They put up a total of 28 points, good for the 7^th highest fantasy score on a week with some gigantic point totals.  The Patriots accounted for 15 of their points in just the 4^th quarter alone, starting it off with a sack of Matt Ryan on the first play of the quarter. They followed that up with 4 interceptions of three different passers, one of them being returned for a touchdown. They are now averaging 16.8 points per game over the last 5 weeks and are the top D/ST on the season, beating out the Buffalo Bills D/ST by 17 points. The Bills, the previous leaders in the position, did themselves no favors last week with a shocking -4-point performance, the worst score that can be put up by a D/ST.

1.48 Points Per Touch

Jonathan Taylor had a massive 35 total touches in his incredible game this weekend. Taylor had a career high 32 rushing attempts, scored 5 TDs (his previous career high was 2), and had 204 yards from scrimmage. His career high there is 254, so he has some work to do on that front, I suppose. Taylor scored 51.9 points on the day and managed to average 1.48 points per touch – anything north of 1 point per touch is generally considered very good from an RB. Taylor is now up to 1.10 points per touch on the season, which is incredible for a workhorse back who has 225 touches on the season now. Not to be outdone in efficiency, Austin Ekeler had a massive 2.26 points per touch on Sunday night. Ekeler might not have found the end zone 5 times, but 4 wasn’t bad, on his way to 38.5 total fantasy points and a distant second place finish for total fantasy points on the week. Ekeler is the first player in 10 years to have 2 rushing and 2 receiving TDs in the same game. The last time it happened was Maurice Jones-Drew on December 11, 2011.

253.04 Fantasy Points

The number one player in all of fantasy player this season is now Jalen Hurts, just as we all suspected. Hurts has managed this with a 61.6% completion rate, good for 34^th among qualifying QBs, and a 90.4 QB rating, good for 26^th among qualifying QBs. Hurts is making a mockery of what we once considered to be a good QB in the league, but it’s hard to argue with his 618 rushing yards (9^th among all players) and 8 touchdowns on the ground (5^th among all players). He does have a TD to INT ratio of 13:5 which, admittedly, is not atrocious, but is certainly nothing to brag about either. If Hurts only ran the ball, he would be the RB23 on the season, but when you add in his passing stats and consider the fact that there are no particularly dominant QBs this season among the traditional talents, you get the top play in all of fantasy football. Hurts was drafted as the QB12 this year, 95^th overall on average. With a big game tonight, at least 31.14 points, Tom Brady could restore some order to all of this chaos. But then again, it’s not like me to root for Brady, so let chaos reign!

23 Fantasy Points Per Game

The RB3 on the season is still Derrick Henry, with 184.3 fantasy points in just 8 weeks, he was averaging 23 points per game when he was put on the IR. That’s still the best non-QB average points per game this season. There are only 5 QBs who have a better per-game average, by the way. Henry was on a pace to have a career year, and he still is likely to finish in the top 20 of total scrimmage yards by RBs this year, and probably will be a top-10 finisher among RBs with 11 total touchdowns. I don’t normally write these blurbs about players who are done for the season (the fantasy season, anyways), but last week we were missing 6 of the top 20 scoring RBs who were out with either injuries or bye weeks, so I thought it was appropriate to make one more toast to King Henry the Titan.

4.64 Yards Per Catch

Rondale Moore has the distinction this week of leading the league in receptions with 11. No other player had more than 9 catches, so congrats to the man who had 11 catches….and 10.6 total points in half PPR. 51 yards is all he could manage on 11 catches. Moore had 2 catches netting him negative yards. His longest catch on the day was 11 yards. Moore sits as the WR27 on the week, a feat that is absurdly hard to do when you have 11 receptions. At least he was a perfect 11 for 11 on the day, catching every single one of his targets, even if maybe he should have just gone ahead and dropped his -5-yard reception. There were 8 wide receivers who had fewer yards than he did, but still managed to score more points. All of those players found the end zone. This game rivals the stat line that Cole Beasley put up in week 9, 8 receptions for 33 yards totaling 7.3 points.

Normally, being just a week away from the last week of the season, playoff positions are solidified and we need to take into account that teams may be benching star players.

Not this year though! While some teams have clinched a berth, it seems that every playoff seed is still up for grabs and this is just another week!

Week 17 – HERE WE GO!!!!

(HOME TEAM IN CAPS)

16 – SAN FRANCISCO over Houston – Playing the Texans defense should take Trey Lance back to is Division 1-AA comfort zone.

15 – NEW ENGLAND over Jacksonville – This was the AFC Championship game just a couple years ago…just think about that for a sec.

14 – Tampa Bay over NEW YORK JETS – There’s nothing to say about this one, you know what it will be.

13 – BUFFALO over Atlanta – A home game against the Falcons is a nice reward for the Bills after a solid win last week.

12 – INDIANAPOLIS over Las Vegas – The Raiders would have a chance in this one if it were played in the first half of the season.

11 – LOS ANGELES CHARGERS over Denver – An AFC West divisional matchup isn’t really that exciting now the Chiefs have gone back to to their division dominating ways.

10 – GREEN BAY over Minnesota – Kirk Cousins was steadfast in his opinion to stay unvaccinated…and now it’s going to cost his team.

9 – DALLAS over Arizona – Injuries haven’t helped, but it almost seems that the Cardinals just aren’t ready to be legit contenders.

8 – Los Angeles Rams over BALTIMORE – This is just going to be a “what if” season for Baltimore.

7 – PITTSBURGH over Cleveland – In what will probably be Big Ben’s last home game in Pittsburgh, my BOLD PREDICTION for this week is that BEN ROETHLISBERGER WILL THROW FOR OVER 400 YARDS.

6 – CHICAGO over New York Giants – The Giants only viable option is Saquon Barkley and it seems like coming back to the scene of his torn ACL is on his mind too much.

5 – TENNESSEE over Miami – Yes, the Dolphins have won seven straight, but I can’t see them making it to eight straight.

4 – CINCINNATI over Kansas City – Call it a hunch but I can see the Bengals pulling this one out and gaining momentum for what could be a late January rematch.

3 – SEATTLE over Detroit – There is a reason this game is quietly tucked away in the farthest corner of the league.

2 – WASHINGTON over Philadelphia – Do yourself a favor – instead of watching this one, honor John Madden by watch an early 90’s Eagles/’Skins game with Madden on the call.

1 – Carolina over NEW ORLEANS – Looking at this Saints offense, I don’t think “enjoying retirement” is the only reason Drew Brees won’t come back.