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 standard Yahoo scoring, unless otherwise noted.

16 Point Fantasy Floor

This season, only 3 players in the NFL have a solid fantasy floor. The always reliable Patrick Mahomes, even when his team scores a scant 13 points, has not scored less than 18 fantasy points all season. The other two guys are a bit more surprising. Kyler Murray and Gardner Minshew II. Murray notched his first win on Sunday against the hapless Bengals. He had his best day statistically as a fantasy QB, not turning the ball over and gaining 93 yards on the ground to go with a TD. Murray ended the day as the QB6 to Minshew’s QB8. Both guys are rookies, one was the first overall draft pick and the other is clearly a future hall-of-famer and worthy successor to Blake Bortles in the eyes of Jason from The Good Place. Minshew had a tough matchup against fellow rookie phenom Kyle Allen on Sunday. Unfortunately for Minshew, he doesn’t have Christian McCaffrey on his team. Speaking of the guy leading ALL fantasy players and the MVP race at the moment…

866 Yards from Scrimmage

Christian McCaffrey had himself a game on Sunday. His 237 yards from scrimmage and 3 TDs were actually only good for the 3^rd best point total on a day with huuuuge points, but more on them later. McCaffrey is now on pace for 2770 yards from scrimmage this season, smashing the record of 2509 set by Chris Johnson in 2009. So far, McCaffrey leads the league in rushing yards and, second in receiving yards among RBs. He is the top point scorer in all of fantasy football, with 128.60 points, just nudging out QBs Lamar Jackson and Russell Wilson. Next up, the Buccaneers, the only team that has managed to hold McCaffrey to under 23.9 points this season. I expect him to have a much better performance this time around.

6 Players Above 30 Fantasy Points

This week was all about big performances. The early games, and there were a lot of them (10!), had the Texans hanging 53 points on Atlanta. Along the way, Deshaun Watson threw 5 TDs and notched 41.74 fantasy points, a season high at the position. Three of those scores were via the hands of Will Fuller V, who had his own monster day of 217 yards and 3 TDs for 39.70 points. This was more than double his season points total so far, having not exceeded 6.9 points in a game all year. Falcons QB Matt Ryan continued his excellent, but quiet year. His 32.9 points on Sunday was excellent for fantasy players, but a terrible losing effort for his team. Ryan also gets an honorable mention in regards to my earlier stat about QB floors – his lowest game this year is 15.68. Michael Thomas put up a ho-hum 30+ point game, showing that he’s good no matter who’s throwing him the ball. I already mentioned Christian McCaffrey, who was sitting on top of the RB list this week until Aaron Jones had something to say about it. Jones basically beat the Cowboys all by himself. Putting up a whopping 42.2 points, he had 182 yards from scrimmage and 4 TDs on the ground. Aaron Rodgers owners may not be thrilled, but clearly, we all see who the real A-a-ron is in Green Bay right now.

35 Fantasy Points

But wait, there was one more entry to the 30 points and over club! A D/ST had a huge day and surprisingly it wasn’t the odds-on favorite New England Patriots against the hapless Washington Redskins. The Philadelphia Eagles just dismantled the New York Jets, limiting them to only 9 first downs, putting up 10 sacks and scoring TDs on both an interception and a fumble recovery. They added another interception just for fun and because, apparently, it’s easy to pick on Luke Falk. The Jets need Sam Darnold back as soon as possible. Maybe Darnold can get tips from Jason Witten on how to rehab one’s spleen. I don’t really see this performance as indicative of the Eagles getting better, but rather it just shows how bad the Jets are. The Eagles play Minnesota, Dallas and Buffalo coming up, and I see no advantage to keeping them around this week. Continue streaming, friends!

3 of the Top 10

Finally, a bit about kickers in fantasy football. Only 3 of the top 10 performers in Week 5 were owned in our drinkfive fantasy league. Those three kickers are owned in at least 78% of Yahoo leagues. The remaining 7 kickers have an average ownership of just about 19%, showing that nobody knows what the hell a kicker is going to do week to week, mostly because it’s not up to them! This is just my latest entry to my argument that kickers probably don’t need to have anything to do with fantasy football. Any Sunday, you’ve got an equal chance, it seems, to have a guy like Dan Bailey (10% owned) put up the same amount of points as a guy like Justin Tucker (99% owned). It’s just ridiculous that 2 of the top 5 kickers on the year are owned in fewer than 25% of Yahoo leagues, Matt Gay (22%) and Zane Gonzalez (17%).

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 TE’s at the Top

Through Sunday in Week 6, the tight end spot in fantasy has been quite a slog. There’s been no dominant player at the position, though there have been a few pleasant surprises. Going into this week, there were 5 players between 49 and 51 points on the season. Unfortunately, it looks like Will Dissly, who led the pack by a very slim margin, could be done for the season with an Achilles tear. That leaves us with the newest break-out TE Austin Hooper as our leader. Hooper took advantage of a Cardinals defense that is giving up an absurd amount points to opposing TEs. Hooper has now finished as a top 3 TE in 3 of 6 weeks so far this season. Rounding out the top 5 are the always reliable Travis Kelce, Evan Engram (who missed a game, so his per-game average is still pretty good), and finally the Ravens break-out star, Mark Andrews.

78 Passing Yards

Jared Goff had a whopping 78 passing yards on Sunday, a career low for him, which roughly equates to $20,833 per yard gained through the air this week. The Rams had a particularly bad game against the still undefeated 49ers. They scored a TD on their opening drive and then did nothing for the rest of the game. The fact that they gained all their yards on the ground that first drive seems like a bad omen for the way the rest of the game went for them. It’s hard to tell where this team’s fantasy potential is headed. On one hand, this offense was a juggernaut last season and now have scored at least 27 points in 4 of 6 games this season. On the other hand, you have Jared Goff, who has thrown more picks than touchdowns in the last 4 weeks. Aside from this week, the Rams are still putting up decent fantasy points with their big players, so I wouldn’t ditch them all yet, but I would consider who I start against the 49ers going forward.

116 Passing Yards in One Drive

The Chiefs haven’t done a lot of winning the last couple weeks, but Patrick Mahomes is still doing amazing things on the field. In their first drive, thanks to several penalties, Mahomes managed the stunning mathematical trick of throwing for 116 yards in one drive. Unfortunately for the Chiefs, they only gained another 157 yards through the air the remainder of the game. They only had about 20 minutes in time of possession for the entire game, and clearly this has become the (rather obvious) method for defeating the Chiefs. Last week, they had just under 23 minutes in time of possession. Against the Texans, the Chiefs only ran the ball 11 times despite never being down more than 7 points in the game. On the other side, the Texans ran the ball 41 times to go along with 42 passing attempts. Balance, my friends, is key in all things.

27 D/ST Fantasy Points

With another 27 fantasy points this week, the New England Patriots D/ST squad has just dominated fantasy football. Their 27 points made them the 8^th highest scoring “player” in Week 6. On the season, the defense and special teams have combined for 5 TDs and have 16 turnovers in just 6 games. They’re second in the league with 25 sacks and have given up only 3 touchdowns on defense all season. Their 127 fantasy points on the season make them the 9^th highest scoring entity in fantasy football this season, behind only one non-QB, Christian McCaffrey. Compared to other D/STs, they are 52 points ahead of the second highest scoring team and have more than doubled up the 4^th highest scoring team.

36.5 Fantasy Points in Week 6

The squeaky wheel does often get the grease, though sometimes it takes a few weeks to apply it. This week, Stefon Diggs had a monster game, scoring 3 TDs and 167 yards on 7 receptions, adding 18 rushing yards on 2 carries just for fun. This more than doubles his season total in points – he had just 27.3 through 5 games going into Week 6. Since the Vikings rough defeat in Chicago Week 4, they have put up 66 points in just two games. During that time, Kirk Cousins has 2 300+ yard games to go along with 6 TDs and just one pick. It turns out that the Vikings can’t just run the ball all game, like they did early in the season. They need to pass it as well, thus giving their offense balance. Déjà vu, no?

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.

33.42 Fantasy Points

Through Sunday, your Week 10 fantasy points leader is, for the first time this season Lamar Jackson. He’s finished in the top 5 a total of 6 weeks out of his 9 games this season, though never as the actual top player. He’s having an amazing season and is clearly one of the candidates for MVP, along with Russell Wilson, who we get to see later on tonight. Jackson had his second game of the season where he threw more touchdowns (3) than incompletions (2). He had a perfect QB rating, also for the second time this season, which is only the second time anyone has done it twice in one season. He added 65 more rushing yards and 4 total touchdowns. With 702 rushing yards so far this season, he’s on pace for 1,248 yards, which will crush Mike Vick’s single season record of 1,039 yards.

0.08 Yards Per Touch

Saquon Barkley was the #1 ADP player across all the major sites back in August, but he’s wound up as one of the more disappointing first round picks, especially after yesterday’s game. On 13 carries, Barkley managed to gain only 1 yard on the ground. 9 of his 18 total touches went for zero or negative yards. He’s having a very disappointing season, though a lot of that can be attributed to his garbage pile team. The Giants lost to the lowly Jets and it marks the low point of their season (so far). Compared to last year, Barkley is averaging a full yard per carry less, one fewer catch per game, and 24 fewer rushing yards per game. He only has 3 TDs on the season compared to 15 last year and having missed 3 games, he’s on pace to finish with numbers well shy of his rookie year. At least the Giants can point to their rookie QB Daniel Jones as a bright spot, even if he’s only won a couple of games. He’s thrown at least 1 TD in every game he’s started, and 4 of them twice.

9.6 Receptions per Game

Michael Thomas is currently leading the league with 86 receptions through 9 games, on pace for 153 on the season. This would match the single season record with an entire game to go. This year, Thomas has 5 games with at least 10 catches, and in every game except for one, he has at least 8 catches. Thomas is his usual PPR machine this year, but he’s also leading the league in yards, with 1027 already. Even in a standard scoring league, Thomas is third in points on the season, with a floor this year of 8.90 points. Thomas now has 1000 yards in each of his first 4 seasons, only the 4^th player to ever start his career like that.

446 Passing Yards

On Sunday, Patrick Mahomes returned to the Chiefs lineup after missing just 2 weeks from a dislocated kneecap. His 446 passing yards were the most any QB has thrown for this season, breaking the previous high of 443 yards, also by Mahomes, in Week 2. Mahomes also had a season high 50 passing attempts, and 3 TDs to zero INT, bringing his season-long ratio to 18:1. Mahomes put up a very respectable 29.84 fantasy points, good for the 5^th overall player this week. He’s currently at 2,626 yards on the season, good for 5^th overall, really good for a guy who has played 1 or 2 fewer games than all the players ahead of him. He’s leading the league in yards per attempt, yards per completion and yards per game. Not a bad follow-up of an MVP season – he would be in the conversation if it wasn’t for lots of other guys having stellar seasons.

49 D/ST Fantasy Points

Well folks, it looks like the AFC North is once again proving to be a tough matchup for anyone who finds themselves thinking there’s easy wins to be had. The Ravens and the Steelers defenses have come alive. The Ravens managed two scores against the hapless Bengals and were the best D/ST replacement for the Patriots that I could ever have hoped for. Now I just need to find a person willing to trade for a D/ST. This is definitely a first world problem, but on to the Steelers. Their trade for Minkah Fitzpatrick seems to be the smartest trade of the entire season. Fitzpatrick has 5 interceptions, 2 TDs and 1 fumble recovery in his 7 games with the Steelers. He’s a huge upgrade to their passing defense, and is a huge reason the Steelers have given up just one double digit game to opposing WRs since Week 2. The Steelers D/ST have double digit points in every game that Fitzpatrick has played with them this year.

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.

47.6 Fantasy Points

For the second week in a row, we have a new season-high fantasy point scorer. Dalvin Cook defeated the Green Bay Packers, and he did not require a whole lot of help from the rest of his team. Cook touched the ball a whopping 32 times, had 226 yards from scrimmage, and scored 4 TDs. He led his team in both rushing and receiving on Sunday, which is impressive when you have two top WRs on your team. Of course, that’s likely to happen when you have 70% of your team’s total offense. Cook had an absurd 1.5 points per touch during the game. He was so efficient that Kirk Cousins only needed to attempt 14 passes – his second-fewest attempts in a start in his career. On the season, Dalvin Cook, the RB2, is averaging an impressive 1.14 points per touch, second only to Alvin Kamara who is the RB1 and averaging 1.16 per touch. They’re the only RBs in the top 10 who are averaging over 1 point per touch on the season.

5 of the Top 10 RBs

Using our drinkfive.com fantasy league as a metric, we see that this week, 5 of the top 10 RBs are not even rostered. It’s been an interesting week, setting aside the fact that Dalvin Cook outscored the 2^nd and 3^rd highest scoring RBs by 5.5 points. The probably-soon-to-be-rostered list contains DeeJay Dallas, Zack Moss, Jordan Wilkins, Nyheim Hines (awesome TD celebrations buddy!), and Damien Harris. On average, they are only owned in 40% of Fleaflicker leagues but definitely helped you win the week if you were bold enough to insert any of them in your lineup. It was a low scoring week, where the RB2, Giovani Bernard, only topped out at 21.3 points. In fact, our guy Dalvin Cook was only 1.5 points shy of scoring as many as the 8^th-10^th ranked RBs on the week. The waiver wire will be active with RBs this week but remember that Dallas will be replaced by returning starters, Moss is in a split backfield, and Harris is on a team that is notoriously bad at sticking with one RB. Finally, I have no clue what to make of the Indy backfield. Clearly Jonathan Taylor has angered the gods (or just Chuck Pagano) in some hideous manner.

3^rd Time as QB1 in 2020

Patrick Mahomes absolutely lit up the Jets, a minor league football team that plays its games out of New Jersey. For some reason, this game counts as an actual game in all historical statistics and for the official NFL record. Perhaps the most fun item from the game is that Le’Veon Bell, Chiefs running back, was the highest-paid Jets player on the field. He would have finished 2^nd on the team in yards from scrimmage with a whopping 37 too. But I digress - two years ago, I gushed about Mahomes in nearly every weekly column, but he’s been mostly absent this year, so let me make up for that now. On Sunday, he had his best passing performance of the year, completing 31 of 42 passes for 416 yards and 5 TDs, good for a 144.4 passing rating. The latter number, of course, making little sense since his performance was basically perfect, but his rating was not. This is the third time this season that Mahomes finishes as the QB1 for the week. What’s amazing is that Russell Wilson, who has played 1 fewer game, is still the QB1 on the season, leaving Mahomes as the QB2 in fantasy football, but the QB1 in our hearts.

7-0 Steelers

There’s not a ton of fantasy numbers to crunch out of the Pittsburgh Steelers this week. This tends to be the case when your D/ST outscores all of your position players. As a team though, they are very impressive. Their 7-0 start is tied for the best in franchise history with the 1978 team, which won the Super Bowl. This team also has recorded at least 1 sack in 64 straight games (that’s 4 seasons) and is closing in on the all-time record of 69 games which was set by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the early 2000s. The lack of fantasy dominance in a dominant team is frustrating for casual fans, but not for Steelers fans, which the drinkfive staff is lousy with. On Sunday they got the best of Lamar Jackson, forcing his first-ever pick-six very early in the game and sacking him 4 times. The Ravens now fall to 2 games behind the Steelers, who should have a very easy time next week against the Cowboys, where, I can only assume, Ben DiNucci will be musing about what horses want when they are hungry.

7 TDs by Two Players

A few fun random stats that didn’t fit elsewhere. The Vikings-Packers game saw 7 touchdowns scored…by only 2 players. In addition to the aforementioned Dalvin Cook’s 4 TDs, Davante Adams was responsible for all three TDs for the Green Bay Packers. The Chargers lost after giving up a 17-point lead for the third time this season, an NFL record for consecutive losses. Tua Tagovailoa started and won, but it was about as ugly as it could be with just 5.72 fantasy points and none of his receivers reaching 20 yards. Drew Brees again holds the NFL record with 560 passing TDs, but perhaps only for a day. Tom Brady is at 559 and plays tonight against the hapless Giants. Finally, Tuesday is a very important day. The NFL trade deadline is at 4 pm ET. Oh yeah, there’s also a bit of an election going on. GO VOTE!