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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.

16 Point Lead

It seems that in Atlanta, no lead is safe. Most recently infamous for blowing a 28-3 lead in Super Bowl LI (which still fuels memes around the internet), the Falcons have now blown back-to-back games where they led by at least 16 points. Dan Quinn has achieved the impossible – he’s become less popular in Atlanta than Covid-19. In two consecutive possessions late in the 4^th quarter, the Falcons ran the ball just once and netted -4 yards total in those drives. The second drive of that sequence featured 3 straight incompletions with less than 5 minutes remaining in the game, burning off a whole 11 seconds. Perhaps it’s too early in the season to fire a coach, but I cannot imagine a seat that is hotter than Dan Quinn’s right now, especially considering his offense is playing well for 3.5 quarters of football every Sunday.

75 TDs

This offseason was all about letting Russ cook, and that’s exactly what he’s done. Russell Wilson is now the first NFL QB to throw for at least 4 TDs in each of his first three games of the season. If there was an MVP for September, he would be the unanimous choice. On the season, he already has 14 passing TDs, on pace for a Peyton Manning crushing 75 on the season (the current record sits at 55). Of course, Patrick Mahomes was on pace to break this record back in 2018, but only managed (“only”) 50 TDs. Wilson is slightly ahead of Mahomes’ pace – he was at 13 after 3 games, and only managed one over the next two weeks. I think it’s certainly plausible that Wilson can keep up a record-breaking pace for quite a while. To go along with this, he’s also the #1 player in fantasy football, already cracking 100 points on the season. #LetRussCook

12 Total TDs

Right on the heel of Wilson’s great start is Josh Allen taking the Bills to 3-0. On the season, Allen has 10 passing TDs, 2 rushing TDs, 1,038 passing yards and has totaled 94.92 fantasy points, good for 2^nd overall. If it was not for Wilson, then Allen might be at the top of the MVP discussion, alongside Aaron Rodgers – the last of the top QBs without a turnover on the season. Allen has shown some vast improvement this season. His first two years, his best completion rate was only 58.8%, but he currently sits at 71.1% on the season and has only thrown one interception so far. He’s already matched his TD total from his rookie season, and he’s halfway to matching 2019 through 3 games. Allen is perhaps the most improved player and is the kind of fantasy pick that will help people win leagues – Allen’s ADP put him at QB8 and was being drafted sometime in the 8^th round in most drafts.

260 Kicking Yards

One of my new favorite changes in 2020 for fantasy football is the ability to directly award kickers for their exact yardage, instead of truncating the number and just giving 3, 4, 5, etc. This allowed Stephen Gostkowski to really max out his score on Sunday, where he kicked 6 field goals for a total of 260 yards, and threw an extra point in there for good measure. Under the old scoring system, he would have had 25 points, but yesterday, he put up 27 points, which is good for 1^st place among kickers by nearly 10 points. His 27 points Sunday are more points than 8 of the top 20 kickers have scored all season long. I don’t often devote an entry in this column for a kicker, but perhaps more performances like this one will change that. Mason Crosby deserves an honorable mention. His 41.6 points on the season put him just behind Gostkowski, but his perfect 7 for 7 FGs and 13 for 13 XPs certainly deserve praise. Until next week, have fun picking a kicker – 8 of the top 13 kickers this week are owned in only 26% or less of Fleaflicker leagues.

-3.33 Points per Week

Usually, you want to stream your D/ST against a team that struggles, and more on that in a minute, but let’s first marvel at the team you do not want your D/ST to go against. In 3 weeks, the D/ST going up against the Green Bay Packers have scored -4, -3 and -3 points. The Packers have scored 36 points or more in every game so far, and have only given up one sack each of the last two weeks. Perhaps this information isn’t that helpful to you to win at fantasy football, but it’s certainly something to marvel at, and that’s the real point of this column. If you want points, start whoever is playing the Jets, like the Colts in Week 3, who put up 26 points from 3 turnovers and 2 TDs. Or stream whoever is going against the Eagles, who have seen Wentz give up 2 INTs in every game so far this season, to go along with 11 total sacks. It won’t get any better for the Eagles, who now face the 49ers, Steelers and Ravens in their next 3 games.  

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.

39.1 Fantasy Points

Rookie Chase Claypool exploded onto the fantasy radar yesterday with a huge game, scoring 4 TDs against the Eagles and leading the Steelers to a victory. Claypool touched the ball 10 times and found the end zone on 4 of them, putting up 116 yards from scrimmage. His 39.1 fantasy points were about 50% more than Travis Fulgham’s 26.2 points, the second-highest non-QB point scorer on the week. This also means that the top two skill players that aren’t a QB were almost certainly not started in your league, and probably weren’t even owned in your league. Claypool spread his scoring around, getting one TD in each quarter of the game. On the other side of that game, while Miles Sanders had an impressive 74-yard TD run early on, he managed only 6 more yards on his other 10 carries. The Steelers are still the best against opposing RBs in the league.

32 Points

The Browns have now put up over 30 points in each of the last 4 games, all of them wins. They are 4-1 and are playing well in perhaps the toughest division in the league. This week’s win was perhaps the best of the season because it came against the Colts, who had the best defense in the league going into the game. The Browns have continued to commit to running the ball, cumulating another 33 attempts with Kareem Hunt leading the way with 20. It looks like Hunt will be filling the role occupied by Nick Chubb with D’Ernest Johnson a distant second on the team, considering he has been targeted only once in the passing game all season. Odell Beckham Jr. for the second time in his career had a pass completion, rushing attempt, and reception in the same game. He’s 4 for 6 on his career with 144 yards and 2 TDs as a passer, not too shabby!

21.4 Fantasy Points Per Game

Mike Davis is filling in for Christian McCaffrey very nicely. Davis is averaging 21.4 points per game over his last 3 games, all of which he has started because of McCaffrey being out with injury. The Panthers have also won all 3 of those games after an 0-2 start. This just highlights that some teams are better equipped to utilize players than others. Davis already has 426 yards from scrimmage on the season, his second-highest season total in his career. So far this week (the ever points-y Alvin Kamara still plays tonight), Davis is the RB1 with 25.4 points. He has at least 90 yards from scrimmage AND a touchdown in each of the three games he started and is averaging 7.5 receptions per game over the last 4 weeks. When McCaffrey returns, he will probably be just as good as we expect him to be, but it’s clear that a lot of that performance has to do with the entire team that surrounds him.

22.5 Fantasy Points

Jason Sanders single-handedly delivered enough points to defeat the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday. He was responsible for 19 points in the game, while the 49ers put up only 17. He was perfect on the day, making 9 out of 9 kicks totaling 22.5 fantasy points. This was better than any two fantasy players on the 49ers. Helping Sanders along the way was a bit of the ole Fitzmagic – Ryan Fitzpatrick scored 27.6 points on the day to be the QB2 of the week so far. The 49ers are now 0-3 at home, and 2-0 in New Jersey. Jimmy Garoppolo started this game but was probably not ready to come back after going just 7/17 with 2 INTs in the first half before being benched. The 49ers have a lot to figure out and definitely do not look like the same team as last year. Fantasy value on this team seems to be random at best, non-existent at worst.

19 Passing TDs

Russell Wilson continued his stellar 2020 campaign on Sunday night with one of his more dramatic 4^th quarter comebacks. Wilson now has 23 career 4^th quarter comebacks. This one included going 94 yards and completing two 4^th down plays on this drive to DK Metcalf, the latter of which was for the game-winning touchdown. Wilson now has 19 TDs on the season, still on pace for 60 TDs on the year. The next closest QBs are Aaron Rodgers and Patrick Mahomes, tied with 13 on the season so far. This year is also showing the emergence of DK Metcalf, now the WR2 on the season. He’s averaging 17.7 points per game this year, hasn’t scored less than 12.6 points all season, and is clearly now Russell Wilson’s favorite target.

Bring out your dead! It's one of the worst weeks in recent memory in the NFL for injuries (please don't count them on me), so let's have a not-so-quick roundup of all of the fantasy relevant guys who we need to monitor going in to Week 6.

Quarterbacks

• Russell Wilson - Wilson’s injury on Thursday night prevented him from completing the game. He has a torn tendon as well as a fracture/dislocation of his middle finger on his throwing hand. He had surgery to repair it and is expected to be out until Week 10 at the earliest. Seattle has a bye in Week 9. In relief, Geno Smith immediately led the Seahawks on a 98 yard scoring drive, so that was encouraging. The Seahawks fantasy players remain startable, but get a bit of a downgrade across the board. Geno Smith should be picked up in superflex leagues as bye weeks are going to start hitting everybody.

• Daniel Jones - Jones suffered a concussion and was visibly woozy/dazed/stumbling on the field after the play. He was later carted off the field and Mike Glennon finished the game. Glennon finished the game with enough passing action to encourage you to start Kadarius Toney, and possibly Sterling Shepard if he returns. Jones did not practice today but is apparently “on track with everything” according to head coach Joe Judge. Jones returning is a bump for Toney, Booker and Shepard, the only likely fantasy starters on the Giants.

• Trey Lance - Lance suffered a sprained knee on Sunday. So far, his timeline is very murky because the 49ers have a bye this week, so are not required to report any injury statuses. Jimmy G could return based on Lance’s play as a passer this year so far, so this situation is clear as mud. Pay attention to who’s practicing with the ones next week to see who the starter will be in Week 7.

• Tom Brady - Oh if wishing could make it true. But seriously, Tom Brady hurt his thumb and has a quick turnaround on Thursday night. All reports indicate that he’s not 100% but will be starting tomorrow. Right now that offense is working at nearly peak efficiency, so even 75% of Tom Brady should result in plenty of fantasy production from the normal guys.

Running Backs

• Saquon Barkley - Barkley had a sprained ankle that swelled up pretty quick and was on display for TV on Sunday. Nice camera work, guys. He apparently dodged any major injury and we do not have a timetable for his return. Since this is the case, you should go into Week 6 assuming that he will not play and it will be Devontae Booker in his place, who scored 2 TDs in relief in Week 5.

• Damien Harris - Harris exited Sunday’s game twice with a chest injury. He also fumbled on the goal line, but was still given work, showing just how much Belichick thinks of the other RBs on his roster. Harris did not practice today but is day to day at the moment, so he will probably be fine to go on Sunday since he avoided a significant injury. Keep an eye on his practice status, and he’s an RB2/Flex option if he starts on Sunday against the Cowboys.

• Clyde Edwards-Helaire - CEH has been put on the IR list already with an MCL sprain, so he’s out for at least 3 weeks. Darrel Williams should be the main RB in his place, getting almost all of the work going forward. Jerick McKinnon is also available for the Chiefs, but he only has 4 total touches on the season, so he is firmly a backup to Williams for now.

• Christian McCaffrey - CMC was practicing last week and came down to a game time decision and ultimately he did not play on Sunday. This week was his originally targeted return time, so I like his chances to return in Week 6 against the Vikings. He practiced again today. If he goes, he’s going to get his normal workload. If he doesn’t, then you can safely roll Chuba Hubbard out there for one more week. Keep an eye on the inactives ahead of gametime before making the final decision on this one. 

• Chris Carson - Carson missed Week 5 with a neck injury, but avoided the IR which should mean that he’s back soon. He did not practice today, but Pete Carroll said that the plan is for him to return to practice tomorrow. With Russell Wilson out for a while, it’s a great spot for the Seattle RBs to get even more carries than normal. If Carson cannot go, it’ll be Alex Collins for another week - he received 15 carries last week and has Flex value against the Steelers on Sunday night.

• Joe Mixon / Samaje Perine - These two split carries in Sunday’s game 12/15 with more of a 60/30 snap percentage split. However, after the game, Perine was placed on the covid list and that sets up Mixon to have a full workload on this Sunday against the lowly Lions. If you have Mixon, it should be back to normal for him. Perine is droppable in most leagues.

• Dalvin Cook - Cook missed the game in Week 5, and Alexander Mattison proved once again to be the best backup RB in fantasy football. Cook did practice all week before being ruled out, so even though he practiced today, it’s no guarantee that he’ll be starting this week. The Vikings are on bye in Week 7, so it might be that they hold him out through the bye week just to be sure.

Wide Receivers

• Tyreek Hill - Hill was reported to have a knee injury which turned out to be a quad contusion. He is not practicing today, and obviously a leg injury on this speedster is something that needs to be treated seriously. Keep an eye on his status through the week. If he does not practice, I do not expect him to play on Sunday. Their matchup against Washington is juicy though - they’re giving up the 4th most points to opposing WRs, so I would start him if he is going to play. If he does not, Mecole Hardman, who was second on the team with 12 targets last week, should be the main beneficiary. Travis Kelce will be heavily involved as usual and Darrel Williams should see plenty of targets. It’ll be up to one of the many other targets on the team to step up - 6 other players saw 2 or fewer targets on Sunday. Perhaps a place for Josh Gordon to step up? Unlikely, but it’s fun to feed into the hype.

• Kenny Golladay - Here’s our token Giants entry for this position as well. They really got battered on Sunday. Golladay suffered a hyperextended knee, and he was finally getting warmed up this season on the Giants too. He’s expected to miss at least week 6, but was not placed on the IR. Kadarius Toney is the new hotness on the team, and Sterling Shepard could be coming back with Darius Slayton, this muddling the target share for the Giants. Daniel Jones’ status is also an issue for the WRs.

• JuJu Smith-Schuster - You know an injury is serious when the team immediately signs whoever is on the top of the free agent pile - this time it was Anthony Miller. Juju is going to have shoulder surgery and will miss the remainder of 2021. Diontae Johnson and Chase Claypool will continue to operate as the 1-2 on that offense. Juju was not contributing much this year, and was not fantasy relevant anymore, anyways.

• A.J. Brown / Julio Jones - A.J. Brown returned last week and was on the field for 64% of snaps. He didn’t have any setbacks, so he should be back above 80% next week. Julio missed his second straight game last week and it was a hamstring injury, the typical kind of injury he’s had all his career. He is practicing today, so he might be back, but I’m not enthusiastic about starting him immediately once he returns. For now this team is all Derrick Henry and there’s not enough production for two starting WRs anyways.

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.