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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.

The NFL season is in full swing. There have already been two games in London, bye weeks are kicking in, and Thursday Night Football is as bad as we all make fun of it for being. Meanwhile, House of the Dragon is nearing its peak of the season. We’ve had weddings, funerals, dragons, and the Greens fighting the Blacks. In that spirit, here are some stats from Week 5 inspired by my favorite show on TV right now.

Fire

125 Points in the Last Two Weeks

Like a couple of random soldiers in the Stepstones, Austin Ekeler and Josh Jacobs are on fire. The two running backs have combined for 125.6 points over the last two weeks. Jacobs has 368 yards from scrimmage over that span, giving him 619 on the season, good for third in the league – ahead of all wide receivers. It took Jacobs until week 13 to reach that mark last year. This season, the Raiders are not particularly dominant on offense – just 8^th overall in points and 10th or lower in most offensive categories. Credit for these performances lies with Jacobs, who is averaging a career-high 5.4 Y/A and has caught 17 of his 18 targets. Ekeler has 5 touchdowns in the last 2 games after not finding the end zone in the first 3 games. He started the season with 32.4 points over weeks 1 through 3, then averaged 32.9 points per game in the next two. He finds himself as the RB2 on the season now. In week 5 @ Cleveland, Ekeler posted his career high in rushing yards, 173, blowing away his previous career high of 117. It’s only his third time posting 100+ rushing yards in a game. Ekeler has gotten going, and so have the Chargers, putting up 30 or more in the last 2 games. Ekeler is paying off his very high overall ADP3 going into the season.

Ice

5:7 TD to INT Ratio

After winning the Super Bowl last year, Matthew Stafford just can’t find fantasy success this season. He’s throwing INTs at a rate he hasn’t seen since his rookie year (though it can be noted that he led the league in INTs last year). This season he leads the league in sacks and has his worst QB rating since 2012. The Rams are now the most imbalanced offense in the league, passing on 66.7% of their plays. As we learned last week, this is not a recipe for success. Stafford is just the QB23 on the season, after being drafted as the QB12 coming off a season where he averaged 20.4 points per game. Stafford has only one game over 12 points this season and is coming in behind players like Jacoby Brissett and Marcus Mariota, who are not even sniffing the chance at being rostered in single QB leagues. Stafford and the Rams are cold as ice, and as long as they keep putting the 29th-ranked offense out on the field, you can go ahead and just send him to the wall.

Green

50 Yards Per Reception

Double green bonus points here. Not only is Breece Hall green – as in, he’s a rookie. He also plays for Gang Green. Hall had his breakout game this week, making his dramatic entrance in green, if you will. He scored 26.7 fantasy points as the Jets demolished the Dolphins, 40-17. Hall had 197 yards from scrimmage, featuring 2 catches for 100 yards. Hall’s 79-yard reception (an early leader for the longest non-scoring play of the season) to close out the first quarter kept him from an even bigger game. Being tackled at the 1 is never fun, and then Michael Carter came in to vulture his touchdown. Hall is now the RB10 on the season and is trending up over the last 3 games – something we love to see here. Another green player on Gang Green – Tyler Conklin, came up totally empty on Sunday, though I suspect that is more of a bump in the road, rather than an omen of things to come.

Black

3 Games with 2+ Passing TDs in a Row

Fitting (or forcing) our Game of Thrones/House of the Dragon theme, we’ll have a vet represent the black side. Geno Smith is easily playing the best football of his career, and it only took him 8 seasons to get there. Smith is like Daemon, just leaning against the wall smirking, biding his time. Daring someone to start him again. Smith has never had consecutive games with 2+ passing TDs until this year. Over the last 3 games, Smith has 2, 2, and 3 passing scores on his way to 9 on the season. His previous career high is 12, and that’s for a full 16-game season. Smith is leading the league in completion percentage, and perhaps even more unexpectedly, QB rating. He’s the QB7 on the season, and is still only rostered in 51% of Fleaflicker leagues. What’s going on guys? He’s doing better than Brady, Herbert, Rodgers, Stafford, and Wentz, though only barely on that last one. OK, I’ll grant you some things are just statistical oddities. Regardless, Geno Smith is playing very well, and the Seahawks would probably have a more impressive record if it wasn’t for them giving up the 2^nd most points in the league. This journeyman, as they say, has found the fountain of youth in the pacific northwest.

The Stink Eye

25 Yards, 4 Touchdowns

Travis Kelce earns a major stink eye this week. Like Aemond Targaryen, he just hung back all night and made the most of his modest contributions. Kelce’s 7 catches went for just an average of just over 3.5 yards each. Discarding one game where he had one reception, this game featured both his lowest yards per catch of his career, and the most touchdowns of his career. Four touchdowns double his previous career high of two. Kelce is somehow turning up the fantasy juice with the exit of Tyreek Hill. He’s leading the league in receiving TDs, he’s near his career high in receptions per game, and does have a career-high catch rate of 78.6%. As the TE1 on the season, he’s absolutely dominating the field. He’s 20 points ahead of Mark Andrews at TE2, and nearly 40 points ahead of Taysom Hill, even with his huge breakout in Week 5.

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.

10 for 10 on Field Goals

Also, 5 for 5 on extra points. This week saw the two kickers top the season-long scoring charts, and go perfect along the way. Brett Maher kicked 4 field goals and 4 extra points as the Cowboys destroyed the Vikings. His 23 fantasy points are better than anyone in the first 10 weeks of the season. Tyler Bass, meanwhile, made the most out of not having to kick outdoors in 6’ of snow. He went 6 for 6 on field goal attempts and, appropriately, added an extra point. Bass’s 26-point performance is the best of any kicker this season, with Maher’s week 11 the second best. Bass was the 10^th highest-scoring player in all of fantasy football this week. He scored the most fantasy points in his game and Jacoby Brissett was right behind him at 25.86 points. If you had Bass and Brissett as the two highest scorers in a game that included Josh Allen, Stefon Diggs, and Nick Chubb, then I’m calling you a liar.

10’s Wild

Derrick Henry has 10 rushing touchdowns on the season and 1,010 rushing yards so far. A very nice total after 10 games in the season. Henry has 7 games over 15 fantasy points, after starting the season with 2 games under 9 points. Six of those games are over 22 points. Three of his last four games have two touchdowns each (one of those a passing score this week). Henry is now the fifth player in history to rush for at least 10 touchdowns in five straight seasons. He’s the RB2 on the season, just 1.54 points behind Austin Ekeler, without ever leading the league in scoring in a given week.

11 Receiving Touchdowns

Travis Kelce leads the league in receiving touchdowns. His 3 on Sunday night, including the seemingly inevitable game-winner late in the 4^th quarter. He’s now at 11 receiving scores on the season and just utterly dominating at his position. He’s the 4^th highest-scoring non-QB fantasy player, but what’s perhaps more amazing is that he’s ahead of the TE2 by an astonishing 78.7 points. Mark Andrews, the TE2, has only 58% of Travis Kelce’s season-long point total. Kelce is officially an all-time great, as if there was any doubt, when he passed the one and only Gronk for most 100-yard receiving games by a TE in league history.

11 QBs with 20+ Points

For the second time this season, 11 QBs scored at least 20 fantasy points in one week. As of halftime on Monday night, Jimmy Garoppolo has a shot at being the 12^th, which would be the high-water mark of this season. Included in these 11 QBs is Joe Burrow, topping the weekly list for the third time this year. Jacoby Brissett and Andy Dalton, are on an average of just 34% of rosters. Justin Fields for his 6^th straight top-10 finish. And, though he’s pushed it the last two games, did not include Aaron Rodgers in the realm of 20-point scorers, yet again, like he has…all season long.

$20 Million in Salary Cap

If you told Jerry Jones that the $20 million in cap space that he’s devoting to the running back position produced 6 touchdowns and 573 yards from scrimmage from just one of the players, he might be pretty happy. If you told him that all that production comes from the guy who is using up less than 6% of that cap space, well, maybe his eyes might finally pop out of his head. Tony Pollard has been outstanding in his contract year with the Cowboys. While Ezekiel Elliott is looking at getting his contract picked up or not, Pollard is looking at dollar signs coming up in 2023. Pollard put up his second 33-point fantasy performance this season and is now the RB8 on the season – a far cry from his ADP of RB35. This guy is someone who is propelling your team to the playoffs if you landed him in the second half of your draft.