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.

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.

14.6 Fantasy Points

This week, 14.6 fantasy points are more than the RB16, Ty Johnson scored. Josh Jacobs accomplished that on one play in OT. In total, he gained 109 yards and scored 1 TD in overtime – whatever fantasy player always dreams about when their players make it to overtime. On the day, Jacobs had an astounding 303 yards from scrimmage, scored 2 TDs, and added 6 receptions. He touched the ball 39 times and he was only tackled for a loss twice, losing just one yard each time. His grand total was 45.3 fantasy points, good for the second-highest total on the season among all players. Jacobs is now the RB1 on the season and is the only RB averaging more than 20 points per game. He’s leading the league in rushing yards and yards from scrimmage. Having 303 in one game will do that for ya.

81.1% Completion Rate

Well, it’s only fair that I praise Kirk Cousins a bit for showing up on a prime-time game after I was so rough on him last week. Kirk has a reputation for turning in clunkers when he’s playing in the only game on, but that was not the case on Thanksgiving night. It was probably Kirk’s best game of the season, completing 30 of 37 passes and throwing for 299 yards, his second-highest total of the season, as well as the first time he’s thrown for 3 TDs all year. Cousins has the 4^th most passing attempts in the league on the season, which is pretty necessary considering the Vikings' defense is giving up the most passing yards of any team in the league.

145 Receiving Yards

The player who’s sure to be the hottest waiver pickup of the week, Zay Jones, helped his team clinch a win over Baltimore in a really exciting finish. The Ravens-Jaguars game featured 4 touchdowns, 1 field goal, and two 2-point conversions all in the 4^th quarter. Jones led the way for his team through the air, catching 11 passes for 145 yards and the all-important 2-point conversion at the end of the game. He caught two other passes on the final drive (5 total in the quarter) and finished as the WR5 on the week. He's only on 40% of Fleaflicker rosters at the moment, and that’s certain to shoot way up after waivers go through tomorrow night. Jones has now been targeted at least 8 times in 6 out of 10 games this season. This is his first time over 100 receiving yards this year, and only the second time in his career. He's starting to be a very important piece of a passing offense that is starting to click in Jacksonville.

76 Receiving Yards

There was only one TE this week who had more than 50% of Zay Jones’ yardage total. Josh Oliver of the Ravens topped the charts with 76 yards. He was also the TE2 on the week with 15.6 points, thanks to a touchdown late in the 4^th quarter of their game. Oliver is rostered in only 1% of Fleaflicker leagues, and he is one of three TEs in the top 10 this week who are rostered in less than 10% of all leagues on Fleaflicker. If you extend the list a little, there are 6 of the top 15 TEs that were free agents in over 90% of Fleaflicker leagues when their game kicked off on Sunday. This is only the second time all season that Travis Kelce has finished outside of the top 3 TEs in fantasy points for the week. He finished 4^th. What a bum. Time to drop him and pick up Josh Oliver.

0.38 Fantasy Points

Sometimes, a leader is hard to spot. Technically, Patrick Mahomes is ahead of Josh Allen in season-long fantasy points, but damn are they close. Mahomes has 288.80 points, while Allen has 288.42 points. That’s a difference of just 10 passing yards. Or 4 rushing yards. Hell, a touchdown would swing this wildly in someone’s favor. Both QBs have been at or near the top spot all season, and Allen really closed the gap with the best QB performance of the week in the very first game we got to watch this week. Allen threw two passing TDs and ran in another one, and added 78 rushing yards to top 30 fantasy points for the third time this year, but the first time since week 5. Allen doesn’t lead the league in any significant stat categories, showing that he has a well-rounded game. Oh wait, he leads the league in interceptions with 11 (tied with Davis Mills). I suppose that’s significant in a different way.