Fantasy football strategy, rankings, and podcasts

As we continue to take a look at trends and suffer through injuries, picking up valuable replacement/fill-in players to cover for bye weeks and long recovery times, it's important to strive for some consistency in fantasy scoring. Some of the guys I predict to have a successful week outside of the normal top group include: Andrew Luck, James White, Alfred Morris, John Brown, Corey Davis, Mike Williams, and Kyle Rudolph. Keep in mind also that Greg Olsen is coming back this week most likely. So scoop him up on your waiver wire if necessary. The Tight End position is very short on fantasy production this season. Good luck in Week 6 and remember, you can tweet us @drinkfive with any of your lineup questions!

Here's looking at you, James White! With Green Bay, Oakland, Pittsburgh, and Seattle off on bye this week, there are quite a few playmakers missing from your usual lineup. Thankfully, fill-ins are still pretty widespread and there are a ton of surging players such as Nick Chubb (after Carlos Hyde was traded to the Jags and won't be starting this week), and Tyler Boyd (showing up this season and entering fantasy lineups after a great week 6 performance). Good luck in Week 7 and remember, you can tweet us @drinkfive with any of your lineup questions!

Our rankings are created each week expressly to help you make some tough decisions on starts/sits and bye week fill-ins. This week we're missing Atlanta, Dallas, Tennessee, and the Los Angeles Chargers. Great plays this week from my perspective include Chris Carson, Kenjon Barner, Sterling Shepard, and the Arizona Cardinals defense. I would avoid playing Allen Robinson and Alex Collins if you can find a good substitute for those players. Good luck in Week 8 and remember, you can tweet us @drinkfive with any of your lineup questions!

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.

7 QBs over 30 Points

No tricks, no BS – there’s even an 8^th guy who may reach this level tonight. So far this week, there are 7 QBs that put up at least 30 points in standard scoring, led by usual suspect Mitchell Trubisky. OK, maybe he’s never even come close to these heights. Heck, his 43.46 points this season is more than he put up in the first three weeks combined. Now, I’m not sure that everyone should rush out to place claims on Trubes, but he did finally show what the Bears offensive ceiling is, and it’s actually impressive. He even broke the modern Bears QB record with 6 TD passes – nobody even had 5 of them since Sid Luckman threw for 7 back in 1943. On the other side of the ball Sunday, we saw the end of the 2018 installment of Fitzmagic – this guy’s fun, but I suspect we might have seen the last Ryan Fitzpatrick playing well as a starting QB (barring injury). Jameis Winston is ready to lick his fingers and eat some W’s (just….gross) when they return to action in Week 6. Farewell, Bucs – we hardly knew ye.

158.3 Passer Rating

Last Thursday, we were treated to real football. Part of that real football game was the most perfect passing performance, statistically speaking, we’ve ever seen. Jared Goff’s performance was the 70^th time that a QB posted a perfect passer rating. It was perhaps the best perfect game ever, featuring both the most passing attempts (33) and passing yards (465) of any perfect passer rating game in history. Goff added 5 TDs to finish with a cool 39.3 fantasy points. Goff is definitely trending up and is now a top-4 QB in fantasy through one quarter of the season. The Rams WRs were the big winners here – each of their top 3 guys, Cooper Kupp, Brandin Cooks and Robert Woods all put up over 16 points – 100+ yards and 1+ TDs each. The fantasy value on the Rams is overflowing and you should get in on it now before getting priced out of the market for trade value.

567 Made Field Goals

As promised last week, Adam Vinatieri has earned his way back into the discussion with his record breaking performance on Sunday. Vinatieri was 2/2 on FG kicks and has now passed Morten Anderson for sole possession of the all-time record for FGs made. A deeper dive into his stats (a list of all his made FGs is available here) shows that he also has 56 more made FGs in the playoffs, including a whopping 14 in 2006 alone. He’s made 40 FGs of 50+ yards. He’s made 12 FGs in overtime, including his one on Sunday. 160 of those FGs were kicks that gave his team the lead. He even has one passing TD to his name. Vinatieri deserves to be a first ballot hall of famer, and it’s been fun watching his career – heck, him playing even pre-dates my interest in the NFL. In tribute, 13 other kickers also put up 10 or more points in a week filled with offense.

240 Yards from Scrimmage

The anemic Cowboys offense got a shot of 50cc’s of pure Zeke on Sunday against the Lions. Ezekiel Elliot set a career high mark with 240 yards from scrimmage. He added 1 receiving TD, bringing his fantasy total up to an even 30 points. Those 30 are good for only 9^th most points this week – offense is increasing everywhere. Sunday, Zeke touched the ball a whopping 29 times, a trend that has to continue if Dallas wishes to win any more games this year. Their offense has looked so bad in the first 3 games of the season, that pushing more than 50% of the offense (Sunday was 29 touches for Zeke, 23 for the rest of the team) is the only path to victory. This is unsustainable over the course of 16 games, but it will result in tons of fantasy production for Zeke. He has 51% of the team’s touches and is the 4^th best fantasy RB so far this season. I expect him to continue with his 100 yards and/or 1 TD M.O. most of the season, but he is vulnerable to a dud game because of the team that’s around him.

1^st Regular Season Td

Titans WR Corey Davis finally recorded his first regular season touchdown. After finding the end zone twice in the postseason last year, Davis finally got one that counts on the regular stat sheet. Davis had a hell of a game, grabbing 9 receptions on 15 targets for 161 yards and the game winning TD in overtime. Davis had a whopping 15 points on the season going into the week, and put up 22.1. With the sudden departure (not a Leftovers reference) of Rishard Matthews last week, Davis is in line to continue getting a heavy workload. It helps that his QB Marcus Mariota seems healthy, so this connection should continue to grow. Next up is the Bills, so the 3-1 Titans should keep rolling.