Fantasy football strategy, rankings, and podcasts

One-thousand, five hundred and twenty entries are all that’s between me and early retirement. It took 15 weeks to whittle the field of 1275 down to one in last year’s pool, so I should have my work cut out for me. I decided on two entries this year (mainly to make sure I survive week 1). The first few weeks of the season can be some of the toughest to predict, that’s why a quarter to half of all entrants usually drop out in these first few games. I was listening to an odds making expert on the radio suggesting picking weak teams in the first week to save the premium teams for later and went on to suggest taking the Cardinals over the Lions. I however do not subscribe to this philosophy and actually will pick the Lions in that game.

I say - don't make it hard until you have no choice. My picks this week are the Seattle Seahawks and the Philadelphia Eagles. Those two teams are the biggest favorites at 9.5 and 10 respectively and are both playing their games at home. We have been shown nothing in the preseason from anyone this year so I will assume that the Redskins and Bengals will still suck.

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.

18 QB ADP

If you combine the top 5 QBs so far this week – Lamar Jackson, Dak Prescott, Matthew Stafford, Patrick Mahomes and Case Keenum – you have an average ADP of QB 18. So much for expert draft advice, right? All 5 players scored at least 28 points, 3 TDs and 300 passing yards. All of them, except for Mahomes, were not expected to be fantasy studs, and were not drafted to be a main starter. Lamar Jackson is the highest of the remaining 4 at QB14, and he had the best game out of all of them. Jackson managed to log the very first perfect QB rating game in franchise history. Even more impressive, Red Zone channel took a break from a competitive game just to show us his first incompletion. I suppose this all goes to show that drafting QBs early in a single QB league is mostly pointless. Case in point – Andy Dalton had over 400 yards passing. This is why I like superflex leagues!

6 of the top 25 Fantasy Players

Waiver wires will be hopping this week, with people racing to pick up all of the forgotten, unknown and surprise players who had big games in Week 1. 6 of the top 25 fantasy performers so far in Week 1 are owned in 10% of leagues or less. Everyone in the top 25 scored over 20 points this week, and you’re sure to see names like DJ Chark (2% owned), Phillip Dorsett (4% owned) and John Ross (9% owned) pop up on waiver articles, not to mention Marquise Brown, who’s only owned in 31% of Yahoo leagues. A few QBs wind up in this niche as well, like Case Keenum, Andy Dalton and Marcus Mariota. They are a bit less relevant, however you may want to consider picking up one of them if you relied on Cam Newton, Jared Goff or Baker Mayfield in Week 1, all of whom scored 12.4 points and under.

10 WRs owned in 100% of Leagues

It was a rough Sunday for the top end of the fantasy world. In Yahoo, there are 10 wide receivers who are owned in 100% of leagues (2 more play on Monday night), and their average points scored was a meager 8.1. Keenan Allen and Amari Cooper were the only ones with a respectable game of 100 yards and 1 TD.  6 of the 10 players were under 8 points. In fact, if you expand this field to the top 25 by ownership percentage, only one player, TY Hilton, broke the 20-point barrier. The average total of the top 25 was still only 8.9, so it’s not like there was a lot of help among all the players who were drafted to actually help you win games. Who was helping win games? 6 of the top 10 point scorers at WR are owned in 50% of leagues or less, with 4 of those players in just the single digits.

4 Rookies Over 100 Receiving Yards

There were 4 rookies who managed to break the 100-yard mark on Sunday. Marquise Brown did it early after just two TD catches of 47 and 83 yards in the first quarter of his game. Titans Rookie A.J. Brown had 3 catches, but one was for 47 and the another was for 51 yards. OK, so he managed to just match the 100-yard mark and not pass it, but hey, it’s nice to finally see a deep threat in Tennessee, something that Marcus Mariota probably has never had. Terry McLaurin of the Redskins led his team in receiving with 125 yards. You may remember him from me telling you to draft him as a sleeper, just before I picked the Redskins to have fewer victories than the Giants. Rounding out the rookie group is T.J. Hockenson, who had 6 for 131 and a TD, leading his team in receiving and leading all tight ends (so far) this week in fantasy with 19.1 points. An honorable mention goes to Devin Singletary, who had 98 yards from scrimmage and averaged nearly 11 yards per touch. If he had gotten more than a measly 9 touches, he certainly would have broken the century mark.

17 Players at 100 Rec Yards

So far in Week 1, 17 players have matched or eclipsed the 100 receiving yards mark. Only 5 of those players are owned in 90% or more of Yahoo leagues. All these players average out for an ownership of just 55%. Does this mean anything? Not really, but it illustrates that the NFL is usually chaos, and Week 1 doubly so. Early season waivers are as important as ever this year, but it’s also important to remember to be patient with the players that you drafted high. Many of these performances are flukes, some of them are the start of trends, and some of them are introductions to future superstars. If I could tell you exactly which is which, I’d be in Vegas getting banned from various sports books. I’ll just leave you with this last nugget – Kyler Murray bringing his team back to get a tie with the Lions is the best result that a rookie QB has had in Week 1 since David Carr got a win in 2002. Let’s hope for all our sakes that Murray can be better than Carr’s career 29% win rate.

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.

2 Players over 30 points

This week, we had just two players break the 30-point mark. As I write this during the MNF game, I don’t expect anyone else to join this club. Everyone, however, expects Patrick Mahomes to be a prolific fantasy player, but they probably didn’t think all of his action to come in the second quarter. Meanwhile, Lamar Jackson has been better than anyone expected this year. Following up a huge opening game with another big fantasy performance, he went to the ground this time. Jackson racked up 120 yards rushing on 16 carries, after just 6 yards on 3 caries last week. Jackson’s passing numbers weren’t as gaudy as Week 1, but perhaps the most important number is zero turnovers. We’re the real winners here though, these guys will match up in Week 3.

1 Player from the Top 10

After last week saw tons of no-names find their way to the top of the fantasy charts, this week only saw one player owned in single digit leagues make their way into the top wide receivers. Demarcus Robinson did his best Tyreek Hill impersonation, catching 6 balls for 172 yards and 2 TDs. Robinson’s 29.2 points was the third highest of the week, and he was basically a statistical error, having been started in “0%” of Yahoo leagues. I’m sure that number is going up for next week, especially since there weren’t a ton of really high scoring WRs. Only Julio Jones at 22.6 broke the 20-point mark, and Robinson more than doubled up the #10 WR, Marquise Goodwin. Again, while watching the MNF game, I don’t see anyone surpassing Robinson, or Goodwin for that matter. (Late edit: Odell Beckham Jr. did manage to join the 20-point club.)

34 Fantasy Points

Through 2 weeks, Mark Andrews is leading all tight ends in fantasy points, having put together two excellent games in a row. He’s caught 16 of his 17 targets, which has really helped out his QB, the aforementioned Lamar Jackson. His 220 yards are 6^th in the league so far this season. With an ADP in the 14^th round, he was a really great value for anyone who was planning on streaming tight ends this season. Travis Kelce is the only one of the big three drafted who is playing well. In fact, he’s got more points than George Kittle and Zach Ertz combined.

0 Points Allowed

The Patriots somehow improved on their 3 points allowed in Week 1 by pitching a shutout down in Miami. The hapless Dolphins could only manage 11 first downs in 13 drives, while giving up 43 points. On the season, the Patriots have now scored 76 points compared to just 3 given up. The Dolphins are on the opposite end of that spectrum, with just 10 points scored compared to 102 allowed. The Patriots D/ST managed 2 pick-sixes on Sunday, got the rare shutout bonus and tallied 7 sacks. The 37 points they scored is more than the season total for any kickers or tight ends, and led everyone in Week 2, technically.

2 QBs with 300+ Yards Passing

In Week 2, two QBs managed to throw for over 300 yards without throwing a touchdown. One is a QB on his way up, the other is a QB that could be on his way down, and at least along the way, they didn’t throw any picks. Cam Newton just didn’t look right on Thursday night, in this week’s first Heisman Trophy winner matchup. Newton disappointed owners with a piddly 11.32 points in a game that many had him pegged to do much better. There’s now whispers that Cam could be done in Carolina, as he just doesn’t look right. Meanwhile, Kyler Murray, who played in the second battle of Heisman winners, is still working things out by throwing the hell out of the ball. He has 94 pass attempts through 2 games and has passed the 300-yard mark in each of those games. Murray is looking decent to start the season, but he needs to put together 4 good quarters in a game and throw some TDs for us fantasy players.

With the current Tight End landscape out there in fantasy football, I will be covering a few TEs that are likely un-owned in your league. To start this rabbit chase, I am going to attempt to sell you on Dawson Knox. Dawson was never on my radar until he caught his first TD of the season in week 3 for the Bills. He also had a long catch-and-run prior to that TD, which also caught my eye.

Just look at this monster of a man:

What we know:

• 6’ 4” 254lbs
• Former High School Quarterback turned Tight End.
• Walked on at Ole Miss and never caught a TD, yet had 18.9 yards per catch in his 2018 season with lots of mouths to feed in a potent offense. Looking at you AJ Brown and DK Metcalf
• Buffalo likes what they saw and traded up to grab him in the 3rd round of the 2019 draft 
• 40 time – 4.64
• Still learning and is only 22 years old 
• Saw 63% snap share in week 3

What I think:

Looking at the 3-0 Bills I am intrigued. Mind you, they started with a Patriots like schedule. Jets, Giants and Bengals. Looking at their roster they have a small group of WRs that are not ideal redzone targets. John Brown has looked good, but is 5’ 11” and is more of a deep threat. Cole Beasley is 5’ 8” and your typical slot receiver. Zay Jones is 6’ 2” and has had his time to show he is a capable receiver... spoiler, he is not.

The Bills have been in favorable game plans to focus on their rushing game with Singletary/Gore/Allen leading the charge. The match-up this week against the Patriots will be the first time the Bills will need to put up points in droves to stay alive. Knox should see a few opportunities to stretch the field and potentially get into the end-zone. He’s an agile TE with great hands. He can line up inline or flexed out and should be getting more snaps as his coaches have been praising him for his blocking skills as well.

Happy hunting and good luck this weekend!