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.

95% Completion Rate

Minshew Mania is alive and well in Jacksonville. Gardner Minshew led the Jaguars to victory over the much-hyped Colts. So much for the tank in Jacksonville, though if we learned anything from the Dolphins last year, a tank mentality is generally only present in the front office. The players and coaches never want to tank. I say bravo Minshew. He was brilliant, completing 19 of 20 passes for a 95% completion rate. He has the third highest passer rating so far in Week 1, behind only the reigning MVP Lamar Jackson, and perennial MVP candidate Russell Wilson. Minshew’s 20.82 fantasy points are only good for 12^th best this week, but he finished ahead of Mahomes and is very much in the conversation as an every week QB2 and a good streaming QB option.

14 Receptions

DeAndre Hopkins had a career high 14 receptions in his first game with the Cardinals. By contrast, the Texans WRs had only 13 total receptions. Hopkins’ previous career high was 12 receptions, which he achieved only once. Sunday’s performance with his new QB Kyler Murray is just a signal of what’s to come on this high-powered offense that now has a true #1 option. It also highlights how much the Texans missed their former #1 option on offense. Back to Arizona, who were very impressive in defeating last year’s NFC champs. Kyler Murray did not need to do a ton in the passing game – only 12 of his 26 completions went to someone not named DeAndre. Murray’s real contribution to this game came on the ground, he had 91 rushing yards along with another TD. Murray and Hopkins both finished as the 5^th highest scoring fantasy player at their respective positions.

3 WRs in the Top 11

Perhaps the Packers brass knows what they’re doing after all, when it comes to WRs. Aaron Rodgers’ attitude towards his team was the subject of a lot of offseason talk. They did not acquire any new talent for Rodgers to play with, which was seen by many as a mistake. Rodgers, the true professional that he is, just poured himself a tall glass of tequila and made the best out of what he had to work with. 3 of his WRs finished in the top 11 at their position this week, with Davante Adams holding the top spot with a gaudy stat line of 14 receptions for 156 yards and 2 scores. Marquez Valdes-Scantling put up 17.6 points, good for 9^th and Allen Lazard was right behind him at 16.2 points and 11^th on the week. As for Rodgers, he was just the QB2 on the week, throwing for 364 yards and 4 touchdowns, totaling 30.76 points. Next up for Rodgers is Detroit, who just made Mitchell Trubisky look like the right choice for the Bears. Look out NFC North – Rodgers is about to rampage through your division.

3 of the top 11 TEs

Over the course of a season, the better TEs generally will rise to the top, but it’s often very hard to predict them outside of maybe a handful at best. This season appears to be no different. Only 3 of the top 11 TEs in Week 1 are even rostered in our drinkfive fantasy league. These top 11 TEs all scored at least 10 points, so they would have all ben fantastic starts, if you were able to take the leap in Week 1 and avoid many of the bigger names that were drafted higher. Week 1 saw Dallas Goedert, T.J. Hockenson and David Njoku all put up at least 50 yards and a TD – all now hot waiver wire pickups. Speaking of the wire, 4 guys in the top 11 are owned in 27% or fewer leagues on Fleaflicker – David Njoku, Logan Thomas, Jordan Akins and Jimmy Graham. Good luck picking the right guys on the waiver wire and not the ones who are a flash in the pan. I’m sure next week this column will feature another bunch of TEs putting up points that nobody started.

3 First Round Duds

Of the top 12 players drafted in 2020 (ranked by ADP), 3 of them were duds this week. We’re still waiting to see the results from Derrick Henry and Saquon Barkley’s games tonight, but so far only 3 guys have disappointed out of the first round, and I think that’s a good consistency. The rest of the players drafted in the first round turned in really respectable to great stat lines, including the top RB and WR. We got disappointing performances from Michael Thomas (3 rec, 17 yards), Joe Mixon (69 yards, 1 rec for 2 yards and 1 fumble) and Nick Chubb (60 yards, 1 rec for 6 yards and 1 fumble). I expect all 3 players to recover nicely, especially Michael Thomas, who has now been held below 5 receptions in consecutive regular season games for the first time since Weeks 11 & 12 in 2018. Meanwhile, both Mixon and Chubb will need to help their teams find some sort of groove, as both teams combined for only 19 points.

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.

37 Completions

Thursday night, the Bengals unleashed their #1 overall pick in a prime-time game – though if you didn’t have NFL network handy, you struggled to find it. Broadcast rights aside, this Browns-Bengals matchup was better than it had any business being. In only his second game of his professional career, Joe Burrow attempted 61 passes, completing 37 of them for 316 yards and 3 TDs with zero interceptions. The 37 completions are a record for rookie passers. Now, perhaps, the Bengals would like to consider acquiring a defense so that their rookie’s arm doesn’t fall off by the end of the season.

50 years

Raheem Mostert, one of 49 (probably) players injured for San Francisco, recorded a feat that hasn’t been done in over 50 years. He became the first player in 50+ years to score a TD of 75+ yards in the first two weeks of a season. Last week, he had a 76-yard TD reception, and yesterday he opened the game with an 80-yard TD run where he was clocked at a blazing 23.09 MPH. Seriously. Get in your car and drive 23 mph and see if anyone could possibly keep up. Hell, Mostert would have been speeding on the street that I grew up on. Limited to only 10 touches since apparently injuries are more contagious than Covid-19 to the 49ers, Mostert still sits as this week’s RB14, and the RB4 on the season. Hopefully Mostert can stay on the field as he has the two fastest speeds clocked by ball carriers this season – and they’re the fastest regular season numbers since 2016.

75,000 Yards

Tom Brady became the second player, behind fellow quadragenarian Drew Brees, to reach the 75,000 passing yards mark. Brady has yet to really impress in a fantasy football sense this season, but he did lead his team to an impressive victory over the, admittedly lame, Carolina Panthers on Sunday. The question of whether Brady still “has it” is unresolved in my mind, but he does win games, so we can go ahead and give him credit for this one. He does need to stop throwing interceptions – that’s 4 games in a row including the playoffs last year. Nonetheless, we celebrate Brady’s 75,000 yards, a distance so damn far that it would take Raheem Mostert nearly 2 hours (111 minutes) running at full speed to cover all those passing yards. You can tack on another 17 minutes to include his playoff yardage.

60+ Fantasy Points

So far in this short season, 4 QBs are averaging 30+ fantasy points per game. Leading the pack is no surprise, it’s Russell Wilson, who has an amazing 82.5% completion rate to go with 9 passing TDs already. It’s the 3 players who also average 30+ per game that may have you surprised. In order, you have Josh Allen, Cam Newton and Kyler Murray. Between them they have 8 rushing TDs, obviously an invaluable asset to fantasy football QBs. Amazingly, Cam Newton has landed here with only 1 passing TD in 2 games so far this season.  Last year’s MVP, Lamar Jackson sits just outside the top 10, just a few points ahead of 2020 Rookie of the Beginning of the Year Joe Burrow.

43.6 Fantasy Points

Aaron Jones is insane. This is the note that was my placeholder and I really can’t start this section any better. Since the start of last year, he has 13 games over 15 points (and 2 more games of 14.8 points). Two of those games are over 40 points, 8 of those are 22+ points or better. On Sunday, Jones was everywhere. He carried the ball 18 times for 168 yards, good for a 9.3 yards per carry average. He found the end zone twice on the ground and once more through the air, where he added 4 catches for 68 yards. His performance in Week 2 was so dominant over all other RBs that the difference between Jones and the RB2, Nick Chubb, is an entire Raheem Mostert – 17.8 points! If you take the highest non-QB, non-Jones scorer in Week 2, Calvin Ridley, you would need to increase his output by 65% just to reach Aaron Jones’s performance. This guy is insane, and the Packers are really, really good this year.