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It’s early May 2020, and the only major sport that has yet to be affected in a significant way in America is the NFL. This is mostly due to it being a fall sport. The NFL has been able to plow forward with Free Agency and the Draft without even really slowing down, but that’s all just paperwork anyways. How will Covid-19 actually affect the NFL? Nobody knows, but in the spirit of my in-season column, Statistically (in)Significant, I’m going to go ahead and wildly speculate on 5 scenarios for the 2020 NFL season.

 

Scenario 1: The NFL goes on as planned, overcoming the enormous logistical challenges related to Covid-19. The schedule will be released tomorrow and it’s set in stone. Opening day goes on as planned on Thursday, September 10^th with the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs hosting the game. All of the games are played with little or no fans in the stands, but at all of the stadiums we’re used to seeing. It’s very creepy for the first few weeks, but by October everyone is making jokes about it and we’re all used to it. Thanksgiving has the usual 3 games, we get all of our Thursday night football, Monday night football and when the playoffs start, we get a super-sized wild card weekend. The Vikings keep piping in crowd noise, just like back at the old dome.

 

Scenario 2: The NFL is the only game in town, and they get creative. Still no fans, but without any college football going on, the NFL takes over Saturday by the end of September. We get 7 different game slots every single weekend. Football is the only thing that anybody can talk about for months. The NFL is bigger than ever. Without having to worry about fans’ schedules, Goodell calls an audible and they start flexing Monday Night Football games halfway through the season. The 9 different game slots that are now available for Thanksgiving weekend (all watchable games thanks to flex scheduling) results in a bump in the divorce rate. Lawyers are thrilled, network execs are thrilled, and people who aren’t football fans really get sick of all of us. The Vikings keep piping in crowd noise.

 

Scenario 3: The NFL season starts late. This one has already been laid out by the league, stating they could start as late as October 15^th. Bye weeks are eliminated, unmercifully for the players. The week between the championship games and the Super Bowl is eliminated, mercifully for the fans. The Bears and Packers both host games during brutal cold or blizzards during late January or early February. The Super Bowl is played on February 28^th, the latest ever. The Oscars are scheduled for that day and there’s a brief standoff between the movie industry and the NFL. We know who’s going to win that one. NASCAR gets the Daytona 500 interrupted by the second round of the playoffs. Both of the top seeds who had a playoff bye make the Super Bowl because it’s insane to expect a professional football team to play 18 straight weeks without any sort of relief. Maybe teams rest players in smaller groups later in the season, driving fantasy managers insane.

 

Scenario 4: The NFL starts, either on time, or in some sort of delayed fashion, and cannot finish the season. The dreaded second wave of Covid-19 comes and we’re all under stay-at-home orders for the last couple months of the year. Far too many players and support staff contract the virus, and even Jerry Jones hosting the entire NFL inside a bubble in North Texas can’t save football. The season gets postponed at first, causing chaos throughout the fantasy football world. Smart commissioners who hashed out contingency plans before the season started feel vindicated, but all the people in their league complain about the result anyways. Chaos ensues, players hate the owners for making them play in (more) dangerous conditions. Some fans hate the players for refusing to play. Others hate the owners for making them play. The entire situation gets far too political and it turns people off to the NFL for years to come.

 

Scenario 5: There is no NFL season. There is no such thing as social distancing during a football game. Even without fans, it takes a couple hundred people to make a game happen and to broadcast it to the world. Lots of coaches, refs and support staff are older and would be in the at-risk category for complications if they contract Covid-19. How would we ensure everyone is safe? Let’s say, conservatively, each club has 100 people that need to be around each other on a regular basis to make this whole thing run. You also need a TV and officiating crew, as well as local medical personnel, so that’s 250 people per game. How often do you test? Once per week? That’s 80,000+ tests needed just so the NFL, a non-essential business, can get started. What happens when someone gets infected? What happens when a whole team gets it? Will players refuse to play if their opponents have tested positive, even if those people have been quarantined? Putting on the great spectacle that is the NFL is already a huge logistical challenge when there’s not pandemic going around. Completing a full season of 256 games plus 13 more playoff games, and, oh yeah, 64 more preseason games just might be too much to ask for when most of us might not even be able to go to a bar to watch any of these games. The crowd noise at Vikings Stadium finally falls silent.

You just drafted a shiny new team and you’re ready to just let the chalk go and start all the guys you drafted in the top half of the draft. Seems like a good idea, right? After all, you did draft the best team in your league. You did the research. You’re anxious to prove that, despite the lack of preseason, you, Football Nostradamus, know exactly what to do here.

 

Slow down. Just stop. It’s Week 1 and nobody has really been hit yet. This season is going to take some time for all the players to get used to it. So, here’s five players that are going to bust out week 1 and you should keep on your bench until they’re properly warmed up for the season.

 

Le’Veon Bell (NYJ) @ Buffalo – I can’t think of a greater disparity between the talent a player has and the level with which his coach does not want him around for no damn reason. Bell has had a rough time in New York and it’s not going to get any easier this week. When asked about what to expect the first week without real practice, Jeff Fisher said on Slow News Day, “There’s going to be a lot of balls on the ground…It’s hard to hang on to that brown thing.” Fisher is truly the 7-9 of NFL poets. However, he does have a point. My prediction this week is that Le’Veon Bell fumbles twice, is benched, and that Frank Gore will lead the Jets in carries week 1. Keep Bell on your bench and hope that he has better days ahead. Or gets traded. The second one is probably a better option for him.

 

Everyone but Christian McCaffrey and Josh Jacobs in the OAK @ CAR game. I say, with great confidence that these two players will combine for about 60% of the entire offensive output of this game. That leaves little else to be spread throughout the rest of the two teams. The Raiders are stuck with two rookie wideouts and one second-year guy. The Panthers have a brand new QB after riding the backup QB carousel most of the year last year. The featured back for both teams are likely to be used so heavily that production from a third player in this game will likely be a fluke at best. The Panthers gave up the 7^th fewest points to opposing TEs last year, so even Darren Waller is a risky start here. Just start McCaffrey or Jacobs if you have them and refer to your bench if you have anyone else in this game. That’s what they’re there for!

 

Leonard Fournette (TB) @ New Orleans – Going off the board as the #20 RB in half ppr (the new official scoring format of drinkfive.com), one might be fooled into thinking that Fournette is worthy of at least a flex start. Do not fall in to this trap! Fournette is firmly behind both Ronald Jones and LeSean McCoy on the Bucs depth chart. You must wait until Jones blows a protection and gets Brady sacked (now a felony offense in on the gulf coast of Florida) and McCoy reveals that he is not, in fact, Frank Gore, the ageless one. Only then will it be safe to start Fournette. Besides, I’m imagining a game where both teams throw the ball 40+ times in what could easily be the highest scoring game of the week.

 

Will Fuller (HOU) @ Kansas City – Fuller is entering this season, presumably, as the Texans #1 WR. He’s had success on the Texans in fits and starts, even putting up an absurd 50+ points in a game last year. There’s just one problem. Fuller has never taken the field as a pro without Deandre Hopkins also being on the field. This means that he has very rarely received the attention from opposing defenses that he’s about to get this year. The Chiefs gave up the second fewest points to opposing WRs last year. They’re also set to open the season all fired up from their Super Bowl win 7 months ago. If you can, steer clear of Will Fuller this week and let the Texans find their groove in the next couple of weeks, because it’s not happening on Thursday night.

 

Bold Bust of the Week:

 

Derrick Henry (TEN) @ Denver – Derrick Henry is notoriously a slow starter. Until last year, he didn’t crack 26 rushing yards in the first game of the season. He’s never had a game with 100+ rushing yards before week 4. Last year he did have a solid showing, but that was against Cleveland, and they’re, well, the Browns. This year the Titans face the Broncos to put a cap on week 1. The Broncos are suddenly without two of their best pass rushers, which leaves the door open for Ryan Tannehill to follow up his 2019 Comeback Player of the Year award with a big performance. You probably drafted Henry too high to bother listening to me, but keep him out of your daily fantasy lineups and remember that I told you so when he puts up fewer than 10 points in the season opener.

 

 

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.