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Two weeks in the books, and almost 1/3^rd of the pool has been eliminated. Cleveland gave me a little bit of a scare when they trailed the Texans briefly last Sunday. But, we managed to get both picks through again. Seattle and Pittsburgh caused the most casualties last week, with no huge upsets occurring. After watching the Thursday game this week, I think I may have made a strategical error in not locking in a Panthers pick while I could. I stayed away because I'm not a Sam Darnold believer yet. After watching the Panthers offense for the first time this year, I'm not sure I will be able to trust them to win against any opponent other than Houston playing a rookie backup QB.

The Denver Broncos are my top pick this week. After starting the first two weeks on the road against a couple of tomato cans they return for their home opener to face the hapless Jets. That Denver crowd should be fired up and loud after a 2-0 start and that defense will cause fits for rookie Zach Wilson. Teddy Bridgewater should have another good game as well against a week Jets secondary.

I like the Broncos so much I almost wanted to use them for both picks. But alas strange things can happen in the NFL, so I want to spread out my eggs a little bit. My second pick for the week is the Arizona Cardinals. After narrowly escaping the Vikings last week on a missed field goal at the end of the game the Cardinals travel to Jacksonville to feast on the winless Jags. The undefeated Cardinals are just too powerful on offense for Trevor Lawrence and the Jaguars to hang.

Lots of good games this weekend should make for a fun Sunday!

Cheers! Drink Five!

            ENTRY #1                               ENTRY #2

            RAMS                                      BUCCANEERS

            BUCCANEERS                       BROWNS

            BRONCOS                              CARDINALS

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.

42 Offensive Plays

The Cincinnati Bengals had only 42 plays (excluding 4^th down) on offense against the Steelers on Sunday and showed me that perhaps quantity isn’t everything. On last week’s podcast, I stressed that the Bengals just need to throw the ball a lot more in order to get their offense going. After all, their strength is really in the receiving core they have built. So, Joe Burrow throwing 18 passes is not what I would have considered a ticket to victory. It would appear, however, that efficiency is everything. Burrow’s final stat line of 14/18 for 172 yards and 3 TDs (and 1 INT) was plenty for victory, compared to Ben Roethlisberger going 38/58 for 318 yards, 1 TD and 2 INT. That’s right, Ben threw the ball an astonishing 40 times more than his opponent. Hell, he targeted Najee Harris 19 times – that’s more than Burrow’s total attempts! So, I still think that the Bengals need to throw the ball in order to have success this year – and I’m sort of backed up in the stats with 3 TDs through the air, but I certainly got a big lesson in how important it is to be efficient on the football field.

66 Yard Field Goal

Usually, kickers are buried at the bottom of my column, but this week they certainly deserve a more prominent position. First of all, congrats to Justin Tucker, who finally broke the NFL record for the longest made field goal at 66 yards. As the best kicker in history, (sorry, Adam Vinatieri), it feels like it was only inevitable that Tucker would eventually break this record – it was just a matter of being given a chance. Jacksonville taught us all a lesson this week about why you don’t necessarily attempt field goals that long. At the end of the first half on Sunday, Matt Prater lined up to attempt a 68-yard field goal, which fell short and was returned 109 yards by Jamal Agnew of the Jags for a touchdown as time expired in the half. Apparently, it’s really hard to stop a guy on a return when you have a kicker, a holder, and 9 linemen on the field – rather than your normal kicking team. Agnew wasn’t touched once he crossed his own 40-yard line. It was an eventful day for kickers across the league. 10 kickers finished with 10+ fantasy points, and we were treated to a night cap of Mason Crosby kicking a 51-yard field goal to cap yet another Aaron Rodgers comeback.

7 Players with Rush Attempts

The San Fransisco 49ers are currently on the hunt for a starting RB. Trey Sermon was the starter in name last night, and did receive 10 carries, but that wasn’t even quite half of the 21 carries attempted by the team in the game. Six other players carried the ball for the 49ers, none of them doing so very effectively. Overall, the team had 21 carries for 67 yards, good for just 3.2 ypc. At least they did find the end zone twice. The 49ers need a featured back to make their offense run correctly, and they have been decimated by injury this year, so unless someone can step up into the role, it’s going to be a long year in San Fransisco. Hell, they had more players attempt a rush than catch a pass. I’m not sure the last time that happened, but it feels like some 1940’s football right there. The Packers had the opposite true – targeting 9 different players (technically…) while only two players had rushing attempts. That technicality? Well, I’m sure that Aaron Rodgers didn’t mean to target himself when he caught a pass off a deflection for 4 yards.

47 Total Yards

The Bears offense reached new lows on Sunday against a Cleveland Browns defense that feasted on rookie QB Justin Fields. The Bears total yardage – basically a net total, gains minus losses, was 47 for the entire team. Fields had 68 total passing yards, and lost 67 yards over the course of the 9 sacks that he had. No player on the Bears had more than 2 receptions. The Browns were able to run the ball 42 times, while the Bears attempted a combined 33 passes and rushes. Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt both outgained the Bears with their rushing yardage totals, and then Hunt did it again through the air with 74 more yards. Odell Beckham Jr. returned to the lineup, and also outgained the entire Chicago offense. Throughout the league, we had a number of plays that outgained the entire Bears offense on a single snap of the ball. Justin Tucker’s 66-yard record breaking FG, Mason Crosby’s game winning FG (51 yards), Antonio Gibson’s 73-yard touchdown reception, Jamal Angew’s 109-yard return TD, and many other field goals and other big plays. The point I’m trying to make here is that the Bears gained just 47 more yards of offense than I did on Sunday, and I barely left the couch.

12 QBs over 20 Fantasy Points

Time for a quick QB roundup. Josh Allen led the way this week, scoring 5 total touchdowns in the second straight game where his team put up 35+ points on their opponent – this time it was on the Washington defense that was very respected last year. Speaking of Football Teams, capital F, capital T, Taylor Heinicke just put up his second straight game above 20 fantasy points. It’s looking like he could take the starting job for the entire season, and he’s only owned in 27% of Fleaflicker leagues, so hit that wire! Landing just outside this top 12 was Kyler Murray, putting up just 19.54 points in Jacksonville – though he still keeps the season lead among all QBs with 89.2 fantasy points through three games. Justin Herbert finally has a signature win in his young career, and had a huge fantasy day. Leading a late TD drive, Herbert put up 4 total TDs and broke the 30-point mark. Elsewhere at QB, Sam Darnold is averaging 21.6 ppg, Aaron Rodgers is averaging 16.22 points per game, and Tom Brady has 4 carries for 20 yards. Nice.

Entering into week 4 and I want to change things up a bit. Moving forward, I am going to do a quick early week preview for some of the games I am liking early that week. Thursday night I will put my official drinkfive.com picks out. The goal is to dive a bit deeper each week into the strategies and trends I use to make my bets. I will also give plays or leans I have on each of these games outside of the official picks later in the week.

Last week we went 2-1 bringing our season record to a profitable 6-3 so far. Contrarian bettors have been on fire to start the season! Through the first 3 weeks, dogs are 30-18 ATS (62.5%) with away dogs seeing the best profitability at 19-10 ATS (65.52%). Unders have also been incredibly profitable with a 28-20 record to the under (58.3%). It’s a great start to the year, but if blindly following dogs and unders was all it took then we’d all be rich. I expect some regression at some point as the books get sharper with their lines and adjust. In the meantime, we stick to our contrarian roots to take advantage of extra value, but we also check off trends, systems, line movement, and any other edge we can find to make the best bet!

Note:  The spread number will always reflect based on the home team and does not represent my pick or play.

Jacksonville at Cincinnati -7.5 O/U 46:

The 2-1 Bengals host the 0-3 Jaguars in the week 4 Thursday Night matchup. This line opened at 7.5 and has pretty much stayed put since. The Bengals are getting 75% of the bets and 77% of the money and despite that lopsided betting we have yet to see major line movement. The lack of line movement is a classic line freeze, especially with the lopsidedness in betting, however this is a game I am not getting involved in from a spread perspective. The pros are all over Jacksonville and they have to be because 7.5 is a big number for any team in the NFL so it’s purely the value play. 

I do have this game in 4 separate teasers where I have Cincinnati teased down to -1.5. I also have a 1 unit bet on the under in this game as well. I got this at 46.5. The line opened at 47 and was bet down to 46.5 immediately, since then it has bounced around between 46.5 and 45.5. Bets and money are all favoring the over, but we see a dip in the line signaling reverse line movement. I am usually a fan of Thursday Night unders anyway because teams have less time to prepare, less time to heal up, and in general are off their normal routine.

Detroit at Chicago -3 O/U 42.5:

The early line opened Detroit +6 before being bet down to +3.5 by Sunday night. I am kicking myself for not jumping on this one early!  Detroit is taking the bets (78%) and the money (94%) early in the week which is what has led to the continued drop in the line. I even see a couple of 2.5’s on the board as of writing this. This is a divisional game and with that comes a built-in familiarity between the teams. The first goal for every NFL team is to win their division, so regardless of personnel or coaching changes these teams are built to compete with the teams in the division. This is usually something I feel I can take advantage of with divisional game underdogs. The bottom line in this one comes down to the very simple fact that Detroit is better coached. The Bears are at home, and they are coming off of an embarrassing loss, and we don’t know who the QB will be yet so I am laying off until later in the week.

I lean Detroit on this one at anything +3 or better. While they are 0-3 this season they have shown more than I think most of us expected to see this season. I think Matt Nagy has lost the locker room, while Detroit continues to fight hard in some tough early season games. This is a game I can see Detroit winning outright so I am also going to track the ML odds and sprinkle a little on it when I feel like I am getting my best value.

Cleveland at Minnesota +2 O/U 52:

This game is similar to the Carolina Dallas game in terms of my excitement level to bet it this week. This line opened with Cleveland favored at -1 and has since been bet up to 2, and even some 2.5’s. Cleveland has 70% of the bets and 90% of the money. To me this is purely a week 3 overreaction to Cleveland handling a very bad Chicago team and having the better record. Minnesota’s losses are to the Cardinals and the Bengals, both teams have winning records early in this season, and I do not think the Vikings are getting credit yet for how good those teams may be this season. The value here is too good to pass up; this game should be closer to a pick’em. If you want to feel better about this bet, throw Minnesota into a teaser bet and stretch that number across TWO key numbers in 3 and 7!

As I was writing this I grabbed Minnesota +2.5 because I don’t see any chance that the books move to this to 3 at any point this week. I also have Minnesota in a couple of teaser plays.

Kansas City at Philadelphia +7 O/U 54.5:

This one stinks, but this is a great example of how overreaction can create inflated value. The line on this game opened at 6.5 Sunday afternoon and bet down to 5.5 by Sunday night after the Chiefs lost, then hovered around 6 for most of Monday before jumping to 7 and 7.5 after the Eagles poor performance on Monday Night Football. The betting is predictably lopsided with KC grabbing 87% of the tickets and 98% of the money. I have a feeling a big part of the money coming in is in the form of teasers on KC. I have also teased the Chiefs down to 1.5-point favorites. I just don’t see a world where Mahomes loses 3 games in a row, not yet anyway. That being said, the Chiefs inability to cover the spread, slow start, and a big number on this game has me leaning Eagles early in the week. It’s a disgusting play, I know. 

Right now, this is only a lean to the Eagles and I would need to get it at 7.5 at least. I do have the Chiefs -1.5 in a couple of teasers already locked in. I have no love or opinion for the total in this one.

Carolina at Dallas -4.5 O/U 50.5:

Both the Panthers and the Cowboys remain undefeated ATS through the first 3 weeks of the season. Only one of them, barring a push, will leave week 4 remaining undefeated. This has been a crazy line to track and follow early in the week after opening early Sunday at 4 and jumping to 5.5 by Sunday night. The line has continued to bounce between 4 and 5 since. Bets are split 50/50, but the money is favoring Dallas with 67%. Typically, early week money is something that signals sharp action, which would be in favor of Dallas at this point. I am not making a play on this game yet, but I am heavily leaning Carolina in this game. Dallas is coming off a huge win on Monday Night Football against a division rival and is prime for a let down spot. Carolina has had extra rest and prep time, playing in last weeks Thursday night game, and have the top ranked defense in DVOA.

This number has been bouncing and if it gets back to 5 I may jump on it regardless of the day of the week. Dallas always draws heavy public action, plus they are coming off of the big prime time win where everyone saw them play. Right now, this is Carolina or no play for me. I also like the under in this game. It has been bet up from 48.5 to 50.5 and the bets and money are on the over, however I think this is inflated and I am looking to catch the high number before it dips back down again. No plays made yet, but this is a great betting game for week 4!

Seattle at San Francisco -3 O/U 52.5:

Both the Seahawks and the 49ers are coming off of a loss to NFC North teams and now face a division rival. You will come to know this about me, but I key into division matchup games immediately and I love division dogs! In this case especially we have a short division dog with a spread of 3 or less. This line opened at 3.5 and fell through the 3 to 2.5 Monday morning before settling at 3 (-115). Seattle is 1-2 while the 49ers are 2-1, which makes Seattle the more desperate team in this matchup. Russell Wilson is covering 65% of the time as a road dog in his last 33 games. Meanwhile, Shanahan is awful as a favorite going 8-19-1 (30%) in his last 28. If trends aren’t your thing, and you don’t like picking the highly bet (70% bets) and highly bought (78% of money) Seattle team, then consider the X and O’s; the 49ers run a man to man defensive scheme that is prime for Russ, Lockett, and Metcalf to pick apart.

I have a half unit bet on Seattle +3 -115 already in play. We will see what happens later in the week and if the opportunity presents itself to put the other half on them at +3 or better I will pull that trigger. This is a high total, but I see a high scoring game, I am just not sure if I can bet either way on this one confidently this early in the week.

Baltimore at Denver +1 O/U44.5:

It feels wrong to end with my last two picks being the “square” picks in terms of early week ticket and money count. Baltimore has seen 82% of bets and 88% of money since opening up at 1.5-point dogs on the road against the Broncos. I know Baltimore barely beat the Lions, if not for a record setting field goal by Justin Tucker, and the Broncos are 3-0, but let’s look at who these teams have each played. Baltimore lost in OT to the undefeated Las Vegas Raiders, beat the Kansas City Chiefs and Detroit Lions, as previously mentioned. Denver has played the Giants, Jaguars, and Jets who are a combined 0-9 to start the season. I am far more willing to give the Ravens the benefit of the doubt for looking past the Lions after a huge win against a conference rival in week 2. Denver, on the other hand, doesn’t have anything near a signature win. The wrong team is favored and I would not be surprised to see this line close at a PK. 

This was my favorite bet early this week. I am on Baltimore +1.5, Baltimore +110 ML and I have them in a teaser play at +7 crossing the key number of 3 and landing on the key number of 7.

It's hard to believe that we're approaching the end of the first month of the NFL season already. We finally have enough games completed to start to pick up on player trends around the league. For now, I'm focused on Quarterbacks and Running Backs, but we will go over all the positions on tonight's podcast. Trending players will have a three-week fantasy performance that is either going up or going down, and we'll examine why that's the case and what we expect out of that player going forward.

Quarterbacks

Sam Darnold (Week 1: 19.06, Week 2: 20.50, Week 3: 25.26) - Darnold has the Panthers rolling with a 3-0 start. He’s only thrown 1 INT so far, and found the end zone three times on the ground, which is always something that you like to see from your fantasy QB. He’s also throwing the ball a decent amount, averaging just over 35 attempts per game with 24 completions per game. Darnold has not played the toughest competition so far, but has plenty of easy matchups coming up with games against PHI, NYG, and ATL all coming up well before his bye week. If you’re streaming QBs, you should love the floor that the QB12 on the season can give you. If you’re in a super flex league, then Darnold is easily an every week starter. Carolina’s strong rushing attack has helped him tremendously. His advanced passing stats are far better this year than they have been in his career.

Justin Herbert (Week 1: 14.38, Week 2: 16.72, Week 3: 30.84) - Herbert had a very slow start to the season after finishing last year as the ROY. He seemed unable to get the Chargers offense going in the first two weeks, scoring only 37 points on offense total. Last week he redeemed himself with 4 touchdowns through the air, one of which was on a game winning 4th quarter drive in their victory over the Chiefs. Herbert is owned in 90% of Fleaflicker leagues, meaning he’s not going to be on the streaming radar. If you drafted him, the urge to push the panic button should be subsiding. Herbert currently sits as the QB13 through three games, but you can safely expect him to finish well inside the top 10 by the end of the season with more performances like he turned in against the Chiefs.

Jared Goff (Week 1: 29.92, Week 2: 19.44, Week 3: 9.08) - Goff has displayed a classic downward trend for the first three weeks of the season. He started off very hot statistically in his first game, getting lots of garbage time points, finishing as the QB3 in Week 1 and providing some hope for Lions fans. But as all good Lions fans know, their hopes were dashed very quickly as the Lions lost the next two games as well. Goff has trended down in completions, attempts, and yardage in each subsequent game, even with plenty of garbage time opportunities in Week 2. While he hasn’t played particularly badly, it’s clear that there just isn’t much talent around him to support big games outside of some fluky garbage time stuff. Goff remains on the streaming radar, but only in great matchups. His floor is probably too low to rely on him and you certainly cannot rely on garbage time points.

Running Backs

Najee Harris (Week 1: 5.40, Week 2: 16.60, Week 3: 21.20) - This one’s for Dave. OK, not really, but I think he likes it when we talk about Steelers players. So, Harris is a rookie, so a slow start was probably to be expected. What I did not expect to see what a stat line like he had last week when he had 14 carries and 19 targets (14 receptions). Harris is lined up to be a PPR monster with action like that. He ramped up from 1 to 5 to 14 receptions, so while you can’t expect numbers like 14 receptions every week, you can assume that he is going to have a relatively high receiving floor. Harris is being used on every down, and with lots of injuries to the receiving corps, it looks like the offense will run through him. There are very few every-down backs in the NFL, and Harris was taken in fantasy drafts with the potential he could be one of those in mind. It looks like everything is going as planned for the Steelers rookie.

David Montgomery (Week 1: 18.30, Week 2: 9.40, Week 3: 6.50) - Montgomery started out the season strong, gaining 108 yards on just 16 carries against the Rams defense, but has really fallen off a cliff along with the rest of the Bears offense since then. On the season, Montgomery is now averaging just 2.0 receptions per game, down from 3.6 last season. His rushing attempts and yards per game are also down from last year. What worries me most is that the Bears appear to have an anemic offense at best and might struggle to move the ball early in games, thus turning them one-dimensional late in games.Until the Bears figure out what they want to do at QB, whether it’s running out a game manager, or developing Justin Fields, Montgomery will be a touchdown dependent RB2/3 with a relatively low floor for a guy that is going to still see a high percentage of snaps.

Ezekiel Elliott (Week 1: 4.90, Week 2: 16.70, Week 3: 25.10) - Zeke has trended up in many stat categories, so he’s the perfect example for this segment. His carries have gone 11, 16, 17. His yardage is 33, 71, 95 and his TDs have gone 0, 1, 2. Zeke was obviously a first round pick and is being started regardless of his slow start, but it’s nice to see that he’s ramped his production up nicely and while Tony Pollard is going to get his share of touches, Zeke is still the primary back and will be in line for 15-20 touches on average every game. The only thing that worries me about Zeke is that the Cowboys have a tendency to go pass-heavy in some games, as evidenced in week 1, thus leaving Zeke with a very low floor for a premier RB. If he was more involved in the passing offense, I would be fine with any game script that the Cowboys are presented with. Unfortunately so far this year, he has 2.3 receptions per game, down from 3.5 just a year ago, and way down from his career high of 5.1 in 2018 when he led the league in touches. 51 touches through 3 games is not what you drafted Zeke for, so you’re going to have to hope he does a lot with the touches he does get.