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Trades…vaccination issues…felony car crashes…MVP’s lost for the season…teams telling stars to just go home…don’t you just hate how boring the week can be before we get to the next Sunday?

Well let’s try to get some for excitement back and get going with these picks!

Week 9 – HERE WE GO!!!!

(HOME TEAM IN CAPS)

14 – DALLAS over Denver – Much to the dismay of, well, basically everyone outside of Dallas, it seem like this Cowboys team is legit.

13 – Buffalo over JACKSONVILLE – An obvious candidate for our top line this week, but its hard to 100% trust a road team.

12 – NEW ORLEANS over Atlanta – Sure there are QB questions in New Orleans now, but there are way more issues in Atlanta right now.

11 – KANSAS CITY over Green Bay – Obviously there is one big factor to think of when picking this game…game time temp…right?

10 – LOS ANGELES RAMS over Tennessee – A prime time game against one of the best looking teams in the league is not the best time to lose your MVP running back.

9 – PITTSBURGH over Chicago – The Steelers showed that they won’t just be rolling over and dying this season last week – not good news for a struggling Bears team.

8 – INDIANAPOLIS over New York Jets – It’s really hard to think that the Jets can run on Mike White’s magic again.

7 – CINCINNATI over Cleveland – The Browns just seem to have too much locker room drama to win in Cincy.

6 – BALTIMORE over Minnesota –  I’ve been on the Viking bandwagon most of the season…losing to Cooper Rush is a quick way for me to jump off.

5 – MIAMI over Houston – With all the trade rumors behind him, I see a big day for the current Miami quarterback. My BOLD PREDICTION for this week is that TUA WILL FINISH WITH OVER 400 PASSIG YARDS.

4 – Las Vegas over NEW YORK GIANTS – Welp, the Raiders won their last “after a rough week” game following the Gruden following, playing the Giants is a reason to think they can do it again.

3 – New England over CAROLINA – If Christian McCaffrey ends up playing, feel free to flip this one to a Carolina win.

2 – PHILADELPHIA over Los Angeles Chargers – Last week gave me reason to pump some breaks on the Chargers being an elite team.

1 – SAN FRANCISCO over Arizona – It sounds like injuries are catching up to the Cardinals. 

The last two weeks have gone just how I like it. My picks have won in blowout fashion and given me supreme confidence in my picking abilities. After the first quarter Houston was ahead 2-0 and I had to double take that I wasn't seeing the MLB playoff scores, but then Arizona scored 17 in the 2nd and never looked back.

This week's pick should be another slam dunk. I was considering a few different teams I like this week but when I heard the Jets were trading for Joe Flacco, I knew my choice was made. The Cincinnati Bengals will wipe the floor with Jets starting QB Mike White. Maybe there could be a slight let down after the beating Cincinnati put on the Ravens last week, but the talent gap is too large to lose to a guy getting his first start. Burrow and Chase have been probably the most exciting WR/QB duo going this season. I expect an easy Bengals win and cover of the 10.5 point spread and seeing that I am writing this from fabulous Las Vegas, I will be putting my money where my mouth is.

Cheers! Drink Five!

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 Pass Completions

Jets QB Mike White set an NFL record with 37 pass completions in his very first start, but the fun numbers from the game did not stop there. White set the second-highest yardage total in a first start with 406, which was good for the most yardage so far in Week 8. White posted the highest yardage total for a Jets QB since Vinny Testaverde in 2000. White finished the Week as the QB2 in fantasy, the best of the QBs who are not owned in many leagues in a week dominated by guys like that. 5 of the top 10 QBs this week, so far, are not rostered on any team in the drinkfive.com league and have an average ownership rate of just under 30% in Fleaflicker leagues. White has certainly earned himself a chance to start another week or two, and may even find himself as the permanent starter if he continues to play at a high level like this. It’s really a tough break for all of us who said “Mike White? Who the hell is that?” and proceeded to pick the Bengals in our survivor pools.

331 Yards Per Game

Tom Brady, at age 44, is currently dominating in many statistical passing categories. He currently leads the league in completions, pass attempts, passing yards, and passing touchdowns. He is the QB1 on the season with 206.9 total fantasy points in just 8 games. Only Josh Allen has a higher PPG average than Brady, but sits as the QB2 due to bye weeks. Allen isn’t really putting up the passing numbers that Brady is either, with Allen’s fantasy points bolstered by 269 rushing yards and 3 rushing TDs. But, back to Brady, who put up another ho-hum performance yesterday of 375 passing yards and 4 touchdowns. Heck, he even threw a touchdown to the wrong team yesterday, which is the only thing that keeps him from passing the aforementioned Mike White as the QB2 for the week. Brady’s huge offensive output has kept 3 of his WRs as regular starts, when healthy. Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, and Antonio Brown are all in the top 22 WRs by total fantasy points. If you look at them on a points per game basis, they are all ranked in the top 19.

137 Rush Yards

Elijah Mitchell is the only running back so far in Week 8 to have surpassed the 100 rushing yard mark. In an era where the traditional running back role seems to be disappearing week by week – and we lost our #1 boy this week, perhaps for the season – it’s increasingly rare to find someone top 100 yards rushing. This doesn’t mean that RBs are necessarily going away, they just get their points in a variety of ways. This week, 23 RBs had at least 10 points or more, so there’s plenty of good players out there still, but it’s so clear that this is a passing league now. 8 wide receivers passed the century mark on Sunday (no RBs or TEs joined them with 100+ receiving yards). Speaking of passers – the only other player with 100+ rushing yards this week is Justin Fields, who had 103 yards in a losing effort against Mitchell’s 49ers. Perhaps it’s fitting that the last bastion of 100-yard rushers is Soldier Field, for this week anyway.

4 WRs with 10+ Receptions

Illustrating my point about this being a passing-dominated league, which I suppose I seem to make at least a couple of times per year, is the fact that this week had the most players with 10+ catches of any this year. This week, we saw Tyler Lockett, Cole Beasley, A.J. Brown, and Michael Pittman all catch at least 4 passes. All but Pittman went over 100 yards as well, but Pittman managed to find the end zone twice, so we’ll still give him an A+ for his fantasy day. There were 3 weeks with 3 WRs at 10+ receptions, and 3 weeks with just 1 WR with 10+ receptions. Even with the 17^th game added this season, the season-long receptions record, set by Michael Thomas in 2019, seems perfectly safe. Currently, Cooper Kupp leads the league in receptions and is only on pace for about 133 receptions on the year, good for just 5^th on the all-time list. Also, an honorable mention must go to T.J. Hockenson, the only non-WR to crack the 10 receptions mark this week. In fact, kudos to Hockenson, who has currently the TE1 on the week without even finding the end zone.

38.7 Receiving Yards Per Game

Odell Beckham Jr. has really fallen from the heights of the top WRs in the league. With just 38.7 yards per game, he is a long way from his 80.3 career average (it was 83.3 going into this season). In Odell’s rookie year, he led the league with 108.8 yards per game, and he posted double-digit TDs in each of his first 3 seasons. He now has just a 50% catch rate on the year (61% going into the season). He posted a season-low 1.1 fantasy points this week, his 4^th game of the year where he is below just 5 points. Odell is not alone, however. Allen Robinson has had an equally disappointing fantasy season. Since week 1, he has not topped 4 receptions in a game, and in 2021, he has not broken into double-digit fantasy points once. He is at less than half his yards per game, 33.9, than he had in his first 3 seasons in Chicago, 70.0. Robinson is the WR63 for the season, a truly terrible mark for someone who has not missed a game this year.