I am a co-founder and the editor of drinkfive.com. In order to stave off fantasy football insanity, Dave and I have branched out to cover a variety of interests. When I'm not knee deep in wikipedia pages, I like to hang out at breweries or a disc golf course (especially both in the same day). FSWA Member for 5+ years.
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.
11/11, 5 TD in the Red Zone
Thursday night's game provided us with tons of big numbers (thank you Gurley, Watkins, Hyde, Garcon) but the most impressive numbers that I saw are Jared Goff's red zone passing stats. Through three games, he's a perfect 11/11 passing in the red zone for 82 yards and 5 touchdowns. The Rams barely eeked out a win in San Francisco, but they're now 2-1 behind impressive performances from lots of young players, not to mention the head coach. Goff has already matched his TD total from last season, but only in 3 games instead of 7. With just one pick on the year, he's looking like one of the most improved rookies from last year, and the Rams are in a good position in a very winnable division.
2 Pick Sixes...in 10 Years!
Aaron Rodgers threw only his second pick six of his career on Sunday (thanks, pro-football reference.com for confirming and being generally awesome). Now in his 10th year of being the starter in Green Bay, Rodgers has always been known for throwing very few interceptions. Let's just put this stat into perspective, shall we? In today's game of lots of passing, Jameis Winston has three to his name. Derek Carr has 4 and Blake Bortles already has 11. All of these guys started playing in 2014 or later, which was 5 years after Rodgers threw his first pick-six. Brees, Palmer, Rivers and Manning all lead the active players with more than 20 each in their career. Of course, the king of the pick six is Rodger's predecessor, who threw 31 in his career.
24 Players Scored More than 20 Points
This was a fantastic weekend for football, and it really felt like big fantasy points were back too. 24 players scored at least 20 points in standard scoring. Granted, there were some outliers like Marcedes Lewis and a bunch of QB's that are owned in less than 10% of Yahoo leagues. I'm talking about guys like Russell Wilson, Brandin Cooks, Jordan Howard and T.Y. Hilton, who were all drafted high and finally delivered with big points this season. This week's 58:30 TD:INT ratio also was a great way to get unstuck from the muck that was Weeks 1 & 2. Even Odell Beckham Jr. got going, and got weird. He could have even joined this group if he had 1 more yard.
3 Receiving Touchdowns
Marcedes Lewis, you know, the guy who's been on the Jaguars since George W. Bush was in Office, caught 3 touchdowns Sunday morning (afternoon?) in London. This equals his total since the 2014 season started and is now about 10% of his career total. These aren't metric touchdowns either, they count for 6 points no matter how many meters or yards the touchdown actually is. On the other side, the Ravens #1 expert consensus ranked D/ST did what can only be described as crapping the bed. They managed zero sacks, picks and fumbles on their way to a -4 point fantasy finish. Blake Bortles sends his regards.
2.2 Points Per Touch
Here at drinkfive.com, we think that considering a player's potential starts with just how many points they can score when they touch the ball. A good player approaches 1.0. A great player averages just over than for their career. This season, still young, has Chris Thompson up to 2.2 points per touch. He has 350 yards from scrimmage on 27 total touches with 4 touchdowns. He's also racking up the long plays this year, with a long run of 61 yards and a long reception of 74 yards. I don't expect Thompson's touches to go up astronomically, but he could see an increase to maybe 12 per game, from the 9 he's currently getting. At his pace, that's like him scoring another touchdown. Last week was the time to pick him up in most leagues, but still look to see if he's in yours!
Bonus stat:
61 Yards
I like to pick on kickers from time to time in this column. I also like to give them props, when appropriate (but not as much as I like picking on them). But I digress, congrats to rookie kicker Jake Elliott who kicked two field goals in the last minute of the game, one to tie and one to take the lead. They were from 46 to tie and an incredible 61 yards for the win. Bravo young man, you no longer need to buy drinks in Philly, as long as you don't miss next week.
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.
0 Interceptions
For only the second time in his career, Jay Cutler did not thrown an INT in his opening game. This means that next week will be the first time that Cutler takes a snap in Week 3 of an NFL season and doesn't have an INT to his name. OK, fine, this might be a way to pick on Smokin' Jay, but I must tip my cap to him and the Dolphins for winning on the road after the surprise Week 1 bye. 230 yards and 1 TD isn't going to blow anyone's socks off, but as I noticed during the game, it's still the same old Cutler. He's still throwing off his back foot, airing it out and getting lucky as hell from time to time. It's nice having tall receivers.
25% Field Goal Percentage
The Chargers new kicker, YoungHoe Koo doesn't even have a success rate that would keep you employed in baseball. The rookie kicker is just 1-for-4 in field goal attempts this season. He's missed or had blocked two at the end of games that would have either tied or give his team the lead with time running out. Both are only from 44 yards away, and his other miss is from 43. His only make has come from 41 yards, and to his credit, he has made 5/5 extra points. Making all your extra points is getting hard to come by in this league. It must be rough being a Chargers fan now. On top of playing in a tiny stadium that people are making fun of, having an owner people poke fun at, you now have to worry about kicking problems on your 0-2 team (which has just a 12% shot at making the playoffs, historically).
20+ Fantasy Points
This week felt a lot more like a normal week of fantasy football. There were 12 players that scored at least 20 points in standard scoring this week, and 9 of them are owned in at least 96% of Yahoo leagues. So, I guess go pick up C.J. Anderson if your league has been asleep? Lots of big names went back to their normal productive selves, but a few new names might stick around a bit. Trevor Siemian leads the league in passing TD's and has the most fantasy points for QB's (second overall). He's only owned by 13% of leagues right now! The Broncos look good at home, but I want to see a them on the road before inserting Siemian in my lineup. It is, however, the right time to pick him up off the waiver wire.
0.1 Fantasy Points
In our drinkfive.com fantasy league, my opponent had her TE break his foot, and he still scored 10x the points that my TE scored. Greg Olsen's 1 point was an order of magnitude larger than Jimmy Graham's 0.1 points. The tight end position is about to get a lot thinner as two of the main starters are looking like they aren't options going forward. Olsen's broken foot definitely leaves him out of your lineup, and Graham has some knee issues and is playing on Thursday night this week. It's time to scour the waiver wire for a new TE, thankfully, there are actually several options out there for you.
14 Seconds
At the end of the first half in the Patriots-Saints game, Tom Brady was tackled with just 14 seconds to go and no time-outs. Bad clock management some of you may say? Not from Belichick; he got his team ready for this. The field goal unit scrambled onto the field and snapped the ball with 2 seconds to spare and gave the Pats a 30-13 lead going into halftime. The poise and calmness that this all happened with made it seem like they planned on just this exact situation coming up on this very drive. It makes you wonder if Belichick told the special teams that they're not allowed to have timeouts anymore, and if they screw it up, they don't get to eat on Thursdays.
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.
239 Yards from Scrimmage
Kareem Hunt had a hell of a game on Thursday night, after an inauspicious start to the game. Thankfully, Andy Reid stuck with his rookie and he broke the record for the most yards in a debut game since the merger in 1970. Hunt's performance included 3 touchdowns and landed him the top fantasy points spot in Week 1. His teammate Alex Smith finished second, putting up a very un-Alex Smith like 368 yards and 4 TD. Both players are the only ones to score above 30 points in both standard and PPR formats, topping a rather pedestrian fantasy football Sunday to start the season.
2 of the top 10 ADP
Only two of the top 10 ADP players scored in double digits yesterday. Antonio Brown put up 18.2 points, followed by LeSean McCoy with 15.9. Granted, two of the top 10, Ajayi and Evans, were on that always fun Week 1 bye, but a lot of big names really struggled. Bell & Johnson had all of 55 yards on 21 carries between the two of them. Maybe Melvin Gordon can save this group tonight with a good performance, but really, the fantasy stars of this past week were mostly not the guys who we expected.
4 of the top 15 Point Scorers
Rookies have four of the top 15 point totals so far this week in fantasy. Lead by Hunt, we also saw DeShone Kizer, Kenny Golladay and Leonard Fournette turn in big fantasy performances. While I don't know what to expect long term from the Browns QB, I do expect the other three guys to be impact fantasy players all year long. Other rookies making big contributions to their team were Cooper Kupp, Christian McCaffrey and Tarik Cohen. The league is always getting younger, your fantasy team should reflect that. Don't get stuck using veterans all the time.
29:23 TD to INT Ratio
I'm sorry that I don't have a better theme than "lackluster" for the first week of the NFL season. So far, NFL passers have a pitiful 29:23 touchdown to interception ratio. This pales in comparison to the past two opening weekends, which were 48:19 in 2016 and 50:31 in 2015. We're down nearly 20 touchdowns to last year's opening count, so maybe Drew Brees and Philip Rivers can help close that gap. I don't expect that Sam Bradford and Trevor Siemian will contribute much to that department, but hey, it's been a strange Week 1.
31 Years Old
31 Years Old? What is this, some RB playing beyond his years? A WR that refuses to slow down? Nope, it's the Rams new coach, Sean McVay, the youngest coach in NFL history. McVay's Rams had, hands down, the most dominant victory of the day, beating the Colts 46-9. There were a lot of encouraging fantasy players in this game. Jared Goff got his first 300 yard game, Cooper Kupp had 4 receptions and a TD and Todd Gurley had 24 touches and also found the end zone. The Rams defense may be the bright spot, even without Aaron Donald playing this week. Even more credit goes to McVay, who helped orchestrate the return of Donald to the team after his holdout. With him in the lineup next week, the Redskins are going to have a very long day.
The final preseason games of any meaning claimed three more fantasy starters over the weekend. On Friday night, Julian Edelman and Spencer Ware both went down with knee injuries. Then, on Sunday, just as the Bears offense looked like it was really clicking, the Bears WR1 Cameron Meredith destroyed his knee.
Your draft may have already happened, or maybe it's coming up. Either way, you need to look to these fast rising replacements to keep your fantasy team stocked up before the season starts.
Danny Amendola & Chris Hogan - With Julian Edelman going down, the Patriots have a huge hole to fill, even with the offseason acquisition of Brandon Cooks. Danny Amendola might be the most likely to fill the slot role that Edelman was in, and comes with a very cheap price tag right now.
Amendola, ADP WR64, is currently going after Hogan, ADP WR53. I expect both to shoot up the ADP list by this time next week, so scoop them up before the final rounds of your draft if these are the guys you want.
Kareem Hunt - Rocketing up the ADP chart, Hunt may be a rookie, but he's going to have a very large role in the Chief's offense right away. Spencer Ware was already giving up carries to Hunt before his knee injury. Now, according to Coach Andy Reed, Hunt will be the "featured back".
This is great news for anyone who can get their hands on Hunt. He is unlikely to have to share many carries with Charcandrick West and C.J. Spiller. Hunt's current ADP is RB28, but is certainly now an RB2 with lots of potential RB1 upside. He will need to be drafted the first half of the draft now, as his stock is rising sharply.
Kevin White, Kendall Wright & Victor Cruz - Replacing the Bears' breakout WR from 2016, Cameron Meredith, will be a tough job from a WR core that's rather lacking. One of these guys will rise to the top and be startable throughout the season. Right now, Kevin White is the only guy even being drafted, and he certainly seems to have the inside track.
With White's ADP sitting at RB63, I would recommend Amendola over him. I do suggest a flyer, however, on Kendall Wright. He has shown some great flashes at camp and in the third preseason game, all three of his receptions were third-down conversions. If he winds up being the go-to guy, he will be a great PPR play every week. He can currently be had at the end of the draft, or perhaps off your waiver wire.