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. All fantasy stats are standard Yahoo scoring unless otherwise noted.
2 TDs in 21 Seconds
Derrick Henry sure loves to play against the Jaguars. In 8 career games against them, his team is 6-2, and he has 857 yards from scrimmage and 10 total touchdowns. He especially loves to play against them at home – he has 397 rush yards and 6 TDs in the last 2 Jaguars/Titans games in Nashville. On Sunday, he even was able to score 2 TDs in just a 21 second span, accounting for 100% of the Titans offense on two consecutive drives. With 10:51 left in the 3rd quarter, the Titans started a drive from their own 26 and Henry promptly took the first snap 74 yards for a score. On the ensuing kickoff, the Jaguars fumbled and the Titans recovered on the 7-yard line. The next snap, Henry took it right in to the end zone, to give him 20.1 fantasy points over the course of 21 seconds of game time – not bad! Hell, the rest of the team got involved in the fun on their very next possession just a couple of minutes later. Ryan Tannehill connected with A.J. Brown on a short pass and Brown did the rest of the work, scoring a 65-yard TD, completing a run by the Titans that saw them score 28 points in just over 6 minutes of game time.
2 of the Top 8 QBs
In our drinkfive.com league, only 2 of the top 8 QBs so far in Week 12 are owned by teams. This is a 10-team league, so admittedly Baker Mayfield should be owned, but I dropped him over a month ago and he’s been a FA ever since. But I digress – I was amazed to find the average ownership of the top 8 QBs to be only 47.5%. This is the kind of stat that you find early in the season while everyone is getting used to a new year, not in Week 12 when we’re all fighting for playoff spots. Leading the way was Ryan Tannehill, the only QB to break 30 points (so far) this week. He had 2 touchdowns through the air and added 2 more on the ground. Following him was Sam Darnold who also had 2 through the air and found the end zone via his feet as well. Raise your hand if you thought Tannehill and Darnold would be the QB1 and QB2 of this week. If your hand is up, you’re a damn liar, or you can see the future.
3 Games Over 150 Yards Receiving
Chris Godwin was the highest scoring positional player (non-QB) of the bunch on Sunday, putting up 184 yards and 2 scores via some of the most impressive catches of the week. Godwin is the only player other than Tannehill to break the 30-point mark in standard scoring, and he’s now got 3 games with at least 150 receiving yards this season. If you combine this with Mike Evans’ 3 games of at least 180 yards this year, you have the first pair of Bucs teammates to break 1000 yards in a season, as well as the first teammates anywhere to each have 3 games of 150+ yards in a season. In a down year at the position, these two have absolutely dominated, constantly remaining in the top 3 – they’re currently WR1 (Godwin) and WR3 (Evans).
104 Receptions in 11 Games
One wide receiver who is not experiencing a down year is Michael Thomas, who already has a stat line that anyone would be proud of for an entire season. He’s currently sitting at 104 receptions, 1,242 yards and 6 TDs, and he still has 5 games to go! The receptions and yards are both leading the NFL, and it’s not really close. He has 23 receptions more than the 2nd highest total (DeAndre Hopkins) and 171 receiving yards more than Chris Godwin, who comes in 2nd there. Thomas is still on pace to hit 150 receptions on the season, which is probably a record that can stand for quite some time. He is averaging over 100 catches per year now in his first 4 seasons, and has topped 1130+ yards in each of those seasons as well. We’re watching the very beginning of what can certainly be a hall-of-fame career, and damn is it exciting. I suspect he will be the first WR off the board for years to come in fantasy drafts.
21 Fantasy Points for the D/ST
Congrats to the Washington Redskins for managing to score 19 points and win a game without an offensive or defensive TD. They did manage one score on a kickoff return in a play that looked like it could have been a disaster but turned into a touchdown, all credit to Steven Sims for that run. The Redskins now have 2 wins, all but ensuring the Bengals the first pick in the 2020 draft, up 2 games with just 5 left to play. Meanwhile, the Detroit Lions are trying to figure out how to win. The team is 3-7-1 this year and they have had a lead in every single game this season. It’s hard to find things to be encouraged by on both teams. The Lions are trotting out Jeff Driskel and Bo Scarbrough, who had an OK day but his fantasy numbers were marred by a fumble. Meanwhile, the Dwayne Haskins finally got a win, but he was too busy celebrating with fans to realize the game hadn’t actually ended and was nowhere to be found to take a knee to actually end it. The reactions at the end of the game to this were basically what I’d expect from a 2-9 team that had to fire their coach this year.
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 standard Yahoo scoring unless otherwise noted.
7 Games of 60+ Rushing Yards
It’s hard to pick just one stat to lead with for Lamar Jackson, so let’s go with the one that nobody else has done in league history. Jackson is now the first QB in the NFL to have 60+ rush yards in 7 straight starts, as he continues his march towards Michael Vick’s single season record. Jackson added 86 yards on just 9 carries on Sunday. He’s now on pace for 1,260 rush yards and at this rate will easily break the record before Christmas. Jackson is amazingly efficient and playing so well for his team. His fantasy totals are gaudy, but don’t exactly feel like they would be if you look at just his passing stats. Another 4 passing TDs yesterday brought his season total to 19 – congrats to you preseason bettors, his Vegas over/under was just 15. He has had over 30 pass attempts just 4 times this season (2 of them were his team’s losses), and is just magnificent this year, especially for fantasy. He has zero fumbles, something that only Dak Prescott, Kyler Murray and Mason Rudolph can claim, though none of them run the ball like Lamar.
0.36 More Fantasy Points Than Lamar Jackson
Only one player in the NFL had more fantasy points than Lamar Jackson through Sunday, and it was Josh Allen, as he dismantled the Dolphins. The difference between the two is really that Allen had a rushing TD, his 7th on the season, which leads all QBs and is tied for 6th among all players in the NFL. Allen is showing plenty of growth in his second season. Last year he started 11 games, and this year he has 10 under his belt and he already has more pass yards, more pass TDs and fewer INTs. His completion rate has improved significantly and he is the QB6 on the season. Allen hasn’t thrown a pick in the last 5 straight games. He has played very well and just might hold on to make the playoffs. With a solid QB and a good defense, they might even be able to win a game there.
3 TDs in 3 Straight Starts
I don’t mean to only talk about QBs so far, but I would be remiss if I did not gush a little about the play of Dak Prescott, who has quietly been awesome this year. Unfortunately, his team does not beat good teams, but damn he’s played well against everyone since New Orleans in Week 4. Over the last 3 weeks, Prescott has 9 passing TDs and 1,098 passing yards over that time – he now leads the league with 3,221 passing yards. Prescott has reduced the frequency that he runs, but he’s gaining a lot more per run on the ground this year, up to 5.8 yards per carry, the second highest total of his career. These smarts also help keep him on the field – he hasn’t missed a start in his 4 seasons. So, Dak sits as the QB3 in fantasy football and the 4th player overall. He’s having a great season and would be in the MVP talk if it wasn’t for the couple of QBs ahead of him, who are just a little bit better and winning a few more games. That being said, don’t count him out – there’s still lots of football left to play.
19.10 Points Without a Touchdown
OK, enough about the QBs, let’s dive into the RBs, who admittedly, had a down week. Leading the pack was Mark Ingram, who is the only RB to break the 20-point barrier as of Sunday in Week 11. He found the end zone twice through the air and was the week’s RB1, despite only gaining 85 yards from scrimmage. The guy who did rack up gaudy totals was, of course, Christian McCaffrey, who added another 191 yards from scrimmage on 25 touches. McCaffrey has 1,576 yards from scrimmage on the season, and he’s still on pace to just squeak by the single-season record of 2,510. Considering he put up another 19 points without finding the end zone, he’s clearly the fantasy MVP outside of QBs. He has 32 more fantasy points than the 2nd place team and is beating the RB8, the aforementioned Mark Ingram, by over 100 points on the season.
94 Receptions in 10 Games
Congrats to Michael Thomas, who continues to be an absolute beast for Drew Brees and the Saints. Thomas now has 94 receptions through 10 games, obviously a league lead, but also a milestone that no one else in league history has reached. He’s leading the league this year with 1,141 receiving yards and is on pace for 150 receptions on the season, which would break Marvin Harrison’s record of 143. Heck, Thomas is already 5th on that list with his 125-catch effort last season, a number he’s certain to break soon. Thomas now has 11 or more targets in all but 2 games this season, and has done the majority of his damage without Brees under center. Yesterday’s effort of 114 receiving yards exactly matches his 114 yards per game average this season. I’m all for players who like to express themselves, as we have seen at WR in the last few years, but there’s something awesome about the quiet dominance we get from guys like Michael Thomas, Julio Jones and Deandre Hopkins.
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 standard Yahoo scoring unless otherwise noted.
33.42 Fantasy Points
Through Sunday, your Week 10 fantasy points leader is, for the first time this season Lamar Jackson. He’s finished in the top 5 a total of 6 weeks out of his 9 games this season, though never as the actual top player. He’s having an amazing season and is clearly one of the candidates for MVP, along with Russell Wilson, who we get to see later on tonight. Jackson had his second game of the season where he threw more touchdowns (3) than incompletions (2). He had a perfect QB rating, also for the second time this season, which is only the second time anyone has done it twice in one season. He added 65 more rushing yards and 4 total touchdowns. With 702 rushing yards so far this season, he’s on pace for 1,248 yards, which will crush Mike Vick’s single season record of 1,039 yards.
0.08 Yards Per Touch
Saquon Barkley was the #1 ADP player across all the major sites back in August, but he’s wound up as one of the more disappointing first round picks, especially after yesterday’s game. On 13 carries, Barkley managed to gain only 1 yard on the ground. 9 of his 18 total touches went for zero or negative yards. He’s having a very disappointing season, though a lot of that can be attributed to his garbage pile team. The Giants lost to the lowly Jets and it marks the low point of their season (so far). Compared to last year, Barkley is averaging a full yard per carry less, one fewer catch per game, and 24 fewer rushing yards per game. He only has 3 TDs on the season compared to 15 last year and having missed 3 games, he’s on pace to finish with numbers well shy of his rookie year. At least the Giants can point to their rookie QB Daniel Jones as a bright spot, even if he’s only won a couple of games. He’s thrown at least 1 TD in every game he’s started, and 4 of them twice.
9.6 Receptions per Game
Michael Thomas is currently leading the league with 86 receptions through 9 games, on pace for 153 on the season. This would match the single season record with an entire game to go. This year, Thomas has 5 games with at least 10 catches, and in every game except for one, he has at least 8 catches. Thomas is his usual PPR machine this year, but he’s also leading the league in yards, with 1027 already. Even in a standard scoring league, Thomas is third in points on the season, with a floor this year of 8.90 points. Thomas now has 1000 yards in each of his first 4 seasons, only the 4th player to ever start his career like that.
446 Passing Yards
On Sunday, Patrick Mahomes returned to the Chiefs lineup after missing just 2 weeks from a dislocated kneecap. His 446 passing yards were the most any QB has thrown for this season, breaking the previous high of 443 yards, also by Mahomes, in Week 2. Mahomes also had a season high 50 passing attempts, and 3 TDs to zero INT, bringing his season-long ratio to 18:1. Mahomes put up a very respectable 29.84 fantasy points, good for the 5th overall player this week. He’s currently at 2,626 yards on the season, good for 5th overall, really good for a guy who has played 1 or 2 fewer games than all the players ahead of him. He’s leading the league in yards per attempt, yards per completion and yards per game. Not a bad follow-up of an MVP season – he would be in the conversation if it wasn’t for lots of other guys having stellar seasons.
49 D/ST Fantasy Points
Well folks, it looks like the AFC North is once again proving to be a tough matchup for anyone who finds themselves thinking there’s easy wins to be had. The Ravens and the Steelers defenses have come alive. The Ravens managed two scores against the hapless Bengals and were the best D/ST replacement for the Patriots that I could ever have hoped for. Now I just need to find a person willing to trade for a D/ST. This is definitely a first world problem, but on to the Steelers. Their trade for Minkah Fitzpatrick seems to be the smartest trade of the entire season. Fitzpatrick has 5 interceptions, 2 TDs and 1 fumble recovery in his 7 games with the Steelers. He’s a huge upgrade to their passing defense, and is a huge reason the Steelers have given up just one double digit game to opposing WRs since Week 2. The Steelers D/ST have double digit points in every game that Fitzpatrick has played with them this year.
This week Dave and Jason are back on the Fantasy Finish Line Podcast all by ourselves, and we take a deep dive into how everyone's fared so far in 2019. We take a look at where the top 10 ADP players have done so far, as well as where the 10 top current players were drafted. We also touch on this week's injuries to know about, as well as several matchups that you can exploit for fantasy gold.
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Listen to the Fantasy Finish Line, 11/06/2019: Week 10 Preview: ADP vs Reality
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