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A discussion and analysis of last week's games, prognostication on the best plays for Week 7, and some lively chatter about news blurbs and trends to watch and/or act on. That is what's in store for this week's Fantasy Finish Line podcast with your hosts Jason & Dave Mike.

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Listen to the Fantasy Finish Line, 10/16/2019: Week 7 Preview: Trends, Blurbs, and The Lazard King

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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.

5 TE’s at the Top

Through Sunday in Week 6, the tight end spot in fantasy has been quite a slog. There’s been no dominant player at the position, though there have been a few pleasant surprises. Going into this week, there were 5 players between 49 and 51 points on the season. Unfortunately, it looks like Will Dissly, who led the pack by a very slim margin, could be done for the season with an Achilles tear. That leaves us with the newest break-out TE Austin Hooper as our leader. Hooper took advantage of a Cardinals defense that is giving up an absurd amount points to opposing TEs. Hooper has now finished as a top 3 TE in 3 of 6 weeks so far this season. Rounding out the top 5 are the always reliable Travis Kelce, Evan Engram (who missed a game, so his per-game average is still pretty good), and finally the Ravens break-out star, Mark Andrews.

78 Passing Yards

Jared Goff had a whopping 78 passing yards on Sunday, a career low for him, which roughly equates to $20,833 per yard gained through the air this week. The Rams had a particularly bad game against the still undefeated 49ers. They scored a TD on their opening drive and then did nothing for the rest of the game. The fact that they gained all their yards on the ground that first drive seems like a bad omen for the way the rest of the game went for them. It’s hard to tell where this team’s fantasy potential is headed. On one hand, this offense was a juggernaut last season and now have scored at least 27 points in 4 of 6 games this season. On the other hand, you have Jared Goff, who has thrown more picks than touchdowns in the last 4 weeks. Aside from this week, the Rams are still putting up decent fantasy points with their big players, so I wouldn’t ditch them all yet, but I would consider who I start against the 49ers going forward.

116 Passing Yards in One Drive

The Chiefs haven’t done a lot of winning the last couple weeks, but Patrick Mahomes is still doing amazing things on the field. In their first drive, thanks to several penalties, Mahomes managed the stunning mathematical trick of throwing for 116 yards in one drive. Unfortunately for the Chiefs, they only gained another 157 yards through the air the remainder of the game. They only had about 20 minutes in time of possession for the entire game, and clearly this has become the (rather obvious) method for defeating the Chiefs. Last week, they had just under 23 minutes in time of possession. Against the Texans, the Chiefs only ran the ball 11 times despite never being down more than 7 points in the game. On the other side, the Texans ran the ball 41 times to go along with 42 passing attempts. Balance, my friends, is key in all things.

27 D/ST Fantasy Points

With another 27 fantasy points this week, the New England Patriots D/ST squad has just dominated fantasy football. Their 27 points made them the 8^th highest scoring “player” in Week 6. On the season, the defense and special teams have combined for 5 TDs and have 16 turnovers in just 6 games. They’re second in the league with 25 sacks and have given up only 3 touchdowns on defense all season. Their 127 fantasy points on the season make them the 9^th highest scoring entity in fantasy football this season, behind only one non-QB, Christian McCaffrey. Compared to other D/STs, they are 52 points ahead of the second highest scoring team and have more than doubled up the 4^th highest scoring team.

36.5 Fantasy Points in Week 6

The squeaky wheel does often get the grease, though sometimes it takes a few weeks to apply it. This week, Stefon Diggs had a monster game, scoring 3 TDs and 167 yards on 7 receptions, adding 18 rushing yards on 2 carries just for fun. This more than doubles his season total in points – he had just 27.3 through 5 games going into Week 6. Since the Vikings rough defeat in Chicago Week 4, they have put up 66 points in just two games. During that time, Kirk Cousins has 2 300+ yard games to go along with 6 TDs and just one pick. It turns out that the Vikings can’t just run the ball all game, like they did early in the season. They need to pass it as well, thus giving their offense balance. Déjà vu, no?

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.

16 Point Fantasy Floor

This season, only 3 players in the NFL have a solid fantasy floor. The always reliable Patrick Mahomes, even when his team scores a scant 13 points, has not scored less than 18 fantasy points all season. The other two guys are a bit more surprising. Kyler Murray and Gardner Minshew II. Murray notched his first win on Sunday against the hapless Bengals. He had his best day statistically as a fantasy QB, not turning the ball over and gaining 93 yards on the ground to go with a TD. Murray ended the day as the QB6 to Minshew’s QB8. Both guys are rookies, one was the first overall draft pick and the other is clearly a future hall-of-famer and worthy successor to Blake Bortles in the eyes of Jason from The Good Place. Minshew had a tough matchup against fellow rookie phenom Kyle Allen on Sunday. Unfortunately for Minshew, he doesn’t have Christian McCaffrey on his team. Speaking of the guy leading ALL fantasy players and the MVP race at the moment…

866 Yards from Scrimmage

Christian McCaffrey had himself a game on Sunday. His 237 yards from scrimmage and 3 TDs were actually only good for the 3^rd best point total on a day with huuuuge points, but more on them later. McCaffrey is now on pace for 2770 yards from scrimmage this season, smashing the record of 2509 set by Chris Johnson in 2009. So far, McCaffrey leads the league in rushing yards and, second in receiving yards among RBs. He is the top point scorer in all of fantasy football, with 128.60 points, just nudging out QBs Lamar Jackson and Russell Wilson. Next up, the Buccaneers, the only team that has managed to hold McCaffrey to under 23.9 points this season. I expect him to have a much better performance this time around.

6 Players Above 30 Fantasy Points

This week was all about big performances. The early games, and there were a lot of them (10!), had the Texans hanging 53 points on Atlanta. Along the way, Deshaun Watson threw 5 TDs and notched 41.74 fantasy points, a season high at the position. Three of those scores were via the hands of Will Fuller V, who had his own monster day of 217 yards and 3 TDs for 39.70 points. This was more than double his season points total so far, having not exceeded 6.9 points in a game all year. Falcons QB Matt Ryan continued his excellent, but quiet year. His 32.9 points on Sunday was excellent for fantasy players, but a terrible losing effort for his team. Ryan also gets an honorable mention in regards to my earlier stat about QB floors – his lowest game this year is 15.68. Michael Thomas put up a ho-hum 30+ point game, showing that he’s good no matter who’s throwing him the ball. I already mentioned Christian McCaffrey, who was sitting on top of the RB list this week until Aaron Jones had something to say about it. Jones basically beat the Cowboys all by himself. Putting up a whopping 42.2 points, he had 182 yards from scrimmage and 4 TDs on the ground. Aaron Rodgers owners may not be thrilled, but clearly, we all see who the real A-a-ron is in Green Bay right now.

35 Fantasy Points

But wait, there was one more entry to the 30 points and over club! A D/ST had a huge day and surprisingly it wasn’t the odds-on favorite New England Patriots against the hapless Washington Redskins. The Philadelphia Eagles just dismantled the New York Jets, limiting them to only 9 first downs, putting up 10 sacks and scoring TDs on both an interception and a fumble recovery. They added another interception just for fun and because, apparently, it’s easy to pick on Luke Falk. The Jets need Sam Darnold back as soon as possible. Maybe Darnold can get tips from Jason Witten on how to rehab one’s spleen. I don’t really see this performance as indicative of the Eagles getting better, but rather it just shows how bad the Jets are. The Eagles play Minnesota, Dallas and Buffalo coming up, and I see no advantage to keeping them around this week. Continue streaming, friends!

3 of the Top 10

Finally, a bit about kickers in fantasy football. Only 3 of the top 10 performers in Week 5 were owned in our drinkfive fantasy league. Those three kickers are owned in at least 78% of Yahoo leagues. The remaining 7 kickers have an average ownership of just about 19%, showing that nobody knows what the hell a kicker is going to do week to week, mostly because it’s not up to them! This is just my latest entry to my argument that kickers probably don’t need to have anything to do with fantasy football. Any Sunday, you’ve got an equal chance, it seems, to have a guy like Dan Bailey (10% owned) put up the same amount of points as a guy like Justin Tucker (99% owned). It’s just ridiculous that 2 of the top 5 kickers on the year are owned in fewer than 25% of Yahoo leagues, Matt Gay (22%) and Zane Gonzalez (17%).

Here's three games with interesting fantasy matchups that you can use to help make your lineup decisions.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers @ New Orleans Saints - Let’s try this one more time, shall we. Last week I predicted that the Saints would be giving up a lot of points to the Cowboys, and the entire game featured one touchdown and 5 field goals. I do, however, have more faith in the new Bucs offense than the new-ish Cowboys one. Tampa has scored 96 points in the last 10 quarters of football. Jameis Winston only has one turnover during that time and WRs Chris Godwin and Mike Evans are putting up huge numbers. Of course you’re starting them, but I think you need to get Jameis Winston in your lineup as well, since the Saints are giving up the 2nd most points to opposing QBs.

I also think that Ronald Jones is a guy you can fire up. His snap % has gone from 12 to 31 to 49 in the last 3 weeks and he had 20 touches in last week’s game. On the other side, Tampa is in the top 10 giving up points to opposing QBs and WRs, but with Teddy Bridgewater at the helm, I’m still only starting Michael Thomas and Alvin Kamara on the Saints.

Arizona Cardinals @ Cincinnati Bengals -  Two teams and 8 games between them and nary a win in sight. The Cards did sniff it in Week 1 with a tie, but these guys are a combined 0-7-1. Both teams lost by 3 scores last week, and at this point it’s just about pride. Let’s start with the Cardinals RB David Johnson, who has a spectacular matchup this week – basically guaranteed double digit points in a standard league. How can I say this? Well in 4 games, the Bengals have had 7 RBs score at least 13 points against them, again, standard scoring. Those 7 RBs are basically averaging 100 yards and a TD each. This should open things up for Kyler Murray and he will likely find Larry Fitzgerald early and often. Fitz will be boosted by the absence of Christian Kirk. Andy Isabella will see more work, but it’ll be on the outside, according the Kliff Kingsbury.

Regardless, the Cardinals run far more 4-WR sets than the rest of the league and there will be a lot of mouths to feed on offense, so I only like Fitzgerald and Johnson as solid fantasy starts, but they should be tremendous against the crappy Bengals. I also like Tyler Eifert for the Bengals, as the Cardinals have given up an absurd about of points to opposing tight ends. The Cardinals are giving up over 19 points per game to opposing TEs, while the next closest team is giving up only 12. This is historically bad, start Eifert!

Baltimore Ravens @ Pittsburgh Steelers - Traditionally, this is a defensive struggle, but that’s not likely on Sunday. The Ravens have given up over 500 yards of offense the last two weeks. The Steelers finally figured out their offense as led by Mason Rudolph, and the name of the game is efficiency. The Steelers are in the top 10 for most points against at WR and RB while Baltimore is in the top 11 of each of those stats. Both defenses are in the bottom half of the league when it comes to yards given up. The Steelers gave up 85 points in the first 3 weeks and the Ravens have given up 73 in just the last two! This is shaping up to be a solid fantasy matchup for both sides.

For the Steelers, I like James Conner of course, though his available may be up in the air, so keep an eye on injury reports. Jaylen Samuels proved very valuable and could have a huge role if Conner doesn’t play. Both Conner and Samuels had 8 targets and 10 carries, so they’ve both got value as starters, especially in a PPR league. Juju has to get involved sooner or later, so keep him in this week because it’s clear that the Steelers still love him. I also like Diontae Johnson if you’ve got bye week or injury troubles. 6 targets and 6 catches in an offense with lots of short passes is a good sign, especially in a PPR league.

For the Ravens, I like Lamar Jackson to continue to dominate, and hell, he’s the #1 fantasy player so far this year, so of course you’re starting him. Even when the team is losing, he finds a way to put up those garbage points. Last week, Mark Andrews and Marquise Brown did not put up the big numbers you want to see, but they both had lots of targets and that will continue all year long. Start them both along with Mark Ingram and don’t be surprised if both teams put up over 30 points in this division matchup.