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.
43 Yards from Scrimmage
On Sunday, Alvin Kamara put up 43 total yards, while his team put up 46 total points – to call this a disappointment is a massive understatement. Kamara’s entire season has been a flop, really. He’s only scored 2 TDs on the year, both of them in Week 3. He’s only averaging 8.1 points per game since the Saints came off the bye and he returned from injury. During this time, the Saints have put up at least 26 points in 4 games, and they’re just not using Kamara. He needs to remain on your bench if you don’t want to be disappointed again through the fantasy playoffs. Meanwhile, the rest of the Saints were feasting in their loss to the 49ers. Drew Brees led the week at QB with 40 points, and Michael Thomas added 11 receptions to his amazing season total. Thomas now has 121 catches, which is almost 30 more than the 2nd highest total, to go along with a league leading 1,424 yards. All these crazy numbers, and the Saints didn’t even win the game.
2 of the Top 3 WRs
This week’s top performing WRs were not the most popular guys of the week. Leading the way was AJ Brown (26% owned) for the Titans, he averaged 30 yards per catch and put up 28.6 in standard leagues. His 91-yard touchdown had the Titans going early and was a sign of good things to come for those of us who rolled the dice on Ryan Tannehill. Tannehill, meanwhile, kept the Titans offense rolling – they’re averaging 31.4 points per game since he took over the starting job. But I digress, back to the WRs. Emmanuel Sanders had a stellar game, scoring a 75-yard TD and throwing another. Sanders was started in only 31% of Yahoo leagues. Rounding out the top 3 was Diontae Johnson (12% Owned) of the Steelers. Johnson scored on a punt return and later on a 2-yard pass from Duck Hodges. Johnson was basically responsible for half of the Steelers points in their win over the Cardinals.
17.75 Yards per Touch
Austin Ekeler did all kinds of damage on Sunday, and he wasn’t even a workhorse back. Ekeler was in on only 49% of offensive snaps, and in 12 touches he managed 213 yards from scrimmage. He’s having an amazing year, currently the RB6, his ADP was RB27. He’s leading all RBs in receiving yards, and his 73 receptions are tied for 11th among all players in the NFL. Ekeler is averaging 1.04 fantasy points per touch in standard leagues, and an amazing 1.44 yards per touch in PPR scoring. The Chargers punked the Jaguars and are now outscoring their opponents 75-20 when playing in Florida this year. Lucky for the Bucs, they don’t have the Chargers on the schedule. Hell, the Chargers even got Tyrod Taylor in on the action – he completed 5 passes and threw for a touchdown.
7 Made Field Goals
It was a day for kickers to swing your fantasy playoffs one way or another. For the Dolphins, Jason Sanders was 100% of their offense, converting on 7 of his 8 field goal attempts, kicking 243 yards of field goals. His one missed FG is the difference in the game, as the Dolphins only managed the 21 points provided by Sanders. Overall, Sanders put up 24 fantasy points, good for the 14th highest score of the week. Younghoe Koo also had a great game, scoring 18 fantasy points of his own – he’s averaging 12.6 points per game since Week 10 and even recovered a fumble on Sunday. We also saw Will Lutz and Robbie Gould put up 13 each in a ridiculous duel that saw 94 total points scored. In that match, both teams surpassed the Vegas over/under line, which opened at 45.
26 TDs and 23 INTs
Jameis Winston had another huge game on Sunday, in both number of scores and turnovers. For the third time this season, he started the game with a pick on his very first pass. Still, it would up being a ridiculous game for Winston, who put up a season-high 456 yards and 37.74 fantasy points. His season totals of 26 TD and 23 INT are pretty ridiculous, and he could wind up being the first player to break the 30 and 30 threshold. It’s anybody’s guess where he winds up playing next year, it could be the Bucs, but it’s just as likely to be somewhere else. Either way, Winston is likely to be the most volatile player worth watching, after all, he’s the QB5 on the year – second in both passing yards and passing touchdowns.
