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.
5 Rushing TDs
Nearly a quarter into the 2021 season, the league’s leader in rushing touchdowns is certainly not someone anyone expected. Sam Darnold now has 5 total rushing TDs on the season after back-to-back 2 TD games. He’s also got 5 total passing TDs, but his two INTs yesterday cost his team their perfect record. But hey, fantasy football isn’t all about wins and losses. Darnold was the QB1 on the week, just edging out Patrick Mahomes and his 5 passing TDs. Darnold is now the QB5 on the season, just a fraction of a point behind Tom Brady for 4th. Darnold is a game manager who just happens to be scrambling into the end zone at the right moments. His 20 carries for 58 yards on the year do not inspire confidence in his rushing abilities. My advice to you is to package Darnold in some sort of trade where you can sell him at his highest value of the season, especially before Christian McCaffrey comes back and the ground game takes over the Panthers' offense once again.
32.1 Fantasy Points
Cordarrelle Patterson is continuing his spectacular season. The 2013 first-round pick has bounced around the league for 9 years, and now finally on his 5th team, it seems like they have unlocked his offensive abilities. Patterson finished Week 4 as the RB1 on the week, and sits as the RB2 on the season, behind only Derrick Henry (who is on pace for nearly 2,700 yards from scrimmage). Patterson’s 5 TDs is the highest total he’s had since his rookie season (and tied with Sam Darnold for the league lead). His 45 touches and 354 yards from scrimmage are both more than halfway to career highs. It’s pretty rare that a player can blow away their season-best stats 9 years into their career. He’s still only owned in 70% of Fleaflicker leagues, so I imagine that the rest of the leagues will be frantically scrambling on the waiver wire to pick him up.
4 of the Top 6 Quarterbacks are Free Agents
In fantasy football, we’re used to positional volatility. We might expect a bunch of the top-scoring kickers, defenses, or tight ends to not be on any team in a given week. What we generally don’t expect is that to be true for the quarterback position. Using our drinkfive.com fantasy league for reference, we find that 4 of the top 6 QBs in week 4’s scoring were all free agents. This includes the week’s top scorer, the aforementioned Sam Darnold (56%), Matt Ryan (76%), Taylor Heinicke (34%), and Daniel Jones (60%). We also find the most owned QB, Tom Brady (98%) put up a whopping 11.06 points, despite 43 passing attempts. So, it’s sometimes a crapshoot, even at the most consistent position in the game. That’s what makes fantasy football so much fun (and aggravating), isn’t it?
10% League Ownership
Want some positional volatility? The tight end position has it in droves. This week’s top scorer, C.J. Uzomah (another candidate for a late-career break-out) is owned in only 10% of Fleaflicker leagues. His monster game on Thursday night helped propel the Bengals to victory. 5 receptions for 95 yards and 2 TDs gave him a total of 24 fantasy points, almost 6 points more than the next highest scorer. Among the top 5 scoring TEs so far this week, their ownership caps out at 58% for Dalton Shultz. The average ownership is only 29%. When we look at the TEs who are owned in at least 90% of leagues (we must exclude Gronk and Waller, who did not or have not played yet), we find that they only scored an average of 6.6 points. This is going to be the season that benefits QB and TE streamers the most.
8-100 Yard Rushing Performances
With all of this craziness, let’s check out a position that’s all chalk, shall we? This week, there were 8–100-yard rushing performances by running backs. Every single one of those players are owned in at least 92% of Fleaflicker leagues. In fact, if you expand that list to include all-purpose yards, there were 13 such games by running backs. All but one, Cordarrelle Patterson (who led in both AP yards – the guy Is still returning kicks, and points) are owned in at least 89% of leagues. This consistency at the running back position is probably the most predictable thing in all of fantasy football this year. Even the WR position has some wacky stuff going on, like Randall Cobb’s 21.4 points, good for WR6 on the week and helping exactly nobody since he’s only owned in 24% of leagues. This is certainly an important week to work the waiver wire!
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.
16 Total TDs
Jonathan Taylor is the RB1 on the season, and the second highest scoring player among all fantasy football players. He and Josh Allen have supplanted Jalen Hurts at the top of the overall list, and now I can stop trash talking Jalen Hurts and let him just be bad in Philadelphia. Oops, maybe I’ll stop now. Anyways, Taylor has a league leading 16 total TDs on the season. He also leads the league in yards from scrimmage with 1,541. He has 35 more fantasy points than the next highest non-QB, Cooper Kupp – though Kupp has had a bye, and Taylor’s is coming up in Week 14. Taylor has an average of 22.2 points per game, still shy of Derrick Henry (still the 7th highest point total among non-QBs) – who would just be the biggest story in the NFL if he had remained healthy and continued the pace that he was on. Back to Taylor, who nearly had a remarkable record. Last week he tied LaDanian Tomlinson with 8 straight games of 100+ scrimmage yards and 1 TD. In week 12, he came just 3 yards short of extending that streak to a record breaking 9 games.
2 Receptions for the WR1
This week’s stupid technicality stat comes to us courtesy of the most impressive hybrid player in the league, Cordarrelle Patterson. Patterson has had RB and WR eligibility the entire season, and it makes sense, because he’s both! He is the WR7 on the season and the RB8, yet he only has one game over 100 receiving yards, and 1 game – this week – over 100 rushing yards. He does have 6 games over 100 total yards (including return yards, he really does do it all) and has 9 total touchdowns. He’s achieved at quite a high level all year and has huge season long totals, despite having missed one week on bye, and another week with an injury. It’s very rare for a player to finally break out in his 9th season, on his 5th team. Patterson is someone that offensive coordinators have tried to unlock all over the league, and it’s one of the least likely storylines this season that the Falcons offense, of all teams, have managed to figure out how to make him one of the top 10 offensive weapons in the entire league. Perhaps the credit should fall to Patterson himself, considering the Falcons offense is 27th in total points and 26th in total yards.
10 TEs over 10 Points
Most weeks you can find 8-10 TEs scoring at least double-digit points, so that’s perhaps not the most impressive stat I can provide you here. What I am proud of is that 6 of those 10 tight ends are owned in the drinkfive fantasy league. Unfortunately, none of the next 10 are rostered, giving us a 30% hit rate among the top 20 tight ends for week 12. In a cruel twist of ownership, 8 of the top 11 TEs that are the most owned TEs in all of Fleaflicker scored just 4.3 points or fewer (Darren Waller gets the ominous distinction of being the tallest…er…bad tight end this week). Jack Doyle led the way this week, in the second lowest TE1 score that we’ve seen all season long (T.J. Hockenson’s 13.9 points in week 8 get that award). Tonight’s game should see the return of Logan Thomas, who averaged 9 points per game, so at least there’s a bit of quality returning to the TE pool.
2 Losing Teams Over 200 Rushing Yards
Back when the NFL was a run-heavy league, a team that got to 200+ rushing yards was almost guaranteed a win. This week, the Philadelphia Eagles and the Tennessee Titans both dominated their opponents on the ground, but were unable to turn that into control of the game. They both lacked a clear lead in the time of possession, and ultimately, on the scoreboard. The only other team that rushed for at least 200 yards was the San Fransisco 49ers, who did dominate the time of possession, still needed to cash in on two quick turnovers by the Vikings in the 3rd quarter to take control of the game in order to use the rushing attack to their advantage. In both the Eagles’ and Titans’ case, their problem was terrible QB play that prevented them from scoring points. Neither team could top 130 yards passing, both of them threw the ball to the other team, and both had an abysmal completion percentage to boot. The NFL is a game of passing attacks with the run game complimenting it, just ask the Raiders with Derek Carr’s 6-0 record when he throws for at least 300 yards. They are 0-5 when he does not reach the 300-yard mark.
2 TDs in 4 Straight Games
Joe Mixon is quietly keeping his team firmly in the playoff chase with a feat that has not been seen for 15 years in the NFL. Mixon has 2 touchdowns in 4 consecutive games now, with 13 total on the season. Mixon has scored every single week since week 4, and only has 2 games this season where he did not find the end zone. He has at least 23 fantasy points in 5 of his last 6 games and is now sitting as the RB3 on the season. He is just one of 5 non-QBs that have eclipsed the 200-point mark for the season. He has picked up where his rookie teammate Ja’Marr Chase has left off. Chase started out the season on a tear, but has not gone over 50 yards in each of his last 4 games (since he blew up for 201 yards) and those are his 4 lowest totals on the season. Joe Burrow, likewise, has struggled lately, throwing only 2 TDs in the last 3 games, with 3 INT over that same time period (one of those going back to the house the other way). Mixon IS the Bengals offense at this point, and has a matchup coming up against the Chargers, giving up the 5th most points to opposing RBs.