Fantasy football strategy, rankings, and podcasts

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?