Every week you need to sit down, take a deep breath, and look at the facts. The numbers. The inarguable truths.
How you interpret those truths is what will differentiate you from the pack.
Here are some surprising stats for each team playing this week that #FANation will interpret on their way to complete and utter domination in Week 11.
Despite DeMarco Murray being on the injury list often, the only time Derrick Henry played in more snaps that Murray was in Week 6, and he still only played in 57 percent of the snaps, while Murray played in 54 percent. Other than that one game, Henry hasn’t played in over 44 percent of the team’s snaps.
Ben Roethlisberger hasn’t missed a game, and yet he is only the 20th highest scoring fantasy quarterback (in standard scoring – no bonuses). However, he’s played six away games, only three at home. And those home games were against the Vikings, Bengals, and Jaguars.
Over the past three weeks, Golden Tate has 20 receptions (third-most among wide receivers) for 296 yards (second-most among wide receivers).
Dontrelle Inman was traded to the Bears shortly before the trade deadline. His first game as a Bear was in Week 10, when he caught six of his eight targets for 88 yards. In Week 10 Mitchell Trubisky posted season-highs of 35 pass attempts and 297 passing yards.
Rather than focus on Dede Westbrook’s first game in the league, perhaps you can focus on Keelan Cole. Cole played in a season-high 82 percent of the Jaguar’s offensive snaps in Week 10. He caught two of his three targets for 64 yards in Week 7 before the team’s bye. Then three of his five targets for 47 yards in Week 9. And three of his eight targets for 61 yards in Week 10.
Only two running backs in the AFC have over 200 rushing yards and over 30 receiving yards. One is Kareem Hunt of the Kansas City Chiefs. The other is Duke Johnson of the Cleveland Browns.
Alex Collins averages an impressive 5.6 yards per carry on the season, the second-best average among running backs with at least 30 carries on the season. Alvin Kamara is averaging 6.5 yards per carry with 29 fewer carries.
Devante Adams is the No. 1 wide receiver while Brett Hundley is under center, and his stats have improved each week. In Week 7 he posted 12 yards. Then the Packers had a bye week. In Week 9 he posted 53 yards. And in Week 10 he managed 90 yards and a touchdown.
Blaine Gabbert will start this week in place of the injured Drew Stanton, who was starting in the place of an injured Carson Palmer. However, Gabbert had a 61.2 completion percentage in the preseason, and his head coach had some colorful language to describe why Gabbert had yet to see steady success in the league thus far in his career.
C.J. Fiedorowicz played in his first game since Week 1 last week. After his first game of the season, he was sent to IR after suffering a concussion. But in Week 10, he played in 90% of the team’s offensive snaps and saw six targets.
Doug Martin carried the ball for 20 times in Week 10, but only for 51 yards against the New York Jets without Mike Evans on the field. All but one of the running backs with at least 15 carries against the Dolphins have gone for over 100 rushing yards and/or scored a touchdown.
Jarvis Landry scored a touchdown in five of his last six games. The Buccaneers have allowed 10 receiving touchdowns to opposing wide receivers this season, tied for 6th most in the league.
Todd Gurley has 120 total yards and/or a touchdown in all but one game this season.
Since the Vikings lost Dalvin Cook for the season, Latavius Murray averaged 16.2 carries and almost 61.8 total yards per game.
Kirk Cousins put up 73 completions over the last three weeks, the most in the league. He also posted 837 yards, third only to Matthew Stafford and Russell Wilson over that same period. Over the first seven games of the season, Cousins only posted 135 completions, tied with Matt Ryan for 14th most in the league, and 1,637, the 11th most.
New Orleans is the only team with two running backs that have scored six or more touchdowns. In fact, they are the only team to have two running back that have scored five or more touchdowns, and only 11 of the other 31 teams in the league have even one running back who reached five total touchdowns on the season.
Only Jimmy Graham and Zach Ertz have scored more touchdowns this season that Travis Kelce. Kelce has five touchdowns, while the other two players have six. This week Kelce will play the New York Giants who have allowed 10 touchdowns to opposing tight ends in nine weeks of play.
As it stands, Evan Engram has 40 catches for 443 yards and five touchdowns. He is currently on pace for 787.6 yards and 8.9 touchdowns this season. The best rookie tight end yardage performance over the last 15 years came from John Carlson with 627. The record for most yardage by a rookie tight end in history belongs to Mike Ditka. He put up 1,076 yards in 1961. Engram would have to score 10 touchdowns to tie Rob Gronkowski, 12 to tie Ditka.
The Buffalo Bills benched Tyrod Taylor because he didn’t do enough to stop the New Orleans Saints from scoring six rushing touchdowns against the Bills on their home turf. Sorry, this is my only snarky entry, but I couldn’t help it.
Melvin Gordon struggled in Week 10 against the Jaguars. He carried the ball 16 times for only 27 yards. He did manage to catch five of his eight targets, but those only went for 15 yards. Austin Ekeler did more with his late-game touches. He carried the ball 10 times for 42 yards. He also caught all five of his targets for 77 yards and two touchdowns. Unfortunately, he fumbled the ball and the team went entirely back to Gordon for the rest of the game. Ultimately, that fumble cost the Chargers a victory.
Tyler Kroft has four or more targets in every game since Week 3. Since the Broncos’ Week 5 bye, an opposing tight end has scored a touchdown in all but one game. That was against the Chargers, in which Hunter Henry caught four passes for 73 yards.
C.J. Anderson hasn’t played in more that 50 percent of the team’s offensive snaps since Week 7. Devontae Booker played in a season high 37 percent of the team’s offensive snaps in Week 10, one less percent than Anderson.
Over his last three games, Tom Brady has 848 passing yards, six touchdowns and zero interceptions. During that time, the Patriots have out-scored their competition 85-36. No team has scored more than 17 points on the Patriots since Week 4. Oh, and the Raiders are the only team in the league that has yet to force an interception.
Since Week 3, Derek Carr put up more than one touchdown in a game one time. He’s put up more than one interception three times within that same time frame.
Carson Wentz leads the league with 23 passing touchdowns. The Dallas Cowboys have allowed 16 passing touchdowns to opposing quarterbacks, tied for ninth most in the league.
Jason Witten has five touchdowns over his last seven games against NFC East opponents, but only one touchdown over his last seven games played this year.
Austin Hooper has six targets in each of his last three games. Of those three games, he scored a touchdown in two of those outings.
Over the course of the season, Seattle has thrown the ball on 60.13 percent of the team’s offensive plays. Over the last three weeks, they’ve thrown on 63.82 percent of their plays.