Fantasy football is a numbers game.
This is not meant to simply state the obvious fact that numbers themselves determine how teams perform in matchups each week or in final standings. It is just as much a reference to the fact that numbers provide insight into the players we pick and the game as a whole, and often tell compelling stories. They even reveal important information about draft and in-season roster decisions.
At the same time, numbers can be misleading, since most statistical facts can be placed in a context that supports a particular claim. We can look at the numbers however we like. know These are key facts that will provide you with a roadmap for the decisions you want to make regarding players, teams etc. We give you the facts but you must determine their relevance for yourself.
As 2024 approaches, my These are our favorite numbers we collected during our preseason research period. How you determine their value is up to you. Use them to gain an edge in close races between similarly rated players, kick off your own research and draft prep, come up with your own bar bets, or simply as trivia to stump your friends with a “So what?”
Number of elites
Tyreek Hill has scored 25 or more PPR fantasy points in a game nine times in 2023.Hill is just the third wide receiver in history with at least that many 25-point games, joining Randy Moss (10 in 2003, nine in 2007) and Justin Jefferson (nine in 2022), and has three more top-five weekly finishes at his position than any other wide receiver (the next closest was CeeDee Lamb with six).
Puka Nacua set wide receiver records with 46 receptions, 572 yards receiving and 115.6 PPR fantasy points through the first five games of his NFL career.Cooper Kupp was absent for four of those games, but Nacua still scored 168.8 PPR fantasy points over the next 12 weeks, 10th-highest at his position, and all of those games came with Kupp in the lineup.
In his first two seasons in the NFL, George Pickens caught 43 passes on targets with a success rate of less than 50%.That tied him with Jefferson for the most in the league, according to NFL Next Gen Stats.
Taysom Hill He may finish 2023 as fantasy's 12th-best scoring tight end, but make no mistake, his appeal in our circles is the ultimate weekly dice roll. Though he didn't start at quarterback either of the past two seasons, he combined for 20 rushing attempts and targets in goal-to-go situations, scoring eight touchdowns.Travis Kelce (26 and 11) was the only tight end with more points on either side.
Rookie players by the numbers
Tank Del's 165.0 PPR fantasy points are the eighth-most ever by a wide receiver through his first 10 NFL games, a feat he shared with fellow rookie colleagues. CJ Stroud Stroud earned 191.98 points. his During the same time frame as Dell's first 10 career games, They are the first quarterback and wide receiver pair in history to score 150 or more points with the same team through the first 10 games of their careers..
Speaking of Stroud, he He became just the eighth player in NBA history to score 20 or more points in at least six games during his rookie season.Like Stroud (276.02), each of the last seven have totaled at least 275 points. If you're worried about a possible “year two slump,” keep in mind that the last seven averaged 15.4 games played and 292.45 fantasy points as rookies and 15.4 games played and 287.93 points as sophomores.
Through the final eight weeks of 2023, Jordan Love has scored a quarterback-leading 168.50 fantasy points. That equated to an average of 21.1 points per game, third-best behind Lamar Jackson's 24.7 and Josh Allen's 24.0.
Of the nine running backs, not including fullback Kyle Juszek, who played in at least 16 games last season; Bijan Robinson wins simply They had the fewest rushing attempts and touches per offensive snap, averaging 1 every 5.1 and 1 every 4.0, respectively. His 10 goal-to-go rushing attempts were also the worst of the group. He averaged one carry per 2.43 touches and one touch per 2.19 offensive snaps over his three-year career at Texas, with 20-plus carries in goal-to-go situations in his final two seasons there, a far cry from his college and draft character. Blame it on the head-scratching management of former head coach Arthur Smith, who is now the Steelers' offensive coordinator in Pittsburgh. Raheem Morris replaced Smith in Atlanta.
Brock Purdy completed 66.7 percent of his passes 15 or more yards from the line of scrimmage.is clearly the best production in the 18 seasons this stat has been tracked. His 13 vertical touchdown passes led the league and accounted for 38% of his fantasy production. Unfortunately for Purdy, this category shows a fair amount of variation from year to year. Only three quarterbacks have completed 50% or more vertical passes and thrown 10 touchdown passes in consecutive seasons: Drew Brees (2008-09, 2011-13, 2018-19), Philip Rivers (2010-11) and Deshaun Watson (2019-20).
Before he got injured last season, Anthony Richardson averaged 0.45 fantasy points per offensive snap, clearly the best performance of any starting quarterback in the league.For comparison, the closest full-time quarterback in this category was Josh Allen with an average of 0.36.
Dalton Kinkaid has adjusted well to a key role for the Buffalo Bills as a rookie, especially while Dawson Knox was nursing a midseason wrist injury. Since Week 7, Kinkaid has played 65% of the team's offensive snaps, received 75 targets, and scored 121.5 PPR fantasy points.ninth-best at his position.
Jalin Hyatt's average depth of target of 20.2 yards was the second-highest of any season with 40-plus targets.That's his best mark in any year for which data is available (2006-23). He had 274 of his 373 yards receiving on passes that traveled 15 or more yards beyond the line of scrimmage.
Keaton MitchellHe is still recovering from surgery to repair a torn anterior cruciate ligament that he suffered in December. He scored over 201 last season. Actual than Be expected Rush YardsAccording to NFL Next Gen Stats, Mitchell is the fourth-best running back in the league, and he did it in just six games (no carries in the first two). Highlighting his incredible speed are his 8.4 yards per carry, best at his position (minimum 40 attempts), as well as the fact that 44.7% of his attempts were recorded with a top speed of 15 mph or higher. Mitchell also recorded four runs with a top speed of 20 mph or higher, trailing only Devon Achain and Breece Hall, who each recorded six.
I was expecting more but…
Stefon Diggs played in all 17 games last season but had his biggest fantasy decline in the second half of the season. He averaged 21.7 PPR fantasy points through the first nine weeks of the season, but just 9.8 points over the final nine, a drop of 11.9 points, and Diggs has scored fewer than 10 points in six of his final eight games.
Diontaie Johnson snapped a 21-game streak without a receiving touchdown last season.which is noteworthy because he averaged 5.2 receptions while not scoring, and what further highlights this absolute randomness is the 25 points he recorded in the other 56 games in his career.
Davante Adams is the only player in the league who has received at least 20 red zone targets in each of the past three seasons. But having the right quarterback here can make a big difference. In 2021, Aaron Rodgers' final season at quarterback, he scored 10 touchdowns in such situations, matching his total red-zone conversions from the previous two seasons. CombinedIn fact, Adams recorded 10 or more touchdowns on red zone passes in three of his final four years in Green Bay.
Crunching the numbers
Josh Allen and Jalen Hurts set NFL records last season with 15 rushing touchdowns each.It was Hurts' third consecutive year with double-digit points in the category, tying him with Cam Newton for the most in that category. total Newton accounted for double-digit touchdowns in 2011, 2015 and 2020, furthering his status as the only quarterback in history to record 10 or more rushing touchdowns in two consecutive years.
To give you an idea of Hurts' rushing dominance, he scored a position-high 142.5 fantasy points last season with his legs alone. He has scored at least 130 fantasy points on rushing plays each of the past three years.His 432.9 total rushing fantasy points from 2021-2023 represent 60% of the total points scored by running back Najee Harris, who started all 51 games for the Pittsburgh Steelers in that span.
With Jim Harbaugh returning to the NFL as head coach of the Los Angeles Chargers, there may be some uncertainty at quarterback. Justin HerbertThe Chargers' production will decline when you consider that Harbaugh will be implementing a run-heavy offense in 2024. Fantasy managers considering members of the Chargers' passing game should keep the following in mind. During Harbaugh's last NFL coaching career, with the San Francisco 49ers from 2011-2014, his teams attempted rushing plays 50.0% of the time.The 49ers had the second-most rushing attempts in the league over those four years, rushing more than 50 percent of the time in three of those seasons. Granted, the fact that a mobile Colin Kaepernick took 63 percent of the quarterback snaps during that time influenced that number, but even if you look at just running back rush attempts, the 49ers' 1,569 rushing attempts over those four years were the ninth-most in the NFL.
Harbaugh might be able to extract some sneaky value out of the backfield, especially with Greg Roman as his offensive coordinator. Roman played the same role on a Baltimore Ravens team from 2019-22 that finished third in rushing overall and led the league in rushing twice in four years. Two of Roman's former Ravens running backs, J.K. Dobbins and Gus Edwardswill reunite with him in Los Angeles in eight games in which either player absorbed at least a third of their team's rushing attempts. Dobbins averaged 14.5 PPR fantasy points in all eight games for Roman's Ravens team, while Edwards averaged 12.4 in seven games.
Najee Harris is one of two running backs to play in all 51 games for the team over the past three seasons. (The other is Amir Abdullah.) Harris has 11 games with 20 or more PPR fantasy points, playing at least 79% of the Pittsburgh Steelers' offensive snaps in seven of those games. Unfortunately, due to Jalen Warren's increased role, Harris played just 52% of the snaps in the final nine games of 2023 and was held to fewer than 10 points four times in that stretch.
In the past three seasons, Joe Mixon scored at least 75 PPR fantasy points inside the red zone.That's a testament to his scoring prowess, as is his league-leading 17 touchdowns on 34 goal-line carries.
Kyren Williams recorded at least 20 touches every game from Week 12-17 last season and is the only player in 2023 to do so.The next most recent player to be able to claim that in a single season was Josh Jacobs (seven straight games from Weeks 9-15 of 2022).
Want even more numbers? Check out our 2023 fantasy football scoring leaders or check out our 2024 fantasy football projections and outlook.
