You may not know this, but stats are important in fantasy football.
That's why y'all read my work—the hard-hitting analysis.
The entire foundation of fantasy football is stats. No matter how vanilla or wild the fantasy league, all award points based on passing, rushing, and receiving yards. Touchdowns. Receptions and whatnot.
That's right. Just gonna explain how fantasy football works—just in case you didn't already know. Can tell this column is gonna be a banger, huh?
Over the years, more and more advanced statistics have been used not to calculate fantasy scores, but to help determine the value of players on draft day. The quarterback who leads the NFL in intended air yards is slinging the rock around. The running back who leads the league in yards before contact per attempt is playing behind a stout offensive line. A wide receiver who paces the NFL in average depth per target is stretching defenses.
Then along came analytics, which used those stats to create a value-determining stat of their own. EPA (expected points added). DVOA (defense-adjusted value over average), FUMUBS, which combines all metrics, the Pythagorean Theorem and the Arakelov Theory to find an absolutely accurate barometer of a player's fantasy value in the season to come.
I'll let you figure out the acronym on your own.
OK, that last one might be made up. But the rest of these stats are not. Some are relatively simple. Some are more advanced.
But all are worth bearing in mind when draft day rolls around.
26.8
That is how many rushing yards per game Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson averaged per game last season, far and away the fewest of his career. As a matter of fact, it was Jackson's first season averaging less than 50 yards per game on the ground since his rookie year in 2018.
Now, this is a number that needs context—Jackson was banged up much of last season. The 29-year-old missed four games and clearly wasn't right in multiple others. As recently as two years ago, Jackson rushed for 915 yards. He's the only quarterback in NFL history with multiple 1,000-yard seasons on the ground.
In that 2024 campaign, Jackson was the highest-scoring quarterback in fantasy. Last year, he dropped outside the top-15 in points per game.
It seems weird to call a two-time MVP in his prime a "Boom/Bust" play. But Jackson sorta is this season.
7.7
The touchdown percentage of Los Angeles Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford, who led the league in passing yards (4,707) and touchdown throws (46) on the way to being named the NFL's Most Valuable Player. Stafford was fantasy's best value at the position in 2025, going from an Average Draft Position of QB23 last year to a second-place finish in fantasy points.
That was also a career-high for Stafford, whose only other season in Los Angeles close to that was a TD percentage of 6.8 in the Rams' Super Bowl year in 2021. Stafford's TD percentage in 2024 was just over half of last year's monster number, and that 2021 campaign was Stafford's only other year in Los Angeles over five percent.
Regression is coming—the only question is how much.
413
That's how many touches San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey had in the regular season last year—a career-high. If you add the postseason, it balloons to 450.
What, you thought this analyst was going to miss an opportunity to scream from the mountaintops that McCaffrey is the biggest bust in fantasy football this year? I will not! You will listen to me, by golly!
Since 2010, there have been two instances where a running back surpassed 400 touches in a season—McCaffrey in 2019 and McCaffrey last year. The last time it happened, the 30-year-old made it three games into the season before spontaneously combusting.
This is also the third time that McCaffrey has tried to back up a season with 2,000 total yards. To say that things did not go well in 2020 and 2024 is an understatement and then some.
1.6
That sad, pitiful number is how many yards before contact Las Vegas Raiders running back Ashton Jeanty averaged per attempt as a rookie in 2025—a number that trailed such future Hall-of-Famers as Woody Marks of the Houston Texans and Tyrone Tracy Jr. of the New York Giants. Tracy averaged almost a full yard more per carry before contact.
Frankly, that Jeanty was still able to tally over 1,300 yards and score 10 times is damned impressive. Jeanty had daylight approximately never. It was get ball, get hit.
To be clear, the Raiders aren't going to have a great offensive line this year just because the team signed center Tyler Linderbaum and got a healthy Kolton Miller back at left tackle. But there's nowhere to go but up for that front, and even a league-average YBC/ATT could mean a big year for Jeanty—and a better chance of justifying his RB5 ADP here at Footballguys.
2,662
No, that's not how many rushing yards Treveyon Henderson of the New England Patriots will have this year. That would be a record or something.
It's how many career carries Derrick Henry of the Baltimore Ravens has piled up in the regular season over a decade in the NFL—over 800 more than any other active running back.
To be clear, Henry punched Father Time in the spleen last year—he was fourth in the league in carries (307), second in the NFL in rushing yards (1,595), second in rushing scores (16) and seventh in PPR points at the position.
Henry is a cyborg. But he turns 33 in January and isn't a factor in the passing game. That's baked into his RB12 ADP to an extent, but drafters have to remain aware of the possibility that even the King is mortal.