During the 1980s, the late, great actor John Ritter hosted a series of educational videos for children and young adults (“Where There’s A Will, There’s An A”), offering various methods (or tricks) for retaining sizable nuggets of important information.
Among the key lessons, young minds should condense the material into shorter periods of processing, creating more opportunities to recall the first and last bits of information.
So, taking a cue from Where There’s A Will … There’s An A, we’ve reduced the number of weekly Fun Facts to an easily digestible five items.
In other words, we’re taking a Less Is More approach to gleaning top-shelf insight for your fantasy league.
Enjoy!
FUN FACT #1
You can set your clock to Panthers tailback Christian McCaffrey (plausible candidate for 2,000 total yards/20 TDs) dominating the PPR scene, regardless of playing venue.
But check this out: Charting his last eight road outings, McCaffrey has absurdly amassed 122 total yards and 1.3 touchdowns; and for this week, despite facing the stingy Niners defense, C-Mac possesses the sentimental trump card of playing near his collegiate home of Stanford.
Here’s the major challenge, though: Against opposing tailbacks, the 49ers defense ranks first in targets, catches, receiving yards and receiving yards allowed.
FUN FACT #2
This piece could be the kiss of death for Titans tight end Delanie Walker, garnering a fanciful mention in Fun Facts.
Why is that?
Well, in the past, we’ve earmarked tight ends Tyler Eifert, Evan Engram and Gerald Everett for monster fantasy numbers on specific weekends … only to see the trio inexplicably struggle against porous defenses.
Nevertheless, here are the reasons for this week’s Walker endorsement:
**The Buccaneers (Walker’s Sunday opponent) own bottom-5 ranking versus tight ends, citing the crucial categories of targets, catches and receiving yards allowed.
**These same tight ends are sporting a robust catch-to-target rate of 68 percent against Tampa Bay.
**Six of Walker’s previous nine touchdowns have occurred against teams outside the AFC South.
**Walker has a lifetime catch-to-target rate of 77 percent and two touchdowns versus the Bucs.
FUN FACT #3
Here’s something truly crazy:
**The Patriots have allowed the most targets to opposing wideouts this season (167 — tied with the Panthers) … and yet, New England has surrendered just one touchdown to that position (Golden Tate).
**On the flip side, the wretched Dolphins have given up the fewest amount of targets to opposing wide receivers … and yet, Miami has yielded double-digit TDs to the same positional class.
Insane.
FUN FACT #4
Just seven games into the season, the Giants defense has surrendered more than 1,900 yards passing and 10 passing touchdowns.
As part of that misery, opposing quarterbacks also own a sterling completion rate of 69 percent.
This all bodes well for Lions QB Matthew Stafford, who boasts remarkably clean tallies at home in 2019, averaging 300 yards passing and three TDs at Ford Field.
And last but not least …
FUN FACT #5
The winless Bengals have quickly morphed into a get-right game for the other side.
Against opposing tailbacks, Cincinnati’s eminently movable defense has allowed per-carry averages of 4.9 yards … and 10 total touchdowns (seven rushing).
Think Todd Gurley can handle being matched up with another leaky defense?
Gurley hasn’t registered 20 or more weekly touches this season; and yet, charting his seven outings, the Georgia alum reached the elite-level threshold of 100 total yards and/or one touchdown six times.
One more thing: Citing his last eight home outings (including the playoffs), Gurley holds stellar averages of 123 total yards and 1.1 touchdowns.