Fantasy Fallout: QB quartet combines for record day in Week 9
— -- Quarterbacks only continue to set the statistical bar higher.
After a Week 8 during which three different quarterbacks scored at least 30 fantasy points, Sunday saw four do it. That made Week 9 of 2015 only the second time since 1960 that at least four quarterbacks scored 30-plus in the same week:
Week 8, incidentally, represented only the 13th time that as many as three quarterbacks reached the 30-point threshold in a single week, though seven of those weeks have been since the beginning of 2010.
From an individual standpoint, by scoring at least 30 for the second consecutive week, Drew Brees now has 17 such performances during his 15-year NFL career. That broke a tie with Steve Young (16) with the most such games by any player since 1960. Here are the top-10 quarterbacks in 30-point fantasy games during that time span:
Drew Brees 17
Steve Young 16
Tom Brady 15
Peyton Manning 13
Aaron Rodgers 13
Daunte Culpepper 11
Cam Newton 10
Dan Marino 9
Donovan McNabb 9
Jeff Garcia 7
Meanwhile, with 32 fantasy points, Marcus Mariota managed the eighth-best fantasy point total by any rookie quarterback since 1960:
Mariota's performance came in his sixth career game, which tied him for the eighth-fastest among quarterbacks to have a 30-point fantasy day. Only Fran Tarkenton (his first game, listed above), Daunte Culpepper (his second game, 30 fantasy points in 2000 Week 1), Robert Griffin III (his second, 30 fantasy points in 2012 Week 2), Marc Bulger (his fourth, listed above), Cam Newton (his fourth, listed above), Bobby Hoying (his fifth, 35 fantasy points in 1997 Week 14) and Nick Foles (his fifth, listed above) did it faster. Note: Hoying's performance in 1997 was his fifth NFL game, but it occurred in his second NFL season.
Mariota also now has 102 fantasy points through his first six NFL games, which ranks seventh among quarterbacks since 1960. Here is the top 10:
End zone-ophobia?
Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Antonio Brown on Sunday caught 17 passes for 284 yards while rushing another two times for 22 yards, but he failed to reach the end zone. That gave him one of the odder individual games from a historical perspective: His 284 receiving yards without a touchdown were the most by any player in a game since 1960, while his 17 receptions without a score were second only to Jason Witten's 18 (2012 Week 8) during that same time span. Brown also finished 52 receiving yards short of Flipper Anderson's single-game record (336, 1989 Week 12).
In ESPN standard leagues, Brown finished with 28 fantasy points, and in PPR formats he managed 45. Those both shattered the previous best fantasy point totals in games in which the player failed to score a touchdown of any kind (passing, rushing, receiving or return); before Sunday, no player had ever scored more than 24 standard or 39 PPR fantasy points in such a game. The previous mark by a wide receiver was 23 standard and 39 PPR fantasy points, by Keenan McCardell in Week 8 of the 1998 season.
Miscellany
? Steelers running back DeAngelo Williams wasn't quite so unfortunate in the touchdown department. Thanks to two rushing scores, he managed 36 fantasy points (38 in PPR). That set a career high in his 127th game, topping the 34 he scored in Week 16 of the 2008 season.
? Though St. Louis Rams rookie running back Todd Gurley didn't have quite as good a game Sunday as he enjoyed in Weeks 7 and 8, his 16 fantasy points were nevertheless a top-10 score at the position and gave him 93 in his first six NFL contests. That ranks among the top-15 running backs through as many games since 1960:
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