Numbers you need to know as you prep for draft day

Numbers can tell us compelling stories.

They can, however, mislead, usually when framed in a way to construct a narrative or support a specific claim.

Appreciating that both facts can simultaneously be true is critical to your fantasy football decision-making process. After all, fantasy football is, in itself, a numbers game. The numbers determine our teams' fates, and they have a massive say in our draft day, waiver wire and weekly lineup processes.

As you prepare for the 2025 fantasy football season, garner as much knowledge -- and absorb as many of these statistical facts -- as you can, to help guide your decision-making throughout the year. Simultaneously, scrutinize every number, understanding that each often tells you only one angle of the story.

What follows below are my favorite numbers heading into 2025, collected during my preseason research period. Appreciate them however you wish to judge them: some to help make tough calls between closely valued players; some to give you a head start on your own research and draft preparation; some merely as bar-bet type material, or "huh, how about that?" trivia nuggets.

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40 Ja'Marr Chase scored at least 40 PPR fantasy points on three separate occasions last season (Weeks 5, 10 and 14). He joined Isaac Bruce (1995) and Davante Adams (2020) as the only wide receivers since the merger to have had at least that many such games in a single season.

12 Courtland Sutton has seen at least 12 end zone targets in each of the past three seasons, the only player in the NFL who can make that claim.

10 In the past three seasons combined, DJ Moore had a league-leading 10 catches on throws that Next Gen Stats calculated had a 25% chance of completion or worse.

7 Only seven receivers saw at least 15 red-zone targets, had at least 10 yards average depth of target and averaged at least 30 routes run per game last season. The obvious five were Justin Jefferson, Drake London, Sutton, Tee Higgins and Tyreek Hill, all of whom finished among the top 18 wide receivers in PPR fantasy points. You might reasonably have guessed a sixth, Jordan Addison, who finished 21st.

The seventh was a much tougher one to guess: Rome Odunze, who finished 49th.

20.7 Following the Carolina Panthers' Week 11 bye last season, Bryce Young scored 145.12 fantasy points across seven games, sixth-most among quarterbacks. To further put that into perspective, Young averaged 20.7 points in those contests, more than double the 9.7 that he averaged in his previous 21 career NFL starts.

89 Across the past three seasons, Travis Kelce has run 89 more routes, seen 28 more targets and caught 17 more passes inside the red zone than any other tight end. That wasn't entirely the result of his career-best 2022 campaign either, as in 2024 alone, he ran 16 more routes, saw four more targets and caught two more passes than anyone else at his position in those same situations.

5 To reiterate the benefit of rostering a mobile quarterback, 30% of all quarterbacks' starts last season resulted in a 20-point fantasy output or better. That was right in line with the league-wide rate five years earlier (31%, 2019).

However, starting quarterbacks who had at least five rushing attempts last season scored 20 or more fantasy points 43% of the time. To put that into perspective, in 2019, only 31% of quarterbacks with at least five carries scored 20-plus points.

Five rushing attempts is no randomly selected number, as it appears to be the modern "sweet spot" for fantasy success. In both 2022 and 2024, there were more 20-point quarterbacks with at least five rushing attempts as those who had fewer, the first two seasons in NFL history in which that has been true.

Five quarterbacks averaged at least five rushing attempts per game last season: Jalen Hurts, Jayden Daniels, Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen and Bo Nix. They finished eighth, fifth, first, second and seventh, respectively, in total PPR fantasy points scored.

100 Speaking of Jackson, he scored 107.5 of his quarterback season record 430.38 fantasy points with his legs, the fourth time in his seven seasons that he has scored at least 100 rushing fantasy points and the seventh straight year with 80-plus rushing points to begin his career. He, Allen and Cam Newton are the only three quarterbacks in history who can claim the latter.

That's not to take anything away from Jackson's skills as a passer. He completed 30 touchdown passes from inside the pocket, and his 116.9 passer rating on those throws was the seventh-best rate by any quarterback this century.

59 From Week 11 forward last season, Jonnu Smith scored a tight end-leading 148.7 PPR fantasy points (14.2 more than the next best) in eight games. Part of the reason was how often the Miami Dolphins split him out wide, as Next Gen Stats tracked him running a position-leading 59 routes in that alignment during that time span, resulting in 29% of his fantasy production.

The focus for Smith now shifts to how he'll be used by Pittsburgh Steelers offensive coordinator Arthur Smith, who has had Jonnu on his roster, whether as head coach or coordinator, for each of the tight end's three previous best fantasy seasons (2019, 2020 and 2023). And while Arthur didn't use Jonnu in quite the way that the Dolphins did in 2024, he did begin to split Jonnu wide in 2023 in Atlanta with respectable results, giving him 52 such routes (13th among tight ends) and resulting in 31.1 of 124.2 PPR fantasy points for the tight end. Keep your fingers crossed that Arthur Smith continues that creative Dolphins usage of Jonnu Smith in Pittsburgh.

55 Of Caleb Williams' 254.54 fantasy points last season (16th-most among quarterbacks), a league-leading 55% came with his Chicago Bears trailing by at least a touchdown. In fact, he amassed 35% of his seasonal fantasy point total in what's commonly considered "garbage time," after halftime of games and with his team needing at least two scores in order to tie.

33 Conversely, Derrick Henry's 109.9 PPR fantasy points with his Baltimore Ravens up by at least two scores after halftime of games was the second-most by any individual player this century. That accounted for 33% of his entire seasonal total.

That said, only two running backs averaged at least five yards per carry, four yards after contact per carry and had at least 20 "explosive plays" (rushes of at least 10 yards) last season: Henry, who finished fourth in PPR fantasy points at the position, and Bucky Irving, who finished 13th.

34.9 Brock Bowers set a season record for PPR fantasy points by a tight end last season (262.7). For those concerned about regression for the second-year Las Vegas Raiders star, bear in mind that it hasn't struck top-scoring rookie tight ends as dramatically as you might've feared. Taking the 10 best single-season rookie tight end seasons since the merger, the group declined by only 34.9 PPR fantasy points, and 0.51 points per game, as sophomores.

Yes, Sam LaPorta, whose 2023 record Bowers broke, experienced one of the most dramatic declines among the group (down 64.7 points, or 3.2 per game), but even he finished eighth best among tight ends in scoring last season.

200 Jahmyr Gibbs and David Montgomery scored at least 200 PPR fantasy points apiece in each of the past two seasons. They're the first backfield teammates in history to do that, though, for a historical note, it's worth pointing out that Dallas Cowboys' Tony Dorsett and Ron Springs both reached the 200-point plateau in 1981 and 1983, with a strike-abbreviated 1982 in between.

75 Gibbs' 75% rate (12 of 16) of converting his carries from within three yards of the goal line for scores in his two NFL seasons led the league.

Gus Edwards was the NFL's leader in that department over the past three seasons (76%, or 16 of 21).

46 A full 46% (13 of 28) of De'Von Achane's games over the past two seasons have resulted in him scoring at least 20 PPR fantasy points. Christian McCaffrey is the only running back with a greater such percentage in that time (60%, 12 of 20 games).

6 Pete Carroll, the Raiders' new head coach, had Seattle Seahawks offenses that finished top four in the NFL in rushing yards six times between 2012-23. Not all of those were Marshawn Lynch teams, either, as Chris Carson was the team's leading rusher in both 2018 (Seahawks led the league) and 2019 (Seahawks finished fourth).

11 Patrick Mahomes endured a streak of 11 consecutive games, spanning from Week 13 of 2023 through Week 7 of 2024, scoring fewer than 17.5 fantasy points. Among quarterbacks who have had a 350 fantasy-point season at some point in their careers, he and Matt Ryan (12 games, in 2021-22) are the only ones with a streak at least that long, and remember that Mahomes has four 350-point seasons on his résumé (Ryan has one).

6 After Zack Moss was lost for the season due to a neck injury in Week 8, Chase Brown scored 165.0 PPR fantasy points in eight games over the season's final 10 weeks. That was the sixth-most among running backs during that span.

3 Jonathan Taylor has a history of strong finishes. Across his five NFL seasons, he has scored 332.6 PPR fantasy points from Week 14 forward, third-best among running backs, and his 20.8 per-game average trails only Gibbs' 22.6.

15 Brian Thomas Jr. scored at least 15 PPR fantasy points in each of the Jacksonville Jaguars' final six games of 2024. He joined Randy Moss (1998), Odell Beckham Jr. (2014) and Amon-Ra St. Brown (2021) as the only rookie wide receivers since the merger with as long a streak.

12 Across the past five seasons, only three wide receivers have had at least 12 games scoring 25 or more PPR fantasy points and at least 12 scoring fewer than five: A.J. Brown, Mike Evans and Cooper Kupp.

17.4 Jauan Jennings scored 173.6 PPR fantasy points in 10 games last season in which one or both of his fellow San Francisco 49ers (at the time) wide receivers Brandon Aiyuk or Deebo Samuel Sr. were absent. Jennings' 17.4-point average was better than the seasonal averages for all but nine wide receivers.