The Odell Beckham Jr. story keeps getting better.
Already in this Beckham book are five 100-yard receiving games, arguably the season's most incredible catch and a whopping 71 catches and nine touchdowns since Week 5, both of those numbers placing him among the top four at his position during that 11-week span. And, entering Monday night's play, Beckham has a chance to do something that only nine other rookie wide receivers have done since 1960: Lead a week in fantasy points.
The result has been a whopping 147 fantasy points in his first 10 games of NFL action, which puts him on the list of players at any position, dating back to 1960:
What you'll notice about the list above is that no wide receivers are on it, besides Beckham; seven quarterbacks and 19 running backs scored more. That's because Beckham, with his 30-point fantasy Week 15, has assumed the lead among wide receivers in their first 10 NFL games, since 1960:
Heartbreak
• Last week it was Peyton Manning, and this week it was Aaron Rodgers who ruined his fantasy owners in playoff matchups, with a performance that ranked among his worst of any game in his career. Here's how Rodgers' five points stack up among his worst fantasy games:
Reading those starts and notes, Rodgers' five fantasy points tied for his worst performance during any of his seven seasons as an NFL starting quarterback in a game that he was not forced to leave early because of injury. What a time for it to happen.
• It wasn't only Rodgers who let his fantasy owners down, though. Jamaal Charles' five fantasy points represented his worst total since he was forced from Week 2 with an ankle injury (he had zero that week), and it was especially frustrating for two reasons: One, it came against an Oakland Raiders defense that had afforded opposing running backs the fifth-most fantasy points this season entering the week, and two, backup Knile Davis got the Kansas City Chiefs' only goal-line carry, converting it for a touchdown en route to a much-more-palatable 20 fantasy points.
Here's what's strange about Charles' day: It represented the third consecutive season in which he (and his Chiefs) faced the Raiders in Week 15. You might remember last year's Week 15 meeting as the one in which Charles scored 51 fantasy points, the sixth-best single-game total by an NFL player since 1960, helping many a fantasy team to a league title.
But turn back the calendar to 2012 and Charles again disappointed: He scored only two fantasy points, an awfully eerie boom/bust pattern.
Miscellany
• Rodgers nevertheless passed 300 fantasy points for the season, the fourth time in his career he has reached that plateau (2009, 2011, 2012 and 2014). That ties him with Peyton Manning for the most in history -- he did it in 2004, 2006, 2012 and 2013 -- though Manning finds himself within 13 fantasy points of 300 for the 2014 season, and if he gets there, he'll recapture sole leadership in this department with five.
Drew Brees (three, in 2011, 2012 and 2013) and Tom Brady (three, in 2007, 2011 and 2012) also have a chance at reaching the 300-point plateau for the fourth time in 2014. Brees is 56 fantasy points shy with three games to play, including Monday night's, while Brady is 46 fantasy points away with two left to play.
• Johnny Manziel's first career NFL start didn't go well, as in addition to his Cleveland Browns being shut out, he was shut out on the fantasy scorecard.
Manziel's day represented only the sixth time all year that a starting quarterback managed zero or negative fantasy points, and Manziel is the first quarterback this season to both start and complete his game with that bad a score. Two of those previous five times the quarterback with zero or fewer got hurt (Josh McCown, 0 FPTS, Week 3; and Philip Rivers, minus-3 FPTS, Week 9), and three times the quarterback was so bad he was pulled (Geno Smith, minus-1 FPTS in Week 5 and minus-6 FPTS in Week 8; and Andy Dalton, minus-3 FPTS in Week 10).
The last quarterback to take every snap for his team and score as poorly as Manziel was Kirk Cousins, who scored zero in Week 17 of 2013, when his Redskins lost 20-6 at the New York Giants. It has happened only two times since the beginning of 2013, the other instance being Matt Flynn's minus-1 fantasy point on Thanksgiving Day (Week 13). His Packers lost 40-10 at the Detroit Lions.
Here's why Manziel's performance was especially poor, historically speaking: He ran five times and attempted 18 passes.
The last time any player managed at least that many of each yet scored this badly or worse? Week 17 of 2011, when Tim Tebow had minus-1 fantasy point behind six runs and 22 pass attempts. This, incidentally, has been done only eight times since 2000, 28 times since the merger and 37 times since 1960. Greg Landry is the only player to have performed this poorly twice using those parameters.
• Thanks to @graysun94, who checked in with a question about Antonio Brown's PPR production. In a PPR league -- ESPN standard scoring plus one point for each reception -- Antonio Brown's 22 fantasy points in Week 15 would've given him 327 for the season. That puts him 79 points away from Jerry Rice's wide receiver record in that format; Rice scored 406 in 1995.
Brown's PPR production already ranks 20th among wide receivers since 1960, and at his current per-game average of 23.4, he's on pace for 374 PPR fantasy points. That would be fourth-best, behind only Rice, Randy Moss (378 in 2007) and Marvin Harrison (375 in 2002).