Fantasy Football Six-Pack: Jalen Hurts, A.J. Brown ready to punch semifinal tickets

Congratulations, fantasy playoff qualifiers. There aren't many feelings in imaginary sports quite as satisfying as seeing that little * next to your team name in the standings. You did it, folks. The next step, of course, is to advance to Week 16.

If you happen to have this guy on your fantasy squad, we like your chances to head to the semis...

117.3 - Just in case you hadn't noticed, Jalen Hurts has surged to the top of the league in passer rating at 108.2. After the season's first six weeks, his rating was a perfectly respectable 98.4. Following the Eagles' bye in Week 7, Hurts has been as scorching hot as any passer in the league. He's tossed 16 touchdown passes and just one pick over his last seven games, completing 69.1 percent of his throws at 8.1 yards per attempt.

Hurts' rating since the bye is an obscene 117.3. If he did that over a full season, it would be the sixth highest passer-rating in league history.

74 - It's been 74 days since Mike Evans last scored a touchdown, which is a crazy thing to write. We're talking about a player who found the end zone 27 times in his two previous seasons. He had a long walk-in touchdown negated by a holding penalty on Sunday, just to twist the metaphorical knife. If you're looking for reasons to remain hopeful, he's coming off a nine-target week and he's already seen 98 opportunities through 12 games, so he's probably gonna finish the year around 130. That's well above his recent full-season target totals.

Evans' share of red-zone receptions isn't dramatically different compared to last year, for what it's worth (16.2 vs. 16.0). Tampa Bay's offense averaged 2.5 passing TDs per game last season and they're down to 1.3 in 2022, so pretty much every member of the Bucs receiving corps is suffering. Also, it's worth noting that Evans and Tom Brady top the leaderboard of players who have lost fantasy points due to PI flags and other penalties.

31.4 - Evan Engram scored 31.4 percent of his season's fantasy points against the Titans in Week 14, vaulting him to the overall TE4 on the year. This is at once an indictment of Tennessee's defense and the tight end position generally. Engram had some camp buzz back in the summer, as he'd quickly developed chemistry with Trevor Lawrence. But nothing that he'd done on the field this season (or in any other season) suggested a 30-plus fantasy point eruption was within his range of outcomes. And yet...

If you're interested in perhaps picking on the defense allowing the third-most fantasy points to opposing tight ends, Gerald Everett gets the Titans in Week 15.

19 - Over the past three weeks, Zonovan Knight has forced 19 missed tackles according to PFF, second-most among all running backs behind only Josh Jacobs (21). It's fair to point out that two of the defenses he's faced in this three-game stretch are less-than-intimidating (Chicago and Minnesota), but Knight actually produced nine missed tackles against Buffalo on Sunday. The Bills are one of only four NFL teams holding opponents to fewer than 100 rushing yards per game, so that defense is legit. At this point, we have to simply accept that Knight is a good back with fresh legs who rarely goes down on first contact.

New York's upcoming schedule is a gift for fantasy purposes — Detroit, Jacksonville, Seattle — so Knight is nearly unbenchable.

8.7 - Over their last three games, the Green Bay Packers have allowed a league-worst 8.7 yards per pass attempt while also giving up a league-worst 5.7 yards per carry to opposing rushers. So, no, things have not gone according to plan for a defense that was not supposed to be the very worst in the NFL. Fantasy managers have added the Green Bay defense in tens of thousands of leagues this week ahead of the home matchup with the Rams, but let's just please recognize how dreadful this group has been.

6 - It can be argued that the best play in football this season has been a downfield shot to A.J. Brown, who's hauled in six touchdowns on the 16 deep targets he's seen this year. He's caught eight balls on pass attempts traveling 20-plus yards downfield, making six house calls. The man is gaining 18.1 yards per route on these throws. Brown has crossed the goal line five times in his last three games and he seems like a lock to spike at least once against Chicago. If you happen to have him on a roster — and certainly if you're riding with a Hurts-Brown combo — you should cruise into the fantasy semifinals.