Gross Bombs: NFL Props for Week 16
Josh Gross
Every touchdown is important. Points for the team. Excitement for the fans. Dollars in his bank account. There’s no such thing as a meaningless touchdown in the NFL. They’re all important.
But that doesn’t mean they are all equally important.
I might argue that the most important touchdown of the NFL regular season was Devin Singletary’s 3-yard run in the fourth quarter of Week 18. It was the deciding score in the game that gave the Texans the AFC South title and kept the Colts out of the playoffs. Hard to be more influential than that.
But the most irrelevant touchdown of the year? That’s harder. And like the guys at @CespedesBBQ did with the home runs around baseball in the 2023 season, I decided to try to determine the single most irrelevant touchdown of the 2023 NFL season.
Remember: This is not an insult. Every score matters, every opponent was trying to stop it, every player gets to have the score on his stat sheet for all eternity. But it’s simply the truth that if you rank all 1,302 touchdowns scored in the 2023 season from most to least important, one of them has to be at the bottom of the list, and figuring out which score that is is … kind of fun.
So let’s go through the criteria first to narrow our list down, and then at the end we’ll count down the five most irrelevant touchdowns of 2023.
The Most Irrelevant Touchdown of 2023
No Defensive Touchdowns (1,302 TDs to 1,229)
A defensive score can’t be that irrelevant, if only because it de facto had to be super exciting, if only for the unpredictability. You never see it coming.
No TDs Outside the Red Zone (1,229 to 942)
I could have made this threshold much lower, but the starting point was that anything scored from outside the red zone definitely had to be exciting and had to generate crowd buzz.
Nothing on Fourth Down (942 to 892)
If a team lines up to go for it on fourth down, there’s a palpable buzz. Either they’re desperate, they’re aggressive or they’re surprising, and any of those means that a success warrants excitement.
No 49ers, Chiefs, Ravens or Lions (892 to 735)
If you score for one of the teams playing on Conference Championship weekend, you contributed to one of the best teams in the NFL on the season. There’s no way that’s irrelevant.
Nothing More Than +1 EPA (735 to 141)
I could have started here, but it was more fun to get rid of some of the other categories first. But it’s simple — when a team is expected to score, say, 4.37 points on a drive (like the Titans were in Week 18 when they had first-and-10 from the Jaguars’ 18) and they score a touchdown on that play (in this case, with Derrick Henry), well, that’s a jump from 4.37 to 7, and that’s notable.
Nothing in Weeks 1-2 (141 to 119)
Early in the season, it’s tabula rasa, and we don’t know what might become notable by the end of the season. Maybe Cam Akers’ Week 1 touchdown wasn’t that meaningful for that game, but at the time we couldn’t say for sure if he was going to score 1 on the season or 21, and that means it was relevant, at least at the time.
Nothing Within One Score (119 to 39)
A touchdown that came in a one-score game was important. Either it flipped a lead, it tied the game or it started to close the book. Either way, the game was still in question when it was scored.
No QB with 225+ PPR Points, No Skill Player with 150+ (39 to 11)
Even if the games were decided, even if teams’ postseason status was known, fantasy players monitored touchdowns scored by their players closely. Sure, across all fantasy leagues, virtually everyone is started somewhere, but the top fantasy players (quarterbacks with 225-plus PPR points, skill players with 150-plus) were widely rostered, and that means a whole lot of fantasy managers celebrated when the touchdowns were scored.
That left us with 11 touchdowns. From there, we could knock a few more out for individual reasons. Here they are, in chronological order:
Taysom Hill’s 1-Yard Run, Week 8
This made the game 35-20 in the fourth quarter of a game they won 38-27. The problem? It was freakin’ Taysom Hill. Even if that guy has an outsized reputation in the league, he does have it. He can’t score an irrelevant touchdown.
Kareem Hunt’s 3-Yard Run, Week 9
Kareem Hunt iced the Browns’ 27-0 shutout win over the Cardinals in Week 9 with this fourth-quarter run, and sure, that didn’t matter that much. On the other hand, it was a three-yard run, which meant it added about half a point in EPA compared to the others on our list, which were in the 0.26 or 0.03 range. (We’ll hear more from Kareem Hunt later.)
Tommy DeVito’s 2-Yard Pass to Sterling Shepard, Week 10
The Giants scored a touchdown with 10 seconds left against the Cowboys in Week 10 to take the score from 49-10 to 49-17. It didn’t matter for much of anything, really. Except … the whole Tommy DeVito thing kind of started with this game, when he threw two touchdowns, with the Giants proceeding to win their next three. This TD will be in some end-of-year highlight reels, if only in New Jersey.
Zach Charbonnet’s 1-Yard Run, Week 13
The Seahawks were down 10 when Zach Charbonnet scored this second-quarter TD, which means he closed the gap in a game they ultimately lost by 6. It was back-and-forth for a while, but the game was never more than 8 points in either direction. Relevant.
Devin Singletary’s 1-Yard Run, Week 14
The Jets ate up the Texans in Week 14, with Devin Singletary’s six points making it 14-6 in a game the Texans lost 30-6. But by this point in the season, Singletary had become fantasy relevant, even if his season-long totals didn’t get there. Heck, he was in my lineup that week.
Jamaal Williams’ 1-Yard Run, Week 18
This would have been an excellent contender for the crown. A one-yard touchdown by a guy who had fallen off the fantasy radar to cap off a 48-17 win. If not for, you know, everything surrounding it — the Saints going rogue on their coach, Arthur Smith ending his Falcons tenure by nearly fighting his Saints counterpart. The extenuating circumstances kept this one out of the rankings.
With that, we’re down to five. The five most irrelevant touchdowns of the 2023 NFL season. Here they are, from No. 5 to No. 1.
5. Kareem Hunt’s 1-Yard Touchdown to Make the Game 36-7, Week 16
Browns beat the Texans 36-22
It was 28-7 early in the fourth quarter of Week 16 when Kareem Hunt ran the ball in from one yard out. The Texans would score 15 points in the fourth quarter to make it superficially closer, but this touchdown really ended any question. But since the touchdown benefited the winning team, it can’t be our No. 1.
4. Rico Dowdle’s 1-Yard Touchdown to Make the Game 49-10, Week 10
Cowboys beat the Giants 49-17
This is the touchdown that came just before the Tommy DeVito-to-Sterling Shepard touchdown that made our honorable mention list. This doesn’t rank higher for two reasons. First: Winning team. Second: Rico Dowdle actually forced his way into the edges of our fantasy consciousness with this week (12 carries, 79 yards, 1 touchdown while Tony Pollard struggled).
3. Khalil Herbert’s 1-Yard Touchdown to Make the Game 37-17, Week 17
Bears beat the Falcons 37-17
With 12 minutes left in the game, the Falcons closed the game to 27-17 to make it at least somewhat interesting. The Bears notched a field goal with 5 minutes left to make it 30-17 and all but end it, so Khalil Herbert’s touchdown even later than that certainly didn’t matter much. And he had fallen off the fantasy radar by this point in the season. But again, winning team.
2. Tank Bigsby’s 1-Yard Touchdown to Make the Game 7-17, Week 3
Jaguars lose to the Texans 37-17
After some preseason buzz, Tank Bigsby had mostly already played himself out of our fantasy consciousness by Week 3, with 13 yards in Week 1 and an inactive in Week 2. This touchdown came early in the second half, taking the Jaguars from a 17-0 deficit to 17-7. They lost by 20, so it super didn’t matter. But then, we didn’t know for sure at the time that it wouldn’t (we still thought the Jags were good and the Texans weren’t, so maybe that started a comeback), and for all of Bigsby’s disappointments, it was his second touchdown in two games played, so we did still have to worry about him being a vulture (he wouldn’t score again on the season, so … nope).
And the most irrelevant touchdown of the 2023 NFL season…
1. Royce Freeman’s 1-Yard Touchdown to Make the Game 9-33, Week 8
Rams lose to the Cowboys 43-20
The Cowboys crushed the Rams in Week 8, jumping out to a 33-3 lead. Royce Freeman scored a touchdown to end the first half, but there couldn’t have been a soul in the world who thought that heralded a comeback. Maybe some people had bought into Freeman in fantasy in light of Kyren Williams’ injury, but we still had questions about Darrell Henderson (who had led the team in carries the week before), about Zach Evans, about Ronnie Rivers. The game wasn’t even in Los Angeles, so home fans didn’t get to celebrate it. When you find a reason this touchdown mattered beyond “well, every score matters,” let me know. But by just about any definition I can think of, this was our most irrelevant touchdown of the 2023 NFL season.
