Fantasy Football: What history tells us about Jauan Jennings’ monster Week 3 breakout

Jauan Jennings wasn’t on anyone’s radar entering the fantasy football season. He was the presumed WR3 on a team with two superstar wideouts and a star tight end, and the 49ers also drafted another receiver in the first round of the 2024 NFL Draft. Jennings received a modest contract extension because of his familiarity with the offense and his plus-blocking ability. There were no Jennings debates needed all summer.

But man, we need one now. Jennings forced the issue with his detonation game against the Rams, posting a monster 11-175-3 line at Los Angeles last Sunday.

Baseball stat legend Bill James pioneered a concept called Signature Significance. The crux is that although statisticians prefer large samples before they conclude anything with confidence, it’s possible in rare instances for a performance to be such a significant outlier that it can supersede the need to collect more evidence. If a no-name rookie pitcher throws a no-hitter with 16 strikeouts on some random Thursday, it’s likely that pitcher is a special talent. Ordinary players rarely are capable of such greatness, even accounting for randomness and variance.

So we ask — did Jennings reach a Signature Significance level with his amazing Week 3 performance?

The history of WR “boom” games

My first step in answering that question was to dig into the historical context. Jennings scored 46.5 points in full-point PPR leagues last week, which is the 37th-best WR score in the modern fantasy era (2000 to today; thanks to Pro-Football-Reference for the data). The other names on that list are a collection of superstars and very good players.

Jimmy Smith tops the list, a Hall of Very Good receiver. And you’ll find plenty of Hall of Famers (or likely future Hall of Famers) on this search: Tyreek Hill, Ja’Marr Chase, Terrell Owens, Julio Jones, Andre Johnson, Randy Moss, Antonio Brown, Mike Evans. Even when we move past the Gold Jacket stars, you start to see a bunch of familiar names who were reliable fantasy options, guys like Will Fuller and Alshon Jeffrey, Eric Decker and Amani Toomer, Chad Johnson and Wes Welker. Even some of the comet players, the flash-and-fade guys, were fun. Dwayne Bowe had that one magical season. Josh Gordon was a superstar for a moment. Miles Austin could play.

Who are the “worst” players on this list? Kevin Curtis and Drew Bennett, I guess. Kenny Britt. These are all fantasy players I trusted at one time or another. Britt had a quasi-disappointing career and still had one WR22 season and another WR27 finish. Curtis hit a peak of WR14. Bennett was WR7 the year he and Billy Volek made magic. What a time to be alive.

To be fair, all the historical receivers I’ve collected here had games better than Jennings. So for balance, we need to consider some of the big performances that fell slightly short of Jennings. And I was encouraged that most of the next 40 names were still of similar star quality to the players at the top of the page. The only major-surprise players on this list would be Albert Connell, Brian Hartline (Ohio State’s receiver guru now) and David Patten. If you slide a little deeper, Chase Claypool and Marty Booker turn up.

If Jennings became something similar to the players in the above paragraph, fantasy managers would probably accept it, happily. And who knows — perhaps he’s capable of being better than that.

Maybe history isn’t your thing. Let’s focus on what we do know. Jennings is tied to an exciting play-caller (Kyle Shahanan), a good quarterback (Brock Purdy) and a plus infrastructure. The 49ers have a bunch of major skill players hurt right now, including Christian McCaffrey, George Kittle and Deebo Samuel. No one knows when CMC might play again, and while Kittle and Samuel could return quickly, we have to fear an injury aggravation. Rookie WR Ricky Pearsall is not in the picture yet.

The Jennings tape review supports his breakout game. Sure, the Rams secondary dropped the assignment here and there — especially on the first touchdown — but Jennings won with a variety of routes, and Purdy showed a willingness to throw Jennings the ball in tight windows. There’s trust and rapport here.

Nothing in this article constitutes “proof” for Jauan Jennings, but “Wait for Proof” is a dead fantasy strategy. We have to evaluate what’s possible. Jennings certainly has the potential to keep fantasy relevance deeper into the season; he offers plausible upside. That’s good enough for me. Put him on the proactive-start list for Week 4, and give him Circle of Trust privileges for the moment. There are no guarantees, of course, but I’d rather see him on your roster than your opponent’s.

All of the stats and player ranks used in this article came from Pro-Football Reference.