5 NFL Stats to Know Through Week 9

The Jaguars Defense Leads the NFL With 14.9 Fantasy Points Per Game

The Jacksonville D/ST has already scored 119 fantasy points through eight games this season. The next closest team is the Baltimore D/ST at 109 points, and they have already played one more game than the Jacksonville Jaguars.

They are led by their pass defense, which ranks first in the league with an average of 4.4 sacks per game while being tied for third with 1.3 interceptions per game.

Here at numberFire, we have a metric called Net Expected Points (NEP) that compares every single play over a season to how a league-average team should perform on that play. Our Success Rate metric measures the percentage of plays in which the NEP was greater than zero. For more about our in-house metrics, check out our glossary.

Jacksonville's -0.24 Adjusted Defensive Passing NEP per play is by far the NFL's best mark. They're on pace to post the best number in this category since we started tracking NEP in 2000.

To put their fantasy value in context, their average of 14.9 fantasy points per is better than any wide receiver or tight end and would rank seventh among all running backs. They have recorded 12 or more fantasy points six games, eclipsing the 20-point mark three times. If they can maintain this pace over the second half, their 238 fantasy points would tie the 2006 Baltimore Ravens as the highest-scoring fantasy defense since at least 2002.

They will face off with the Los Angeles Chargers in Week 10, who are tied for the sixth-fewest sacks allowed per game this season.