Identifying players who have run particularly hot or cold in recent weeks will be the goal of this space over the 2024 NFL season.
Spotting guys who are “due” won’t always work out because my children recently lost my magic eight ball, leaving me powerless to predict the future. Nevertheless, we persist in finding NFL players who have overperformed their opportunity and those who have been on the wrong side of what we’ll call variance. Because “luck” is so crass and unsophisticated.
Positive Regression Candidates
Quarterback
Daniel Jones (NYG)
Daniel D. Dimes is bad. There’s no way around that, even though I tried on last week’s Rotoworld Football Show to paint a rosy picture of Jones as a QB who — if you squint really hard — kinda looks like a real NFL quarterback in the spreadsheets.
He’s not though. He stinks. But wait, there’s more. Only five quarterbacks have more expected passing fantasy points this season and only four QBs have more expected rushing points than Dimes. His rushing — he’s had at least five rushing attempts in every game but one this season — should make Jones a far more valuable fantasy option than he has been. He’s seeing a good number of high-value rushes too, with six inside-the-ten attempts, tied with Josh Allen.
Jones’ 2.6 percent touchdown rate is the lowest in the NFL among quarterbacks not named Jacoby Brissett or Deshaun Watson. He should, in theory, bounce back at some point both as a passer and a rusher. What better week to start than Week 10’s overseas matchup against a Carolina defense giving up the second highest EPA per play and the fifth highest completion rate over expected?
Aaron Rodgers (NYJ)
I mentioned Rodgers in this space last week, just in time to see the old man throw three touchdowns against the Texans on Halloween night — the single most terrifying night of the year for those facing Garrett Wilson in fantasy.
Rodgers’ TD rate bumped up to a respectable 4.7 percent with those three TNF scores against Houston, but it remains well below his career 6.1 percent rate. New York’s defense being not-so-elite has forced the Jets to adopt a more pass heavy approach over the past month. They’re now 3 percent over their expected drop back rate on the season. A Week 10 matchup against an Arizona defense allowing the league’s highest drop back success rate might mean even more of the good kind of regression for the cayenne pepper-loving Rodgers.
Running Back
Tyrone Tracy (NYG)
I recommended Tracy roughly 700 times during my Friday live stream on the NFL on NBC YouTube channel and was less than thrilled to see Tracy go for a meager 66 yards against Washington, the league’s most extreme run funnel defense.
Tracy’s 16 rushes were nine more than Devin Singletary’s seven totes against the Commanders. Daniel Jones hogged a good portion of the team’s Week 9 rushing share with seven attempts of his own. That was rude.
Better days are probably ahead for the explosive Tracy in a Giants offense that has shifted to the run in recent weeks. New York was 5 percent below its expected pass rate in Week 8 and a shocking 14.5 percent below in Week 9. A continued commitment to the run should mean considerable volume for Tracy as the Giants’ clear lead back. It’s hardly the worst rushing environment: The Giants average 1.66 yards before contact per carry, largely a function of the offensive line. That ranks 17th best in the NFL.
Aaron Jones (MIN)
I won’t spend much time on this one because you’re starting Jones no matter what. Jones has run ice cold where it counts the most this season, managing just one touchdown on seven inside-the-five carries.
Jones has 12 rushing attempts inside the ten yard line and just that single score to show for it. It’s not like Jones is losing out to Ty Chandler on carries near the end zone. Chandler has only two inside-the-ten rushes and none inside the five. Jones has plenty of untapped touchdown upside, which could make him a downright elite fantasy option down the stretch.
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Wide Receiver
Elijah Moore (CLE)
Moore has 12 and nine targets, respectively, over his past two games with Jameis Winston under center for the Browns. He came awfully close to a 40-yard touchdown in Week 9 against the Chargers, and his usage is reflected in his air yards: Only two receivers in the entire league had more air yards than Moore in Week 9.
Moore is top-six in air yards over the past couple weeks thanks largely to the Browns’ pass-first offense (Cleveland is 6 percent over its expected drop back rate in Winston’s two starts). Cedric Tillman, by the bye, is just ahead of Moore in air yards. There’s simply no way the Browns are going to operate a balanced attack going forward. Though Moore isn’t a must-start option, I think he makes more than a little sense in deeper leagues with multiple flex spots.
Malik Nabers (NYG)
I get it. You thought you’d get 100 yards and a touchdown on 15 targets every single week for Nabers. I did too, but then I remembered fantasy football isn’t like that. Even so, Nabers has double-digit targets in five of his seven games. He likely would have pushed up on 200 targets had he not missed two games with a brain injury.
Nabers in Week 9 didn’t have his usual glut of air yards — he had just 59 against Washington — but led all NFL wideouts with a 42 percent target share. He’s being peppered with looks in the short and intermediate parts of the field. Don’t get stupid and bench Nabers to teach him a lesson.
Patriots pass catchers
New England’s offense has shown an almost stunning willingness to air it out in two of the past three weeks. The Pats were 8 percent over their expected pass rate in Week 7, went run heavy with Drake Maye going down with a brain injury in Week 8, and led the league in Week 9 with an 18 percent completion rate over expected. Only the newly pass-first Bills have a higher PROE than the Patriots over the past month.
That means New England’s pass catchers are probably being undervalued in fantasy circles. Though Maye’s rushing proclivity will lop off a good number of pass attempts every week, there should be a surprising number of passes to go around if the Patriots continue being analytics kings.
Against the Titans last week, 53 Maye drop backs produced nine targets for Demario Douglas, eight for Hunter Henry, and seven for Kendrick Bourne. Kayshon Boutte also had six looks from Maye. It’s not the kind of concentrated target distribution we like for fantasy purposes, but it’s something in a Patriots offense that has functioned as a fantasy football graveyard for most of the year.
Henry, until further notice, is a borderline must-stat option in 12-team formats for folks streaming the tight end position. Douglas, though his usage has been spotty over Maye’s run as New England’s starter, could be a usable flex option in deeper formats. And Maye, who has 16 rushes in three full games as starter, is firmly in play as an upside superflex play.
Tight End
Dalton Schultz (HOU)
Including Schultz in this positive regression space didn’t compel the tight end to produce much in Week 9 against the Jets. He caught three of his five targets for 21 yards while running a route on about 80 percent of the Texans’ drop backs. It’s hardly the worst tight end usage I’ve seen.
Only Tank Dell had more targets than Schultz last week. That offers some hope that he can operate as the de facto No. 2 option in the passing game for as long as Nico Collins (hamstring) is sidelined. Even if Collins returns in the next week or two, Schultz should be a viable tight end in 12-team formats.
And if that doesn’t make you feel better about Schultz in this post-Diggs Houston offense, consider this: Forty-three percent of his Week 9 routes were from the slot. Tight ends tend to score more fantasy points when operating from the slot.
Negative Regression Candidates
Wide Receiver
Quentin Johnston (LAC)
Placing Johnston in this space doesn’t mean I’m out on him as a usable WR3 in 12-team leagues. But where else am I supposed to put a dude who had 118 yards and a touchdown on just four catches in Week 9?
Returning from injury, Johnston ran almost exclusively from the boundary while Ladd McConkey bumped almost exclusively into the slot against Cleveland in Week 9. He ran a route on nearly every Justin Herbert drop back and had a gaudy 18.5 air yards per reception, aided by a 66-yard score on a busted coverage.
Johnston, with an average depth of target of 13.3, has the profile of a typical boom-bust wideout who’s not going to see much of the easy stuff. That’s where McConkey and Will Dissly will feast. The hope for Johnston — and the rest of the LA offense — is that offensive coordinator Greg Roman is committed to his newfound love of the pass. Only the Browns, Bengals, Bills, and Patriots have a higher pass rate over expected than the Chargers since Week 7. It’s a startling departure from the stubbornly run-heavy ways of the usual Greg Roman offense, and it could be enough to fuel pass volume for Johnston and McConkey over the season’s second half.
Consider this a head’s up that Johnston appears to be a future victim of the Regression Reaper.
Josh Palmer (LAC)
Then there’s Johnston’s teammate, Palmer, who undoubtedly has a good connection with Herbert but who is primed for the worst kind of regression.
Through Week 9, Palmer is sixth among all receivers in yards per target. His 20 air yards per target isn’t the kind of profile we love as fantasy managers. Don’t be fooled by Palmer’s solid stat line against the Browns last week (63 yards and a TD). His 33.7 yards per reception over the past two weeks isn’t the sort of thing that holds up. Palmer’s route participation isn’t all that great either; against Cleveland, he ran a route on 22 of Herbert’s 34 drop backs.
DeAndre Hopkins (KC)
Congrats to those who rolled with Hopkins in his second game with the Chiefs and got an obscene amount of fantasy points on Monday night.
Clearly Hopkins is not going to score two touchdowns all that often -- if ever again -- in the KC offense. I’m certainly not telling you to sit him going forward. Hopkins has clearly inherited the Rashee Rice role — briefly and gloriously held by JuJu Smith-Schuster — and should run with the opportunity.
Hopkins was targeted on 26 percent of his routes in Week 9 against the Bucs and seeing a target on 23 percent of his routes in Week 8. That kind of prioritization in the KC offense should make Hopkins a safe fantasy option with a touch of upside if and when the Chiefs are pushed by the opposition, as they were on Monday night.
Tight End
Mike Gesicki (CIN)
You’re loving life with Gesicki as your locked and loaded weekly tight end. All the guy does is score touchdowns after never scoring touchdowns before Week 9. But who cares, you say. This is fine. I’m enjoying Gesicki szn.
First of all, how dare you enjoy something that is unsustainable. With Tee Higgins sidelined with whatever injury he has now, Gesicki has run as the Bengals’ No. 2 pass catching option. The wildest part is that Gesicki isn’t even running a full complement of pass routes. He’s being targeted at an obscene rate though, seeing a target from Joe Burrow on 29 percent of his routes over the past two weeks. Gesicki is, for all intents and purposes, the team’s primary slot receiver, running from the slot on 65 percent of his routes.
Obviously this can’t last, but perhaps Burrow’s affinity for targeting Gesicki in the middle of the field could keep him afloat as a fantasy option even after Higgins returns to the lineup. A 29 percent target per route run rate should catch our attention, even those of us who put stock in the power -- and inevitability -- of regression.
Maybe the Bengals will be forced to let Gesicki run more routes with the news that rookie TE Erick All is out for the year with a torn ACL. If so, Gesicki could be the happiest tight end pick up of the fantasy season.
