It’s Spooky Szn and folks everywhere are once again talking endlessly about the Regression Reaper, wondering when and for whom it might come to claim its numerical certainty, its push toward the median.
Go to any coffee shop, any office watercooler, any school bus stop or doctor’s office waiting room or children’s soccer game: Whispers about the Regression Reaper abound. Or maybe that’s just me, and it explains why no one at my kid’s soccer games will stand next to me. Nevertheless.
I’m going to take this opportunity, near the midpoint of the NFL season, to take a zoomed-out look at teams largely getting away with it and those on the wrong side of volatility. An understanding of which teams have overperformed or underperformed through Week 7 should offer some insight into what we might expect out of the fantasy-relevant players in those offenses. The Reaper cometh.
(Good) Regression Reaper Cometh
Seattle Seahawks: Pete Carroll’s offense has been elite by many measures throughout 2023 yet Seattle is 11th in points per game (24). In three of their six games, the Hawks have scored 20 points or fewer. This is despite Seattle ranking fourth in EPA per play on early downs — trailing the Dolphins, Bills, and Chiefs — and coming in third in points per play. It mostly comes down to putrid play in the red zone, as Geno Smith and company have scored a touchdown on 48 percent of their inside-the-20 possessions this season. That’s tenth worst in 2023. A little more red zone luck and more success on third and fourth downs (only four teams have a worse late-down EPA) should pay off with less-frustrating performances from Smith, DK Metcalf, Tyler Lockett, and Kenneth Walker over the season’s final couple months.
Jacksonville Jaguars: The Jags have been utterly miserable on third and fourth downs through Week 7. Only the lowly, down-unfathomably Patriots have a lower late-down EPA than Jacksonville. Their third down EPA is fifth worst this season. Meanwhile, Trevor Lawrence and the Jaguars are humming on early downs, with the league’s seventh highest EPA on first and second downs. They’re a respectable 12th in points per play. Having committed to Lawrence and the passing game — Jacksonville has the league’s fifth highest pass rate over expected — I think we can bank on some scoring regression coming to Duval County in the season’s second half. I get the sense that Zay Jones, who has missed most of the season with a knee issue, is far more important to this offense than he should be.
(Bad) Regression Reaper Cometh
LA Rams: Matthew Stafford has quietly been a disaster in 2023. He has the NFL’s third worst completion rate over expected; in Week 7 against the Steelers, Stafford was an incredible 20 percent below his expected completion rate, the worst mark in the league. The Rams have gotten away with it by being really good on third and fourth downs (only the Chiefs have been better). On early downs, Stafford and the Rams have been downright lousy. With the 12th lowest points per play this season, LA has been deeply inefficient. Perhaps offensive play volume can save them in the season’s second half. There’s a decent chance, I think, of the Rams being a massive fantasy disappointment for much of what remains of the regular season.
Now let’s get into players who are underperforming or overperforming, and who might be due for something of a bounce back in Week 8 and beyond.
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Regression Candidates (The Good Kind)
Quarterback
Derek Carr (NO)
The thing you need to know about Carr as a regression candidate is that he dropped back 59 times in Week 7 against the Jaguars and scored 17 fantasy points. It sounds almost unbelievable.
In a Saints offense made entirely of check downs to Alvin Kamara, maybe this is just the way it’s going to be for Carr. He is, however, way below his career touchdown rate of 4.4 percent, throwing a TD on just 2.4 percent of his passes through Week 7. Only Zach Wilson, Daniel Jones, and Ryan Tannehill have lower touchdown rates in 2023.
At 17 attempts inside the ten yards line, Carr ranks seventh among quarterbacks this season. The Saints have shown they’re not going to take the air out of the ball this year. They’re 1 percent over their expected drop back rate, and Week 2 was the only game in which they were under their expected drop back rate. Carr’s Week 8 spot against a soft Colts secondary could be just the invitation the Regression Reaper is waiting for.
Running Back
Joe Mixon (CIN)
Like the ghosts at the Overlook Hotel, Mixon will inhabit this space forever. The most inefficient rusher of his generation, Mixon now has 12 rushing attempts inside the ten yard line and zero touchdowns to show for it. Only six running backs have more green zone carries than Mixon this season.
Mixon, who hasn’t scored a TD on five inside-the-five carries, should eventually, one day, get one across the goal line and deliver for his beleaguered fantasy managers. The Bengals’ shift to their usual pass-first ways has resulted in Mixon seeing five targets in back to back games. That should also help make him a fantasy option that doesn’t give you the shakes when he appears in your starting lineup.
Wide Receiver
Jameson Williams (DET)
If your league awards bonuses for pass catchers who get plunked in the facemask with a perfectly-thrown deep ball, you had a pretty nice week with Jameson Williams against the Ravens on Sunday.
Williams didn’t do much against Baltimore — he did nothing, actually — but he was fourth among all wideouts last week in air yards. It’s the kind of thing that makes you feel good deep down inside — the kind of contentment that can sustain a person.
Though we could use more from Williams in the routes department (44 percent route rate in Week 7), his 38 percent air yards share on just six targets shows he will continue seeing high-value targets in the Lions offense. Over Detroit’s past couple games, Williams leads the team in air yards (202), with a 26 percent target per route run rate — the second highest behind Amon-Ra St. Brown (35 percent). Williams, at worst, has a lot more weekly upside than other WR4 options over whom you might fret this week.
Marquise Brown (ARI)
Hollywood stays put in this regression space after another game with decent opportunity and precious few actual yards.
Brown, with the NFL’s fifth most air yards on the season, was second on the Cardinals with 70 air yards last week against the Seahawks. He had three receptions for 49 yards. Zoom out a bit and you’ll see over the past couple weeks, Brown has 44 percent of the Cardinals’ air yards. Only A.J. Brown and Stefon Diggs have more total air yards than Hollywood over the past two weeks.
This is a long way of saying Brown continues to see high-value downfield looks from Josh Dobbs, who, to put it mildly, has not been good on deep balls, completing nine of 27 passes more than 20 yards downfield. Perhaps the encroaching return of Kyler Murray will be what Hollywood needs to convert these prayer yards into real life receiving yards. Brown will continue operating as a volatile fantasy option; one day he’ll be on the side of that volatility that doesn’t make you question why you spend so much time on this insane little hobby.
Regression Candidates (The Bad Kind)
Quarterback
Tua Tagovailoa (MIA)
Tua has run hot and cold in 2023, posting three games with at least three touchdown passes and three games with just one score. His touchdown rate (6.6 percent) isn’t miles ahead of his career rate (5 percent) but there should be a little concern there considering his tough upcoming schedule.
Tua’s touchdown rate has been buoyed by plenty of opportunities where it counts: He’s tied with Patrick Mahomes and Justin Herbert with a league-leading 25 pass attempts inside the ten this season. Eight of Tua’s 15 touchdown tosses have come in the green zone.
The Dolphins aren’t all that pass heavy in the green zone though. They rank 16th in green zone pass rate (49 percent), in line with teams like the Texans and Falcons. The formula for continued touchdown production for Tua is a touch on the shaky side when one pops the statistical hood. I could see him becoming a frustrating fantasy play in an Miami offense that has dominated via the run game through much of 2023.
Wide Receiver
Tank Dell (HOU)
Dell, returning from a brain injury this week, has a couple things working against him. The rookie has run extraordinarily hot and Noah Brown is healthy and ready to eat into Dell’s role.
I wish I were kidding about the second thing. I wish the presence of a journeyman slot guy didn’t impact the fantasy prospects of an exciting and explosive rookie wideout in an ascendent offense. But it does. So it goes.
Let me take you back to Week 1, a generation ago when Dell was still available on many waiver wires (not in your league, obviously). Brown ran a route on 68 percent of the Texans’ Week 1 drop backs and caught three of four targets. Dell, meanwhile, had a 42 percent route rate and also saw four targets from CJ Stroud.
In Week 6, with Dell sidelined, Brown was second on the team with a 67 percent route rate (interestingly, Dalton Schultz, not Brown, operated as Houston’s primary slot receiver in that game). I’m not saying Dell is going to play second fiddle to Brown in the coming weeks; I am saying Brown’s presence could be just the thing that can plunge Dell’s route rate to a point where he has to remain hyper efficient to be a top-36 fantasy wideout.
Dell, as I mentioned above, has been hotter than my laptop when I have 400 tabs open. He has the 21st highest fantasy points per route run among receivers and ranks 12th in fantasy points over expected. Fantasy folks should also note that the Texans, who were unabashedly pass heavy in the season’s first month, have turned sharply toward the run of late. Houston is 4 percent under its expected drop back rate over the past three games. It’s the sort of transition that can crush the fantasy outlook for Dell and Nico Collins.
Be careful with Dell in Week 8.
Odell Beckham (BAL)
OBJ had his first fantasy-viable game of 2023 in Week 7 against the Lions. He caught five of his seven targets for 49 yards while running a route on 60 percent of the Ravens’ drop backs. It was a dandy little WR4 outing for Beckham.
Maybe OBJ can maintain some deep-league viability if the Ravens continue designing ways to get him the ball. Maybe. But his Week 7 looked a lot different than the season’s first month and a half, when he saw a target on a meager 17 percent of his pass routes. Against the Lions, that jumped to 36 percent. The Ravens were (extremely) pass heavy too: Their 12 percent drop back rate over expected against Detroit stood in stark contrast to their 0 percent rate on the season. That’s the sort of pass-first commitment that can feed secondary and tertiary pass-catching options like Beckham.
Count me skeptical that the Ravens continue passing at such a high rate. And even with that drop back increase, Lamar Jackson will eliminate pass attempts with his scrambling. Zay Flowers and Mark Andrews will likely remain the only startable fantasy options in the team’s passing offense.
Tight End
Taysom Hill (NO)
I’m mentioning Hill here because the folks want to know if the current iteration of the Taysom Package is the Real Deal for fantasy purposes.
Just last week against the Jaguars, Hill logged the league’s second most tight end pass routes (42) with a 65 percent routes participation rate. He also, critically, had four rushing attempts, including one in the green zone that he punched in for six. Hill’s 17.5 percent target per route run rate over the past two games isn’t all that hateful either.
This is where I tell you the Taysom Package could shrink with the Week 8 return of Juwan Johnson, who has missed the Saints’ past two games with a calf injury. Before Johnson’s injury, he ran a route on 68 percent of the team’s drop backs. Hill, meanwhile, had a 24 percent route rate (New Orleans uses two tight ends on 18 percent of their offensive snaps). His total inability to earn targets makes Johnson fantasy irrelevant, but his return should lead to Hill’s targets mostly drying up. His goal line role should offer him some appeal though. I take zero pleasure in reporting any of this.
Dalton Kincaid (BUF)
I’m of two minds on Kincaid, and those two minds are warring as I write this: The rookie is set for a slightly more prominent role in the Buffalo offense with Dawson Knox out indefinitely with a wrist injury that requires surgery, but Kincaid’s Week 7 breakout came with some important and rather depressing caveats.
Kincaid against the Patriots saw his target per route run rate double from 15 percent in the season’s first six weeks to 30 percent in Week 7. His route rate remained low (60 percent), though that could change with Knox’s absence. One would figure Kincaid will find the field more in a Bills offense using two tight end sets at the league’s eighth highest rate. Probably that makes him a barely-startable option in 12-team leagues for as long as Knox is out. That he was targeted on 30 percent of his Week 7 routes — second among tight ends to Travis Kelce — gives me pause though.
