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
Tua Tagovailoa (MIA)
Tagovailoa, in a Miami offense with the league’s fourth highest pass rate over expected since Week 11, has run pretty dang cold on touchdowns of late. While piling up the fourth most passing yards since Week 13, Tua has just six touchdown passes, for a TD rate of 3.5 percent.
His season-long rate is 4.8 percent, and since Mike McDaniel took over as Dolphins head coach, Tua has thrown a touchdown on 5.6 percent of his attempts. The yards are there; the Regression Reaper might not be far behind.
Miami’s penchant for establishing the run in the red zone could be the culprit here. McDaniel force feeds his running backs — particularly De’Von Achane — anytime the team sniffs the end zone paint. But Tua has been excellent inside the 20 this season; no quarterback has a higher completion rate (72 percent) in the red zone, and only five QBs have been more accurate inside the ten yard line.
Though Tua’s hardly in a great spot this week, taking on the Browns in Cleveland with a Vegas total of just 40 points, he could be on the right side of regression against a defense giving up the NFL’s tenth highest drop back EPA since Week 10.
Wide Receiver
Hollywood Brown (KC)
Personally I love to tout a guy who just played 20 of his team’s 74 offensive snaps. It’s great. You should try it sometime.
That’s what we have with Brown after his 2024 season debut last week against the Texans. With Andy Reid and the Chiefs easing Brown into the offense for what will be the easiest threepeat in pro sports history, the speedy wideout logged a route on 15 of 43 Patrick Mahomes drop backs (Mahomes continued his never-ending check down parade with an average of 5.5 air yards per attempt against Houston).
What might interest you about Brown’s Week 16 usage is that he drew a target on 53 percent of his routes, catching five of eight looks for 45 yards and operating from the slot on roughly one third of his routes. This tells us Brown was deployed in intentional ways, something that might continue against the Steelers on Christmas Day. Brown’s seven air yards per target mark could be a sign of PPR scamming to come.
Marvin Harrison Jr. (ARI)
If Harrison can ever stop being bullied by every single cornerback who comes his way, he might one day have a nice fantasy outing. The increasingly dawg-less Harrison has the 15th most air yards among wideouts over the past four weeks and the 43rd most actual, real life receiving yards.
Harrison in Week 16 against the Panthers saw 28 percent of the Cardinals’ targets and led the team with 85 air yards. That all led to four catches for 39 scoreless yards in a miserable outing for Kyler Murray, who had the worst interception in football history in the fourth quarter of Arizona’s loss to Carolina.
Probably Harrison isn’t all that good, and the Cardinals seem intent on keeping him on the boundary and giving him high variance downfield looks from their terribly inaccurate quarterback. It’s a bad fantasy profile for a player who is not quite generational. The Regression Reaper comes for everyone though, and it might coe for Harrison in Week 17 against a Rams defense that gave up four catches for 130 yards and two touchdowns to Harrison way back in Week 2. Harrison had 150 air yards that day, fifth most among receivers.
Calvin Austin (PIT)
Before you deep leaguers get all frothy about Austin, remember that this analysis only applies if George Pickens remains out in Week 17. The Steelers are playing the Chiefs on Wednesday for some reason.
Austin last week against the Ravens piled up 101 air (prayer) yards; only 12 wideouts had more air yards in Week 16. He took in a whopping 55 percent of the Steelers’ air yards against Baltimore while running a route on 29 of the team’s 38 drop backs. He had 65 yards on four grabs — 44 of which came on one downfield shot from Russell Wilson, one of the NFL’s premiere deep ball merchants.
It’s a good enough profile for Austin to be considered as a flex option in deep 12-team formats and certainly in 14-team leagues. Some negative game script against the favored Chiefs and Austin could benefit from somewhat inflated pass volume against a beatable KC secondary.
Don’t miss episodes of Fantasy Football Happy Hour with Matthew Berry and Rotoworld Football Show all season long for the latest player news, waiver wire help, start/sit advice, and much more.
DeVonta Smith (PHI)
Smith would be a primary beneficiary of a less run-based Eagles offense should Kenny Pickett start for Philly in Week 17 against the Cowboys, with Jalen Hurts in the league’s concussion protocol after a Week 16 brain injury. Forget that he let you down with 51 yards on six catches.
The Eagles logged 40 drop backs against Washington last week, and those drop backs were not turning into QB rushes with Pickett under center. That’s a decidedly good thing for Smith and A.J. Brown. From a volume perspective, Smith is probably in a better spot for fantasy purposes if Pickett gets the starting nod.
Pickett was aggressive last week in relief of Hurts: Almost half of his passes were beyond the first down sticks, the fourth highest rate of Week 16, and his aDOT of 11.1 were among the five highest of the week. Don’t bail on Smith in championship week.
Negative Regression Candidates
Wide Receiver
Josh Downs (IND)
Downs is a fine NFL receiver. He might be an elite fantasy producer in the right offense (one that passes more than it runs the ball). But in a Colts offense that ranks as one of the most radically run-first units in neutral and positive game scripts, Downs is not going to Get Away With It every week.
He certainly got away with it in Week 15 against the Titans. On a day in which Anthony Richardson had a mere 17 drop backs and 11 pass attempts, Downs somehow had three catches for 61 yards and a touchdown against a shockingly awful Tennessee secondary. Downs — who has seven games this year with fewer than four catches — averaged a hearty 23 yards after the catch per reception in Week 15. That sort of thing does not carry over from week to week.
The Colts last week were a breathtaking 26 percent below their expected pass rate against the Titans. Only the Eagles have a lower pass rate over expected on the season. There’s almost no game script in which Richardson will drop back at a high rate and produce the kind of target volume Downs (and Michael Pittman) would need to get there for fantasy purposes. Be careful with how you evaluate Downs’s fantasy prospects in Week 17.
Deebo Samuel (SF)
Samuel finally broke out of his two and a half month funk in Week 16 against the Dolphins in large part because he was used as an extension of the Niners’ running game. It was all short targets all the time for Deebo, as evidenced by his 2.3 average depth of target against Miami. He had a minuscule 20 air yards on nine targets.
If Isaiah Guerrero remains sidelined in Week 17, we can probably expect similar usage for Deebo against the Lions (in a game with the week’s highest total). Being force fed targets at or near the line of scrimmage can be a PPR cheat code for a tough after-the-catch producer like Samuel (he averaged 13.3 yards after the catch per receptions against the Dolphins).
If Guerrero suits up against Detroit, Samuel’s role becomes at least slightly less appealing. Keep an eye on the Niners injury report throughout the week.
Jamison Crowder and Olamide Zaccheaus (WAS)
I am begging you not to check Crowder’s Week 16 box score and pick him up in deeper formats. If you do, I will have no choice but to make a citizen’s arrest.
Crowder ran a pass route on 20 of Jayden Daniels’ 48 drop backs last week against the Eagles, and both of his receptions went for touchdowns. I suppose his role in the run-first Washington offense could grow with Noah Brown sidelined, but Crowder’s range of outcomes for Week 17 definitely includes a zero.
As for Zaccheaus, who ran a route on 32 of Daniels’ 48 drop backs against the Eagles and caught five of eight targets for 70 yards and two scores, his role appears to be better than Crowder’s as the Commanders look to replace Brown as their WR2.
Drawing a target on 20 percent of his pass routes, Zaccheaus has shown to be something of a target commander being Terry McLaurin over the team’s past couple games. He’s averaged a very PPR scammy four air yards per target over those two games while running about half of his routes from the slot.
The diminutive Zaccheaus reaped the benefits of an abnormally high number of drop backs and pass attempts for Daniels in Week 16. Obviously we can’t expect this every week in a run-heavy Washington offense. There is a silver lining, however — one that could prove important to every Commanders pass catcher. Washington’s offense has the eighth highest pass rate over expected since returning from their bye in Week 15. A post-bye rookie bump isn’t all that rare, and that usually comes with added responsibility for the rookie signal caller. If this trend holds in Week 17 against the Falcons, Zaccheaus could be a viable flex in some 12-team formats.
Tight End
Brenton Strange (JAC)
The Jaguars grounded Strange last week against the Raiders after he lost a fumble late in the second quarter. He barely saw the field in the second half, with Luke Farrell and Josiah Deguaro sharing route running duties.
A week after seeing a dozen targets, Strange was targeted on a hefty 28 percent of his routes against the Raiders before essentially being benched for fumbling once. Strange was likely on his way to another fantastic fantasy outing. So it goes.
Maybe Jacksonville coaches will find it in their coal-filled little hearts to give Strange — a promising young tight end — another chance to run a full complement of routes in Week 17. Maybe not though. I think we have to operate under the assumption that Doug Pederson and company will never forgive or forget Strange’s one (1) fumble against Vegas in a totally meaningless late December affair. That makes him (almost) impossible to play in Week 17 lineups.
