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
Justin Herbert (LAC)
Herbert got away with it in Week 10 against the Titans. A first half rushing score for a few yards out saved an otherwise forgettable fantasy outing for Herbert, as Chargers offensive coordinator Greg Roman went back to his mega run-heavy roots. LA, after being among the pass heaviest offenses in the NFL over the previous three weeks, were 8 percent below their expected pass rate against the Titans — the third run heaviest game of their 2024 season.
Herbert’s nine rushes against Tennessee were nice, though we can’t bank on quarterback rushing from week to week. It was only the second time in 2024 that Herbet had exceeded five rushes in a game. What we can bank on is the Regression Reaper (the good kind in this case). Herbert since Week 6 has the NFL’s fourth most passing yards on the eight most drop backs. He has a humble 3.8 percent touchdown rate (6 TDs) over that five-game stretch, and a Week 11 date coming up against a gettable Bengals defense.
Despite the run-heavy approach in Week 10, the Bolts have the third highest neutral first down pass rate since Week 6, trailing only the Browns and Bengals. That indicates Roman and company are ready and willing to establish the pass when necessary. That’ll likely be the case this week against a Bengals defense giving up the NFL’s sixth highest EPA per drop back. For the first time in living memory, Herbert might be a locked-in QB1 in Week 11.
Running Back
Josh Jacobs (GB)
It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense that 73 percent of the Packers’ touchdowns this season have come via the pass (only four teams have a higher rate). Green Bay, with Jordan Love bouncing in and out of the lineup all season, is 26th in pass rate over expected. They’re 10 percent below their expected pass rate over the past two games.
Yet Josh Jacobs has just three rushing touchdowns on the season. Curious!
Part of the reason is the Packers’ abandonment of the run in the red zone. Jacobs has 20 inside-the-20 rushes on the season and only two scores. And it’s not as if another Green Bay back is vulturing Jacobs where it counts the most; he’s seen 75 percent of the team’s inside-the-10 rushing attempts in 2024. It’ll be a quietly good spot for Jacobs in Week 11 against a Bears defense allowing the league’s highest rate of yards before contact per rush and the third lowest rate of stuffed rushing attempts.
Unless rookie Mar’Shawn Lloyd comes out in Week 11 against the Bears and rips a chunk of the lead back role from the wily veteran, Jacobs should continue seeing the kind of high leverage touches that usually translate into fantasy production.
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Wide Receiver
Davante Adams (NYJ)
The process has never felt worse, I get it. Adams over the past two weeks has 24 targets — more than anyone not named Ja’Marr Chase — and only 132 yards and a single touchdown to show for it. The glut of targets didn’t even matter against the Cardinals, one of the softest coverage units in the league. Your pain is real. I can feel it from here.
You are not legally allowed to give up on Adams though. He has slowly regained his former role in the Packers offense with Aaron Rodgers trying to play the greatest hits one more time before he gets into podcasting or sitting in a dark cave all day or whatever is next for the Hall of Famer. Adams’ 28 percent target per route run rate over the past four games is indicative of Rodgers’ determination to force feed his old buddy in this lost season. He’s seeing plenty of the easy button kind of targets we like; only Travis Kelce has more targets than Adams between 0-9 yards since Week 7. We could hardly ask for anything more for fantasy purposes. We love a scam.
Adams is running cold everywhere, including near the end zone. He’s turned seven inside-the-ten targets into just one touchdown on the season. Adams has out-targeted Garrett Wilson inside the ten yard line since he was traded to the Jets. More of the high value looks from Rodgers should eventually pay dividends for Adams. Don’t get cute and bench him in Week 11 against a middling Colts secondary.
Courtland Sutton (DEN)
You’re happy about how things worked out for Sutton in Week 10. Six catches, 70 yards, and a touchdown. You’ll take it from your WR3.
This is only to remind you that Sutton — not Ja’Marr Chase, not Justin Jefferson — leads the NFL in air yards this season. Sutton has 1,039 air yards; the next closest Broncos receiver (Troy Franklin) had 409 air yards. His 12 receptions of more than 20 yards is tied for third among all receivers.
Sutton was running so cold for so long that he could see a sustained run of positive regression in November and into December. Denver’s offense isn’t the worst environment for an air yards hog like Sutton. The Broncos have the league’s eighth highest pass rate over expected as Sean Payton appears increasingly comfortable with letting Bo Nix cook. Sutton needs to remain in lineups for the remainder of the season.
Tight End
Hunter Henry (NE)
Coming off a one-catch game, Henry still has the third most tight end receptions (21) since Week 6 and only five tight ends have more targets over that span. Henry is kinda sorta operating as the de facto WR1 in the New England offense.
Henry should be fantasy viable going forward. He’s run about half his pass routes from the slot since Week 6, a good development for fantasy purposes. A Week 11 matchup with a gettable Rams coverage unit — in a game that should see the Patriots chasing points — could be just what Henry needs to get some of the sweet, sweet regression on his side.
Negative Regression Candidates
Quarterback
Jared Goff (DET)
How can a quarterback who just threw five interceptions in a single game regress? It’s a question for the ages. Maybe we’ll never know.
What I do know is that Goff’s 9.5 percent touchdown rate over the past five games can’t hold. Lions OC Ben Johnson is on a heater, meaning Goff is on a heater despite the five pick debacle on Sunday night against the Texans. Goff’s 6.6 percent TD rate trails only Lamar Jackson and Baker Mayfield on the season. And you probably knew this part was coming: Goff’s career touchdown rate is 4.4 percent. Last year, with largely the same offensive weapons, he threw a touchdown on 5 percent of his attempts.
Naturally, I’m going to look like an idiot when Goff lights up the dead-on-arrival Jaguars secondary in Week 11. Nevertheless, I persist in telling you Goff, at some point, is going to come face to face with the Regression Reaper and this unseemly TD production is going to end.
It might be helpful for fantasy managers to remember how run heavy the Lions want to be: They’re 8 percent below their expected drop back rate this season, and in their past two games they were 13 and 18 percent below that rate, respectively. Ben Johnson wants to establish it more than anything.
Wide Receiver
Marques Valdes-Scantling (NO)
I would congratulate those who played MVS in Week 10 against the Falcons but such a person does not exist. And if you insist you were forced into playing Valdes-Scantling against Atlanta, I’m going to require visual proof.
MVS, as you know by now, caught all three of his targets for 109 yards and two touchdowns, running as the clear-cut No. 1 wideout with Chris Olave sidelined with another brain injury. Valdes-Scantling’s Week 10 usage was just OK: He ran a route on 18 of the team’s 33 drop backs, half from the boundary and half from the slot.
MVS ranked 13th among all NFL pass catchers in air yards on the week, good for a gaudy 53 percent air yards share. Probably it’s in the range of outcomes that MVS will see 40-50 percent of the Saints’ air yards for as long as Olave is out, He has inherited the valuable, if high variance Rashid Shaheed role in this New Orleans offense.
The Saints got back to doing fun and cool things on offense in Week 11. Their 37 percent play action rate was their highest since Week 2, as was their 60 percent motion rate. Play-action deep shots to Valdes-Scantling in the coming weeks could make him a viable WR4. Just know he won’t get any of the easy button looks that create a fantasy floor.
Jayden Reed (GB)
Reed is averaging a hefty 17.2 yards per reception through Week 10 — it’s what has helped him prove viable despite having just 36 catches on the season, on par with guys like Tank Dell and Ray-Ray McCloud.
Reed is getting away with it in part because he’s averaging almost eight yards after the catch per reception. I understand this is part of his game. There’s a reason Reed truthers have dubbed him Baby Deebo. Still, his production has been spotty and he has not in any way shown to be a target commander outside of a stretch last season in which the Packers were missing two starting wideouts.
Reed has seen a target on 20 percent of his pass routes this season. It’s hardly a hateful rate, though it’s nothing close to elite receivers who are targeted on 24-28 percent of their routes. That lack of target hogging is reflected in Reed having fewer than five catches in six of his nine games this year. He should probably be considered a WR3 with upside rather than a set-it-and-forget-it WR2 option in 12-team leagues.
Tight End
Mark Andrews (BAL)
I keep putting Andrews in this space and he keeps smiting me like an angry god. Please Andrew, I’ve been properly smote. Stop catching touchdowns.
Andrews now has four touchdown grabs on 17 catches over the past four games. And those 17 receptions have come on 18 targets. The man is running as hot as any player in the league, and while his red zone usage might keep him afloat as a viable fantasy play in 12-team leagues — especially if Isaiah Likely misses more time — the touchdown regression is well on its way.
Andrews’ regression could very well be part of a larger trend for the Baltimore offense. Sixty-two percent of the team’s touchdowns have come via the pass in 2024, up from 50 percent in 2023. Over the past four games, 71 percent of the Ravens’ touchdowns have been of the passing variety. It’s not that the Ravens have gone incredibly pass heavy over the past month; they’re still 4 percent below their expected drop back rate and have been over that rate just twice all season.
Lamar Jackson is taking no prisoners this season — that much is clear. But the nature of the Ravens offense has not changed, and the wild touchdown production we’ve seen from Lamar and Andrews and other Baltimore pass catchers could (should) regress in the next week or two or three.
