651: Low-Key Regression Candidates

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Speaker 1: This is the labor of podcast with your host JJ zacheris j J zacher reson What's up everyone? It's JJ Zacharyeson in this episode six hundred and fifty one of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by FanDuel. Thanks for tuning in. Last week on the show, I talked about some teams that look like regression candidates here in twenty twenty two. Today, I'm gonna do the exact same thing, but with a focus on players and not just any and all players. I think most of you listen to this you know about some of the more obvious regression candidates this year, like James Connor or maybe Damian Harris. My goal on today's show is to avoid talking about those players. Instead, I want to bring up some guys who don't get talked about enough when the regression conversation arises. They're low key regression candidates, or at least they're not the most obvious ones in the world. Some of them may be obvious to you, but I do think that you'll walk away from today's episode with some new inform that you didn't necessarily know or think about beforehand. That's the hope, at least now Before get into those low key players, I want to give a shout to the Established the Run podcast. The podcast is free and hosted by two legends in the fantasy space, Adam Levitan and Evan Silva. You probably remember them from their time at Rhoda World. Establish the Run episodes are quick, fun and packed with analysis. They cover fantasy news and reactions, rankings, how to bet, player props, best ball, and more. I think it's a great compliment to the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast since it's more conversational in nature and they cover topics that I might not cover. I'm a longtime listener and I can vouch that they know what they're talking about. So check out the Established the Run podcast anywhere you listen to podcasts. Also, don't forget to sign up for Fandle Fantasy. For users who have yet to make it a posit on Fandle Fantasy, you can deposit today to receive two free entries. All I have to do is deposit a minimum of ten dollars in your fandal dfs account and you'll be instantly rewarded with two free vouchers. Be sure to deposit now and play for free. Head over to fandel dot com or download the fandal Fantasy app today. Eligibility restrictions apply. Go to fandle dot com or download the Fandle app for more details. Maybe this first one's kind of obvious. When a player has an elite season, he's likely going to see some regression because in order to have that elite season, something crazy probably happened. Statistically, Jonathan Taylor outperformed touchdown expectation last year with his eighteen rushing touchdowns, but it wasn't to the point where he's the most obvious regression candidate on the planet. Players like Damien Harrison, James Connor, and even Joe Mixon exceeded touchdown expectation more. And this is all according to two sources. I'll be looking at my method of determining rushing touchdown regression, which looks at where players saw their touches, and I'll be cross referencing Pro Football Focuses Expected Points formula as well. So you're getting multiple takes here, not just taking my formula's word for it. But according to my formula, Taylor outperformed in the rushing touchdown column by a little over two touchdowns last year. It was a little undertwo over at PFF. That doesn't seem very extreme to call out on today's show, right, that's not that crazy. Well, remember, formulas like that are based on where Taylor saw touches last season. Last season, the man had thirty goal line attempts thirty. We had an extra game last year, but that was the most goal line attempts that we've seen from anyone over the last decade. Like Garrett Blunt had twenty nine of them back in twenty sixteen when he scored eighteen touchdowns himself. There's a good chance at those attempts fall. We've had eight running backs hit twenty five goal line attempts since twenty eleven. None of them have done it more than once because it's really hard to see that much work. There's a decent chance the Colts throw more naturally this year, not just because of the Matt Ryan acquisition either, just natural regression tells us that that plays into this kind of statistic. In this kind of regression, chances are Taylor won't be used as heavily at the goal line and that'll impact his rushing touchdown totals. Taylor's still one one in season long drafts this year, because he's still a safe bet to see a ton of work and to score a lot of touchdowns. We just need to recognize that we can't project last season every season. A lot of people will rightfully talk about Deebo Samuel's dual threat twenty twenty one season and now he's not going to keep that up in twenty twenty two. But another dual threat player who had a crazy, crazy twenty twenty one was Austin Eckler. Eckler had twenty touchdowns last year. Twelve are on the ground. He probably outperformed there by two or three scores, but he also outperformed as a receiver. Eckler had his second career season with eight receiving touchdowns last year. That tells you that, yes, he's a dynamic pass catcher out of the backfield. We know this, but scoring eight times as a receiver at running back that's not an easy feat to accomplish. In fact, it's only happened seven times in NFL history, with Marshall Falk doing it twice in Eckler doing it twice. According to my numbers, Deebo Samuel ranked first last year in the he scored too many touchdowns Bucket deebo outperformed touchdown expectation more than any other player, But do you know who was second, Austin Eckler. This is probably a good time to point out too, how situation impacts regression. I've seen a lot of takes out there saying that player X will regress because player X now has different competition than he had last year. That's not really the way that you should be viewing regression. When we study regression, we're just looking at how numbers conform to some mean or some average. So Eckler, given where he saw touches last year and the opportunities that he got, he outperformed touchdown expectation, So we should expect regression there. All things being equal, if he saw the exact same looks this year, he'd probably score fewer touchdowns. But regression doesn't necessarily tell us the why, and we know that all things aren't equal year over year. For example, let's say that a player has an absurd yards per carry rate one year. We know that yards per carry regresses from one year to the next. We're gonna see that with Rashad Penny this year. But all we know with regression is that his yards per carry rate is going to drop. We witness this happen historically, but we didn't investigate that further. Is it because he won't have as many long runs? Is it because the offensive line is going to be worse. All we see is that yards per carry changes one year to the next. Across as giant sample, it regresses. We don't know the exact reason for an individual player when we visualize this happening, and there are typically a ton of reasons as to why. You can then investigate and you can figure out why on the individual level. But when we look at one statistic, we're not digging into that. We're just saying this statistic regresses. One of these reasons though, could be situation. Things go really well for a player situation one year, maybe his offensive line didn't suffer any injuries and they just played out of their minds. But there are changes from one year to the next, which helps with our trend of watching yards per carry regress. Maybe the quarterback was excellent, quarterback situation changed. Those situational changes could be reasons why we see these high level regression trends, but we're not really analyzing to that detail. We're simply saying this statistic regresses. So this is relevant to Eckler because the Chargers drafted Isaiah Spiller, and if Spiller ends up being the RB two that they've wanted for so long, that could play into some of the volume related things that we're seeing with Eckler. As in, his situation was so great last year, but that situation itself is sort of regressing. But regardless on a rate basis, Eckler should see some regression even if he does see the exact same workload this year. I'm just noting why some of the volume related numbers tend to regress. Okay, okay, maybe the first two guys weren't totally low key. They're two of the best players in fantasy football. We know a lot about them. I just think people don't talk about regression enough with those two guys compared to others in the early rounds like Deebo Samuel or even James Connor. But let's dig a little bit. I've mentioned this guy on the podcast in the past, But how about Joe Burrow. I feel like everyone knows Burrow's twenty twenty one season was awesome, but I don't think they realize how good it actually was. Burrow had one of the highest yards per attempt rates last year in NFL history, and he had a six and a half percent touchdown rate. I wrote about this in my Draft Guy, which you can purchase over on Lateround dot com. But among quarterbacks with back to back seasons of three hundred plus attempts since twenty eleven who also had a touchdown rate of six percent or better, only eleven percent of them saw an increase in touchdown rate the following year. The average drop in rate was one point six percent. Situationally, things were pretty sweet for Joe Burrow last year. I know the offensive line was pretty bad, but the Bengals playmakers didn't have any serious injuries. Hopefully that's the case this year, but we know that star players eventually missed time due to something that's another situation related thing that when a player's wigh last year, which is what I was just talking about with Austin Eckle. The hope for Burrow in fantasy is that Cincinnati throws the ball more in twenty twenty two, because that could combat some of this efficiency regression. Even still, I think Burrow's a little bit overvalued right now in fantasy drafts. My projections see him more as a low end QB one. The market has him straight up as a mid range one. Now, speaking of touchdown rate regression, not that anyone is drafting him as a QB one or anything, but Jamis Winston, my goodness, last year, he had an eight point seven percent touchdown rate. He threw a touchdown for every eighty three point six yards that he had through the air. The league average last year was a passing touchdown for every one hundred and fifty eight passing yards. This is just a friendly reminder to not look at Winston's finishes last year and assume he's just gonna do that in twenty twenty two. The Saints scored in a pretty lopsided way before his injury happened. They almost had the exact same pass to rush touchdown ratio as the Rams did. The Rams led the league in that category last year, so keep that in mind as you project Winston and this offense in twenty twenty two. DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett both exceeded touchdown expectation last year, which is pretty wild when you consider their circumstances based on the type of targets that they saw. Metcalf played about four touchdowns over expectation, Lockett was about three. Lockett was also his efficient self, but to a degree that we don't always see. He had a yards per target rate of almost eleven. That was the second highest rate of his career. The last time he was that high, it fell to nine point six the following season. That just happens to be his career average. We typically see that with wide receivers, even the efficient ones like Lockett. Big yards per target rates one year lead to some regression the following season. That should be the expectation for a ton of reasons. For Tyler Lockett. Seattle was just a weird team last year. They should run more plays this season based on team level regression, so that can combat this a little bit. But the obvious difference in situation here is the lack of Russell Wilson. To be honest, one of the reasons I wanted to bring up Metcalf and Locket is because sometimes regression just doesn't matter when so much changes to a player situation. The average fantasy manager is not expecting the world from either one of these wide receivers this year because Russell Wilson is gone, so the market doesn't really care about regression anyway, but it at least should be noted because these are two players where regression isn't really being talked about. Most talk about Kyle Pitts's lack of touchdowns last year at tight end, but Cole Comet's scoring, or lack thereof, was just as strange. Since twenty eleven, only two tight ends have failed to score a touchdown while hitting seventy five or more targets, And since that same timeframe, Comet is the only tight end to not score with eighty five or more targets, and he had ninety three. If he stays healthy, he's going to score more touchdowns this year, even in a run heavy offense. And I wrote this up in my Draft Guy, which, by the way, did I mention that you can purchase for twenty four to ninety nine over on Late round dot com. But Comet could walk into a twenty percent target chair this year year. And of the sixty seven tight ends since twenty eleven with eight or more games played who had a pro rated target share of twenty percent or higher, sixty three of them ended up scoring ten or more PPR points per game. Since the tight end position sucks. That's a low end tight end one season. Basically, draft colecomet. Let me read you Allan Robinson's yards per target rates during his four years in Chicago. You ready, it was eight point zero and twenty eighteen, seven point five and twenty nineteen, eight point three and twenty twenty, and then six point two and twenty twenty one. Among wide receivers with fifty or more targets. Last year, Robinson ranked in the eleventh percent tile in yards per target. Maybe this is the start of his decline. Maybe he won't pan out in LA. I'm more in the side that I think he's a good value this year, but I obviously see the downside, and at least this can bring you some comfort. Of the fifty plus target wide receivers who had a yards per target rate of six and a half or lower since twenty eleven, there were fifty eight of them who then saw fifty targets the following year. Of those fifty eight, just six saw decline in yards per target, and the average increase was by one point eight yards. Now, since Robinson is closer to that six point five mark than some of the players in this sample. We can't just assume that he hits an eight yards per target rate this year, although I wouldn't be surprised, but I do think that we can feel bowlish on that number getting a lot better, especially when you look at his career numbers. This is just to say that we shouldn't expect Robinson to be as inefficient as he was last year per target, even if he really is a declining player. Stefan Diggs last year he ranked second in the NFL in red zone targets. He only trailed Cooper Cup. He was tied for second in targets within the ten, trailing only Cooper Cup, and only ten wide receivers had more targets at the goal line. Digs finished the season with ten touchdowns, but given where he was seeing his targets, he actually should have had a lot more. My numbers have him at three and a half more touchdowns. PFF was at three point eight, and according to PFF's formula, only Kenny Galladay and Marvin Jones underperformed in a touchdown column more than Stefan Diggs did. Diggs is rightfully going early in drafts, but this is another reason to be excited. He still has more of a ceiling to hit now. I think most of you probably know that regression is coming for Trevor Lawrence, but I don't think you may realize how insane his twenty twenty one was, but in a bad way. Lawrence threw twelve touchdowns on six hundred and two attempts. That's a touch on rate of one point nine to nine percent. It was just under two percent since twenty eleven. The only other quarterback to have thrown three hundred or more passes, and there have been well over three hundred of them, but the only other quarterback to have three hundred or more pass attempts and that low of a touchdown rate was Sam Bradford in twenty eleven. Bradford only played ten games that year too, so who knows if we would have seen some regression hit as the season went on. Jacksonville had the third lowest pass to rush touchdown ratio in the league last year, which isn't surprising when you throw so few passing touchdowns. But Lawrence went through an eight game stretch last year where he had one freaking passing touchdown. He's not gonna be nearly that bad statistically in twenty twenty two for so many reasons. It's honestly hard to do what he did last year touchdown wise. Now, like I said, some of these guys might have been low key. Some of them you might already have known about, but they weren't necessarily the typical ones that you do hear about. There are lots of other regression candidates, but I thought that these were the most interesting to call out on today's show. But that's gonna do it for today's show. Thanks to all of you for listening. If you gets subscribed to the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found, and don't forget to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Remember to check out the Draft guide over on lateround dot com. It's twenty four to ninety nine, it's updated weekly, and it's got what you need to dominate your drafts this year. I promise you. Thanks everyone, I'll talk to you later in the week.