Fantasy Football Regressions Candidates
The 2021 fantasy season provided its fair share of cheap league winners across every position. At the top, middle, and bottom of fantasy drafts, as well as the waiver wire, there was unbelievable value to be found. The first thing people tend to look for when speculating on regression candidates is touchdown totals because they represent a high value but inconsistent output. That’s a fine place to start but doesn’t necessarily give you a big information edge over your competition for a simple reason – it’s easy to spot with minimal effort.
In this article, I want to go a bit deeper to find the stars of last season who I believe fantasy managers will be excited to draft but should consider pumping the brakes on after a closer look. I will not touch on a few players who are more obvious regression candidates like Mike Evans, Cordarrelle Patterson, or James Conner. It’s not to say that those players are guaranteed to regress, but there is a clear sentiment that they will, which makes their inclusion in the list not particularly helpful.
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The following 5 players may be a bit more surprising but I plan to fade them in 2022.
Deebo Samuel
Deebo Samuel helped a lot of fantasy managers (myself included) bring home the hardware last season by putting together a kind of season we’ve never seen before. While Cooper Kupp was the fantasy MVP, you could argue that there was no greater draft day value than Deebo.
What’s especially interesting about his monster season is that it was a tale of two very different but equally productive halves. He absolutely dominated target share with 8 or more targets in each of his first 8 games, topping 150 receiving yards in 3 of those contests. In his final 8 games, he only reached the 8 target mark once and was held to a single catch 3 separate times. Of course, this was exactly when his hybrid role as a rusher/receiver took hold, as 7 of his 8 rushing scores came in the second half of the year.
Samuel’s average fantasy output in his 8 games as a hybrid player was 19.9 FPPG in half-PPR scoring. In his first 8 games as purely the target hog through the air, his average output was 17.8 FPPG. Both are pretty great, but the hybrid role gave him more guaranteed work which likely contributed to his slightly higher output.
The role change is important because we can’t assume he will have a clean split of vastly different roles at the midway point of the season again. We either assume he will be the rusher/receiver all season, or that the Niners give a greater share of the rushing duties to Elijah Mitchell and Trey Lance.
Assuming Trey Lance is named the 2022 starter, both of Samuel’s 2021 roles are in jeopardy of diminishing. In the two games that Lance started last season, Deebo delivered with touchdowns but underperformed against his season average with outputs of 14.6 and 15.7 points. While that’s not a lot of data to extrapolate a full season, the data we have is not exactly encouraging. I would expect Lance to provide a lift to Samuel’s air yards per game (only a hair above 60 yards last season, ranking below Marquez Callaway and Tim Patrick). However, I also expect Samuel’s ludicrous efficiency of 2.82 fantasy points per target to take a big hit. That mark was by far the best in the league, and 18% higher than the next WR with a minimum of 70 targets (Ja’Marr Chase).
As a final argument against Deebo, keep in mind that the team no longer has OC Mike McDaniel or WRs coach Wes Welker. While Kyle Shanahan is often deemed the brains of the operation, ANY change in the offensive coaching staff is yet another reason why it will be difficult to replicate such a special season.
Najee Harris
I have historically LOVED Pittsburgh running backs in fantasy during the Tomlin/Roethlisberger era. The volume is about as guaranteed as volume can get, without any passing down backs or mobile quarterbacks vulturing points. However, I HATE everything about the situation in Pittsburgh and am heavily discounting all of their fantasy assets, likely beyond the suppressed ADPs they will all be seeing anyway. Even if they bring in a capable starting QB, their offensive line is still a mess. Their defense has two dominant stars in T.J. Watt and Minkah Fitzpatrick but as a unit is falling apart, which poses a game script concern for Harris as well.
Counterarguments in Najee’s favor will typically point to his league-leading 84.5% snap share, league-leading 74 RB receptions, and second-most rush attempts behind only Jonathan Taylor. I’m not at all arguing that he won’t continue to be a workload monster. I may even support the notion that he will become an even better real-life football player in year 2. My problem is that I think his efficiency (which wasn’t great to begin with) will not budge. Ben Roethlisberger’s final season in Pittsburgh was such a unique circumstance that generated the huge receiving volume. I’d also point to the fact that 20% of Harris’ targets for the season occurred in a single game. I anticipate his receiving volume to decrease while his rushing efficiency remains largely unchanged. For me, that eliminates him from my consideration set in the first round and probably sways me in favor of a top-flight receiver in the second round.
I’m still a fan of Najee in Dynasty formats, but I don’t expect to have much stock in him in redraft leagues in 2022 unless the Steelers make a big splash at quarterback in the offseason.
Joe Mixon
I was a Mixon owner in 2021 and reaped the benefits, but watching how he got his points I’m just not buying a repeat performance. Mixon had a Derrick Henry-like stretch of 9 consecutive games with a score, including an absurd 4 consecutive games with multiple scores. It was fun to be a Mixon owner last season, but even in a high octane offense, I don’t see that kind of efficiency again.
Keep in mind that Mixon was the RB3 in half-PPR formats and he won’t be drafted there in 2022, so some of his possible regression is already priced in. I’m still not spending a first-rounder or even an early second on him when I can grab someone like Justin Jefferson, Antonio Gibson, or Nick Chubb.
Leonard Fournette
Zero-RB truthers basked in their strategic brilliance if they wound up with Fournette. Sitting behind teammate Ronald Jones in ADP going into the 2021 season, Fournette, to the surprise of many, ran away with the job in one of the best offenses in football. When I look at what he did and how he did it, it gives me quite a bit of concern going into next season.
Only 6 running backs had more than 65 targets last season: Austin Ekeler (94), Najee Harris (94), Leonard Fournette (84), D’Andre Swift (78), Cordarrelle Patterson (68), and Alvin Kamara (67). Among this group, only one faced light boxes on his rush attempts more than 51% of the time: Leonard Fournette at a whopping 62%. The combination of elite pass volume through the air and light boxes on the ground presented a near-guaranteed formula for fantasy success. In Fournette’s case, it was also a derivative of a Tom Brady-led offense.
It can be tempting to buy into a narrative of Fournette’s continued success. If he is retained by the Bucs, the team will likely need to rely on him more. If he signs a big deal with another team that wants to feature him as a lead back, he might be in a position for a heavy workload. He only had 180 carries last year so a sharp increase in usage is certainly plausible. Regardless of where Fournette plays in 2022, however, I’m not ignoring how much of his 2021 success was due to the peripherals of Brady’s offense. I’m also not betting on him overcoming Brady’s absence going into his age 27 season.
Dawson Knox
Dawson Knox was in many ways the perfect fantasy tight end last season. He was a waiver wire asset who in many leagues was acquired for free early in the year by a manager who likely punted on the position in the draft. Knox went on to have 9 scores and be an every-week start while other fantasy managers were dropping FAAB on Gerald Everett and Tyler Conklin.
The flip side of Knox’s breakout was that he only had 49 receptions and 587 yards. That’s fewer than Cole Kmet in both stats.
There’s a trap here that a red zone target in a potent offense with Josh Allen should be worth a mid-round pick. Don’t fall for it. Grab a stud TE early or wait. There’s a Dawson Knox every year and you can find him while getting great value at other positions with your mid-round picks.
