Fantasy Football Today - Regression Candidates: The Good and the Bad! (05/20 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: May 20, 2021

We've got negative regression and positive regression (yes, that's a thing) candidates. The headliners are Aaron Rodgers (3:30) and Michael Thomas (10:30), but there is much more to cover. Regression QBs (18:30) include Kirk Cousins, Ryan Tannehill and Daniel Jones. RBs (31:00) include Nick Chubb, Derrick Henry and Miles Sanders. Can we really make much of Sanders's 2020 season? Will Henry's regression matter enough for him to be outside the Top 5 at RB? ... We move on to WRs (43:10) and discuss the all three Steelers guys! Chase Claypool needs more targets to score that many TDs. Do Diontae Johnson's drops matter? We also talk about the Panthers WRs and if they'll find the end zone more frequently. And finally, TE talk (55) headlined by Noah Fant (55:15) ... Email us at [e-mail] 'Fantasy Football Today' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Castbox, and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @ctowerscbs, @BenSchragg Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCviK78rIWXhZdFzJ1Woi7Fg/videos Join our Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/FantasyFootballToday/ Sign up for the FFT newsletter https://www.cbssports.com/newsletter You can listen to Fantasy Football Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast." To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. This is Fantasy Football Today from CBS Sports. On his way to the end zone. I'll tell you what, that was a spectacular play. It's time to dominate your fantasy league. What a play. Off to the races. Touchdown. Oh, he's done it again.

Now here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, Heath, and Ben. All right, what's going on? We're talking about regression candidates today. Welcome to the show. I'm Adam Azer with the regression guys, the regression buddies, Heath Cummings and Chris Towers. We've got a lot of names for you. So like last year, we told you, yeah, Lamar Jackson can't have those crazy touchdown numbers again. And yeah, I mean, that actually, that happened and he wasn't quite as good in fantasy. So who's Aaron Rodgers? We'll talk about Aaron Rodgers today for sure. Who else are we going to talk about in terms of regression? We'll ask Chris and Heath in just a second. This is the first of two episodes that we are recording today. We have another one coming later on Thursday. You're going to hear it on Friday. It is a mailbag show. So if you've sent emails, I'm going to try to get to a ton of them on the

mailbag show on Friday. Same with your Apple podcast reviews. I appreciate that. And we're going to have an Apple podcast show next Thursday before Memorial Day weekend. Get your questions in. Apple podcast review questions. Get them them in now i will read them on a mailbag show that's going to publish i believe next thursday get you ready for memorial day weekend all right i'm done talking what's up regression buddies yay do we have the disclaimer thing to play to where we can explain like what we're talking about when we say regression so we don't get the email saying why were you saying he's going to regress if he's going to be better that's progress not regress can we just do we don't we have something now that regression is a statistical term

that refers to a number that is an outlier returning to a statistically established norm okay yeah so thanks for hitting the button adam right so people say well that's progression regressing is getting worse but do you want to explain that in layman's terms chris i thought he just did it was i mean i get it but one more time okay no no here's here's the the most simple way to explain it and this is not exactly how things work in real life because we're talking about human beings but if you flip a coin 10 times and it comes up heads seven times you know moving forward that the most likely outcome is that the next five five of the next 10 will be heads not seven of the next 10 that is a regression to a statistically established mean based on probabilities.

Okay. Is that layman enough? Right. So what you're saying is that I flipped it 10 times, seven times it was heads. That means 11th time is most likely going to be tails. Exactly. Just kidding, everybody.

All right. Yeah. So anyway, we're looking for players who are going to be, I guess, basically doing things that are more in line with their careers or more in line with league norms. Like Aaron Rodgers throwing 48 touchdowns was great. It's Dobbins, six yards per carry. I'm sure we'll talk about that. Austin Eckler's touchdowns. And players that we haven't really talked about in this regression type of conversation. Let's start with the biggest regression candidate. Let's just go one player that really is the headliner

of your column, Heath. Yeah, well, I didn't write the column. Chris did, so that would have... No, I didn't actually be in the actual column. You can still write one. I, I think it probably has to be like, the thing that's always difficult is when guys are changing teams or

changing other circumstances, we may not have a good idea of what their mean or expectation should be in those new circumstances. And we don't know for sure that Aaron Rogers is changing circumstances, but he's a guy who for like a decade just set his own mean as in terms of touchdown rate until Patrick Mahomes had thrown 1500 passes. Aaron Rodgers had the highest touchdown rate of all time, um, right around 6%. Last year he was over 9%. So even if you think 6% is his mean now, which it hasn't been over the past three years before last year,

he looked like he'd kind of lost some of that elite touchdown skill. Even if you think that, you should expect that his touchdowns from last year would be cutting a third. So literally, that's 16 passing touchdowns gone. And even if he wasn't 9%, but he was just 7%, which would have been second in the NFL last season

to Russell Wilson, he would have thrown 36 touchdowns, 37 touchdowns instead of 48. And that would have dropped him, I believe, from QB1 in points per game to QB11. The problem I have with this is that touchdown rates in general were way up last year, right? Yeah, I think so.

So I just looked right now. I forgot to do this before the show, but I did it right now. The amount of players who had a 6% touchdown rate, I think there were nine last year. There were five the year before. The amount of players who had a 6% touchdown rate, I think they were 9 last year. They were 5 the year before. The amount of players who had a 5% touchdown rate went from 12 in

2019 to 15 in 2020. I'm pretty sure that's right. 4.8% compared to 4.5% in 2020. Is that average? Yeah, so I look at Aaron Rodgers. If his touchdown rate had been his career rate of 6.3 percent he would have thrown 33 touchdown passes that's 15 fewer that's

basically what he just said and that would have made him basically the number 10 quarterback in fantasy instead of number one or number two um depending on four point versus six point so am i am i supposed to value him as as 10 am i supposed to rank him as 10th? Am I supposed to rank him 10th? I should probably expect regression from other quarterbacks who were ahead of him as well. And then there's also the fact that he's Aaron Rodgers. He's awesome, and he could have another 40 touchdown pass season. Yeah, and this does get into one of the issues when we're talking

about this kind of topic or projections in general is we're only going to talk about one number you know like we're going to project i have project aaron rogers projected for 34 touchdowns in a 16 game season so probably something like 36 and a half in 17 games. That's not actually how it works, though. You know, the likelihood there, you know, there are an infinite number of possible outcomes in the future. And the average of all of them would be like 36-ish for me, at least. But that means sometimes he gets 27 and sometimes he gets 31

and sometimes he gets 48. So then why do I stress over this? Why don't I just kind of like, oh, he's Aaron Rodgers? Because the whole he's Aaron Rodgers thing, there's a little ding in that when

you look at the fact that 2018 and 2019 combined, he had a 4.4%, like less than half of what he did last year. Yeah. So he had not been Aaron Rodgers for two and a half seasons, depending on which metric you want to use. He hadn't been above 7.4 yards per attempt. It's not just touchdown rate. His yards per attempt had been 7.4 or worse since 2014. And last year, it ballooned to 8.2. And he also had three rushing touchdowns last year,

which was more than the previous season. I think I have him number 10 in the projections. He might be number nine in the rankings just because Deshaun Watson projects a lot higher than you can draft him right now. But I think he's a low-end number one quarterback. And yes, there's the possibility that he's just Aaron Rodgers again. But his margin for error without running for 400 yards or running for five touchdowns is so much smaller,

especially if Matt LaFleur continues to want to run this offense that's not going to throw the ball 600 times. And the other thing regarding he's Aaron Rodgers is he's always been Aaron Rodgers, and he's done this before. He had a 9.0 touchdown rate in 2011 and followed it up with 7.1%. Now, 7.1% would still be an excellent number, but he would probably finish around QB 10.

But he was QB 2 that year. Right. The league context has changed so much. Yeah. Right. And also, Rodgers used to run more than he does. He had his fewest rushing yards ever in a season in which he played 16 games. So it does help in the sense that it helps put the downside in perspective

for Aaron Rodgers because he's not running as much as he used to and we have better mobile quarterbacks that all get drafted ahead of him. The three rushing touchdowns might be an outlier. It might go back to zero. And then, yeah, if the touchdown... He had a year, 2018, where he was amazing.

4,442 yards, 25 touchdowns, two interceptions. And because the touchdown rate was low, he was number nine per game in four-point, number six per game in six-point-per-passing touchdown league. So, I mean, that's a guy that if he had thrown more touchdowns, he probably would have been in the MVP discussion. I don't remember who won it in 2018. But 25 to 2 touchdown

interception rate, almost 4,500 yards. It's a terrific season, but it really wasn't a standout because of the low touchdown rate. Well, and like there were other things, like part of the reason that he... Oh, that was Mahomes that year, right? That was his MVP season. Well, no, but he threw for 4,400 yards because that was

the year he had his second most pass attempts ever. That was the last year before LaFleur. His passer rating that year was actually well below his career norm. So I don't think he was actually that good. But his passer rating is so heavily influenced by touchdowns and interceptions. But when you throw 25 touchdowns to two interceptions, I mean, that's pretty good. But even his yards per attempt were 7.4 compared to a career average of 7.8.

Okay. All right. So Aaron Rogers is the headliner. Chris, if there's a positive regression or, you know, progression, positive regression,

stop saying, just say, ah, who's the headliner of the positive regression article? I think it's Michael Thomas. And you know, this is where we get into, like, it's not just like,

we're not just talking about, oh, he had good luck or bad luck. That's the way we often talk about regression. But in Michael Thomas's case, you know, obviously there was the playing with Taysom Hill for four of his games, although he was on a 1,400 yard, 120 catch pace.

So I think we've overstated a little bit how bad Taysom Hill was for michael thomas but i think the bigger thing is he was playing he was not healthy last season i think pretty much at all you know he had the high ankle sprain in week one he played through for a couple of weeks he went back on ir at the end of the season first playoff game lo and behold scores a touchdown so you know this is where like regression what are you doing the second playoff game, lo and behold, scores a touchdown. So, you know, this is where regression is... What did he do in the second playoff game?

Doesn't matter. Or did they not... Wait, did they only play one playoff game? No, they played two. All right, they beat the Bears. He had zero catches on four targets. He had zero catches in the second game. Look, if we think that matters,

then that matters. I don't think it matters because Michael Thomas has a very long track record of being an elite wide receiver when he's healthy. But either way, regardless of whether you think Michael Thomas is like, I have him as my wide receiver too. I know a lot of other people have him more like wide receiver nine. Even if you think that he's not going to be an elite fantasy wide receiver you have to think he's going to score more touchdowns than zero man yes yeah like this is um

the clear choice for a player who's going to experience regression that is going to make him better for fantasy purposes like i avoided saying positive regression um i i do think like the interesting part is going to be how good is he i think we can all agree he will bounce back to be a top 14 or 15 wide receiver again it's what like he was a nine target per game guy 2017 and 2018 he was right around eight last year but missed some time so maybe he's nine target per game guy i don't think he can be a top five fantasy wide receiver with nine targets per game because he's not an extreme um yards per catch guy and i don't really think it's fair to expect an 80 catch rate without drew breeze so if he's 150 targets or 155 over 17 games um i think in full ppr he probably gets

close to top five but i i don't think i don't think he's going to be elite. I have him as the number two wide receiver in targets. It's basically him, Devontae Adams, him, Stephon Diggs, and DeAndre Hopkins are kind of in their own tier in terms of targets. And my thought process there is who else is going to catch a ball in New Orleans? And you're projecting Jameis Winston. Yes, and I'm projecting Jameis Winston, which means more a higher overall target pass attempts number. But Taysom Hill, I think his target rate with Taysom Hill was almost 30%.

It was. And he caught 81% of his targets with Taysom Hill. And with Bridgewater, it was probably even better. He had 80% catch rate and 81% with Bridgewater and Taysom Hill. Yeah, I think it'll be lower. I have him at 75% with Jameis Winston. But I think it's still going to mostly be short area stuff. I think it's still mostly going to be a lot of the slants and a lot of the drags

and a lot of the outs that people kind of make fun of him for because he's making a lot of relatively easy catches. But I think the addition of James Winston might also mean a few more opportunities to go over the top. And I think he's perfectly capable of doing both. And that's probably the key.

Yeah. Who gets that job? we're just guessing i'll admit i'm sunny on him but i mean either way michael thomas has never been a high touchdown rate guy but in 2019 it was one touchdown every 20 targets in 2018. It was one touchdown every roughly like 17 targets. Last year it was zero on 55 or one on 67. If you include the playoffs, either way, he's going to score the obvious touchdown regression candidate at the position.

Okay. Um, all right. So then we will move on. We got a lot of players to talk about, so we'll have to kind of zoom through them a little bit. But the news and notes for you here, Antonio Brown has not passed his physical yet for the Bucs.

He had minor knee surgery in the offseason. We expect that he'll pass his physical soon. Joe Burrow, he might be, he seems like he's all systems go for week one, but they might take it easy with him and not play him in the preseason. Heath, would that matter to you if Joe Burrow didn't play in the preseason? It matters to me, yes. It's one of the reasons why I'm just slightly skeptical about projecting the same second-year boost

that we do for most good quarterbacks. Just because it's not just the preseason. He's not going to do some of the offseason stuff that quarterbacks generally do between their first and their second season. I still think the most likely outcome is he takes a leap as a passer, and he has a very good year as a low-end number one fantasy quarterback.

But there's more risk there now, and he's one of those guys that if I'm drafting him at the back of the first round, it's kind of like Aaron Rodgers, as long as he's still on the Packers without a new contract extension. You need to go get a second quarterback and it needs to be more of a priority

if Burrow's your starter. You said back of the first round? What did you mean? Back of the top 12. Oh, okay. Oh, okay. That makes sense. Overall?

At quarterback? Wide receiver Paris Campbell of the Colts says he's 100% recovered from the injury, the knee injury he sustained in week two. And he had six catches for 71 yards on nine targets in week one. Pretty good. But Phillip Rivers threw season high 46 times, 363 yards that game, which was the second most of the season.

But is he an interesting late-round pick, Paris Campbell? Much more interesting if they don't go get Zekerts. Because their offense will have to change a little bit, I think, from what it's historically been if they're going in with Jack Doyle and Mo'Ally Cox as their only tight ends. Washington is allowing

starting right tackle Morgan Moses to seek a trade. They just signed Charles Leno who could just slot right in at right tackle. Did you guys stay up for the LeBron shot? I did. Yes. That was excellent. No. No, I did not. I saw

the Curry shot at the end of the half and that was basically it for me. And that was impressive, but what a stupid shot that like I just feel so bad for any team that doesn't have LeBron James. I so bad for for any team that doesn't have LeBron James. I feel bad for Golden States won like 40 games

in that exact same manner over the last six years because of Steph Curry. You can't complain. Well, that's Curry. That's what Curry does. Just enjoy how awesome they are. Yeah. I'm annoyed that I missed what was probably an incredible half of basketball. But anyway, the playoffs are pretty much underway,

but they're about to begin for reals when the play-in games are done. Join the Early Edge podcast every single day for the best bets, the props, and the futures for this year's postseason. Jonathan Coachman, Mike McClure, and Larry Hartstein won't lead you astray as they bring the best bets to your feed every morning in 15 minutes or less.

You can find the Early Edge on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and even live on YouTube. All right, here we go. Quarterback regression candidates, Aaron Rodgers we talked about. So just give me a quick thought from each of you on Carson Wentz. Wentz with 16 touchdowns to 15 interceptions in 12 games. Now he's on a new team. But yeah, he is on a new team. So Heath, give me the narrative on Wentz.

You could argue this one like seven different angles because Carson Wentz just wasn't who he's been in the past last year. His yards per attempt was 10% worse than his career average. His touchdown rate was, I think, 20% worse than his career average. His touchdown rate was, I think, 20% worse than his career average. His interception rate was nearly double his career average. And then on the other side of

it, he ran for five touchdowns on 52 rush attempts, which probably isn't repeatable either. But I just, it's almost for me, because we're getting a fresh landing spot in a system that he already knows, I think, and arguably, the best wide receivers he's ever played with, even if the Colts have one of the worst wide receiver cores in the league. I think Alshon and Deshaun were a better group. How many games did he have with Alshon and Deshaun? No, this is a better...

You think Alshon and Deshaun, yeah, all banged up last year, barely? No, no, I'm not talking about last year. Two or three years ago? Yeah. There may have been a year where they both played more than eight games that I don't recall.

No, it was Aguilar, Ertz, and Alshon that one year was very productive. I don't know if that was more Wentz or what. Yeah. When your tight end leads your team in receiving every year, that's not a good thing. Generally not.

It depends, but I do think that I have more optimism for a bounce-back season for Carson Wentz than I think the majority of people do. I think he's a fine No. 2 quarterback that has top 12 upside. I agree with that. This kind of gets into Carson Wentz just has to play better. Like it's not really this. I don't really think this is a statistical regression thing,

but you know, he would, you, he can regress to his mean in terms of how well he plays. Like he, that last year was such an outlier in terms of how he played he looked i mean like he didn't look like he belonged on the field at times it looked like he just like could not process things uh and well he was it was it was like the sam darno quote it looked

like he was seeing ghosts that's legitimately what it looked like it was bad yeah so i understand what you're saying. So the difference is it's not, oh, he had this really good year, but he just didn't throw enough touchdowns. It's not that. He was not himself. Okay. Would you guys take Carson Wentz or Tua

Tungabailoa? I think I'd rather have Tua. He's just got a much better offense around him for passing. Good job, Eve. Kirk Cousins, regression,

35 touchdown passes. Is that where we're looking at here? Yeah. Yeah. I think just the overall efficiency. He's been a very efficient passer over the last couple of seasons, but 6.8% touchdown rate, that is his career high by more than a full percentage point.

Also had his highest yards per attempt in a full season. So I think just overall, you should expect some regression there. Justin Jefferson is a part of that, sure, but he's probably going to regress. He's not going to average. What was it, 11 targets per 11 yards per target last 11 yards probably won't be able to do that again but he should see an expanded role uh adam thielen's not going to score 14 touchdowns again so you know i i think the biggest thing is just that like you can kind of talk yourself into well maybe kurt cousins can

be a low-end starter and he probably can uh in the right matchups for the right stretches of the season. But you certainly don't want to look at his numbers last year and think, okay, I can wait on QB, and if I end up with Kirk Cousins, I'll be fine. I think you probably won't be fine. Well, I like him in a two-quarterback league context. I don't think he's the kind of guy you need to take in a one-quarterback league. He's a biweek replacement. But there is a number with Cousins that really jumps out to me.

I talk about this a lot. First eight games, he was good. 97.7 passer rating. But 26.1 pass attempts per game. And it was 29 pass attempts per game. Then he had two games where he barely threw. One of them was weather-related. But let's say 29 pass attempts per game. And it was, it was close. It was 29 pass attempts per game. Then he had two games where he barely threw. One of them was weather related, but let's say 29 pass attempts per game.

But the last eight games, 38.4 pass attempts per game, a 110 passer rating number two quarterback in fantasy, 2,400 yards in eight games, 20 touchdowns, three interceptions through multiple touchdown passes in seven of eight games. The pass attempt number is huge to me.

Did he convince them? And did the addition of Justin Jefferson, I know they had Stephon Diggs, but did the addition of Justin Jefferson convince them that they can throw the ball a little bit more? Because that's how he could become a more stable, low-end number one quarterback, is if they just throw the ball more. So that I don't know. I think it depends on the defense, actually. For sure, yeah.

The defense should be a lot better. And the other thing is, those last eight games, they went four and four with wins over the Lions, Jacksonville, Carolina, and the Bears. There should not be anything from that stretch that makes them think that was good. Yeah, except for Cousins.

He was great. Yeah, I don't think Zimmer cares a lick about that. Okay. Do you have anything to add, or should we move on? Heath? I'm on board with that. Okay, Daniel Jones. I noticed, this is just Daniel Jones' hatred here,

because you put, I think this was Chris, Daniel Jones' rushing regression, which is definitely not going to be as good as it was last year. But he had 11 touchdown passes. You've got to figure that's going to be a little bit better. I didn't put Daniel Jones on here because I try when I'm on the podcast to not contribute to the excess Daniel Jones conversation on this podcast. This is Chris, all Chris. Yeah.

This is one that I just kind of wanted to highlight as a different version of regression that is worth talking about. And it's, you know, when one player has a wild outlier performance. And that is what happened with Daniel Jones. And what I mean specifically is he had one 80-yard run.

You may remember. I do. He had a lot of... He had like three very long runs, actually. Lamar Jackson has never had an 80-yard run. Robert Griffin, I'm pretty sure, has never had an 80-yard run in his career back when he was a good runner.

Kyler Murray has never had one. I believe Cam Newton has never had one. Daniel Jones is not the best Russian quarterback of all time, but that was one of the longest runs by a quarterback ever. I don't know. He had an 80-yard run, a 49-yard run, and a 34-yard run last year. Yeah, and those will happen, but the difference between an 80-yard run and a 30-yard run

is often just one guy misses an assignment. And if Daniel Jones, if that had been a 30 yard run, like he didn't do anything special on that run. He was wide open and he ran fast. He was wide open and he ran fast and then he tripped. If anything like that was special. Yeah, it was special.

It was an amazing play. I don't want to, but he didn't earn the 80 yards on that one is what I'm trying to say. But he's a, I haven't projected for it. Is he a 300 rushing yard guy? I think something like that. Yeah.

Yeah. Like he was sixth or seventh among quarterbacks and rushing yards last season. He had, I think, 60 more rushing yards or right about there than Jalen Hurts with two more carries. I just like, he's not a better rusher than Jalen Hurts. You are probably underselling his rushing ability, though. I don't think I am.

I actually have an objective for 500 rushing yards. Jalen Hurts rushed for 1,400 yards in his last college season. He's an objectively better runner than Daniel Jones. Yeah, he is. I'm only selling Daniel Jones by saying that no no he is but daniel jones is is a better athlete i think than people give him credit for if you go watch some of his college highlights he's got some long runs in there uh sure he's probably a little faster than he looks but fine i we really don't have to talk about definitely sneaky athletic and i i would i would also say like i would make the same case about Ronald Jones

with that 98-yard touchdown run, which was more than 10% of his rushing yards. I said the same thing about Leonard Fournette in his rookie season when he had that 90-yard touchdown run. Doug Martin was the poster boy for that. He had 45% of his yards against the Raiders one year. Yeah, and sometimes, you know, like Chris Johnson

back when he was really, really good or Tyreek Hill right now, you're not going to say, well, that 90-yard touchdown was fluky. Those guys are special. Daniel Jones is special in his own ways. I don't want to take that anything away from him.

But he's not that kind of special. Ronald Jones still averaged 4.6 yards per carry without that 98 yard run. I'm still looking for a metric that says Leonard Fournette is better than Ronald Jones. I don't know that I found it. Um, we can talk about that a little bit later. Yeah.

There there's Spider-Man. There's Spider-Man. I don't know. I don't know if I agree. Giovanni Bernard's off to the side and he's like, I'm going to take all the valuable touches anyway. it doesn't matter i feel like i feel like uh i think spider-man's kind of lame to be honest i feel like ronald jones might be like hulk and maybe leonard fornette is spider-man but i don't really know much about marvel i just think

spider-man's kind of a loser what do you of take is that? I was getting ready to step away for a second. I'm going to, but you're right. And I'm really pretty much only consume the movies. And basically any movie that's not a Spider-Man movie, he makes worse. He's an unbelievable. All of his scenes are the worst scenes in all

of the Avengers movies. take one of my favorite, one of the best scenes in Infinity War is the, hi, I'm Peter, Doctor Strange.

Oh, we're using our made up names. I am Spider-Man. Like, come on. Come on. Didn't see it. Didn't see it. It's amazing.

I'm taking word for it. I'm so mad right now. I'm so mad. It's a funny lie though. It's a funny lie. All right. Ryan't see it. Didn't see it. Amazing. Take your word for it. I'm so mad right now. I'm so mad. It's a funny lie, though. It's a funny lie. All right.

Ryan Tannehill is our last quarterback that we're talking about here with his rushing touchdowns. He had seven of them. So, yeah, that's going to that's going to come down. Yeah, I think that's fair to say. OK, but it also had 33. He also had a 7.7% touchdown rate in 2019. We knew he was going to regress there.

It was 6.9%, which is still really good. That's his passing touchdown rate, sorry, in 2020. So the rushing touchdowns, you know, it's interesting, though, Chris, is he had four of them in 2019 and only started 10 games. And then he had seven in 16 games. So, I mean, you know is a lot for a quarterback but and in that offense given how much attention it's kind of like the opposite of the cardinals where defenses have to pay so much attention to kyler murray that it's probably

going to open up more rushing touchdowns for the running backs than they would otherwise get i think you could probably say the same thing for tannehill with Henry but you know if he scores four rushing touchdowns next season given the low volume that he has already the margin for he just like can't afford to really lose anything and still be a starting fantasy option by the way who plays spider-man in the avengers movies Tom Holland if you've never seen it look up Tom Holland lip If you've never seen it, look up Tom Holland Lip Sync Challenge. He does a dance to Rihanna's umbrella. And it is one of the most purely joyful things you will ever see in your life. Okay.

It will just make you happy. The PGA Championship is back at the Ocean Course at Kiowa Island Golf Resort in South Carolina. And you will not want to miss any of the action, people. So to keep up with all the drama, make sure you're watching the PGA Championship for free on the CBS Sports app by visiting cbssports.com slash pgachampionship

via your Paramount Plus or TV login on a connected TV. At running back, we're looking at regression candidates, Nick Chubb. What is it about Nick Chubb that's going to regress? Was this a Heath one? This was a Heath one. I also thought about having him on my list, but once Heath had him, I didn't think I needed to.

5.6 yards per carry, 12 touchdowns on 190 rush attempts. I think that kind of sums it up. He's an amazing running back. Above 5 yards per carry in each of his three seasons so far, but 5.6 yards per carry in 2020 was 12% higher than 2019. He had 8 touchdowns and 298 rush attempts in 2019. A lot of that's dependent on whether the Browns offense can be as stable and consistent as it was last season,

because it did play better. But on the whole, Nick Chubb is one, someone that I just have trouble ranking when I'm doing the projections process because he doesn't catch passes. And so that means he has to be an outlier in touchdowns and an outlier in volume and an outlier in efficiency in order to be an elite running back and he can probably do those things i just i'm not it's not guaranteed and so he's rb15 for me in the ppr rankings and i think he's right around there for heath i know he's higher for dave and jamie and i think that just kind of reflects the different processes that we go through. Because if you are projecting his numbers out, unless you project him to be like, if he's the sixth best running back in terms of touchdown and yards per carry efficiency next season, he's probably going to be about RB 12 to 15 because he's so lacking in the passing game. Yeah. I don't know how to feel about this he is tough because i do think there could be a lot of touchdowns it just depends on who gets the

goal line work i know he's going to get at least some of it if not most of it but they had a lot of goal line work the two of them hunt and chubb combined for 20 carries inside the five yard line and uh that was that would have been like third best just combined but you know like dalvin and Chubb combined for 20 carries inside the five-yard line. That would have been like third best just combined, but like Dalvin Cook and who was number one? Probably Henry. No, it wasn't. It was Cook and Zeke. They led the NFL with

22, but also Madison had 28, Tony Pollard had three. That's like 28 for the Vikings, two running backs, 20 for the Browns, top two. But basically over the last two seasons, Nick Chubb has averaged one inside the five carry per game. So if he converts half of those,

that's eight or nine touchdowns right there, and that's only the ones inside the five he's got such big playability so i could see him i could see him having a 13 14 touchdown season wouldn't shock me at all i have him projected for over 1600 total yards and over 12 are right around 12 total touchdowns next season so i don't think you could reasonably say that I'm too low on him in that projection. It's just, that's where he ends up. And,

you know, I also think the Browns offense probably won't be as good as it was last year. I don't think it'll be like a gigantic fallback, but I think it'll step back. They were only, I think,

17th in scoring or something like that. I said what I said, Adam. Yeah, but in my mind, I was surprised. I thought they were a better offense. I think it's probably a, they were 14th? I think, Adam. Yeah, but in my mind, I was surprised. I thought they were a better offense. I think it's probably a...

They were 14th? I think it's probably a... They peaked late, you know? But they really struggled earlier, I think, in the season. All right, more regression candidates. The year two guys. I think we've spent so much time talking about them, so I'm probably going to skip them for now.

We just did a whole show talking about them again, basically, with the Workhorse Show. Derek Henry, what is regressing here? He was over 2,000 yards for one thing, but what specifically are you looking at for regression? Where do we start? I mean, it's just kind of everything. When someone rushes for 2,000 yards, regression is inevitable. That's just how it happens. You look at every 2,000-yard rusher in the history of the NFL, their numbers have been scaled back significantly the following year. And whether that's because of just standard regression to the mean,

to have had 2,000 yards in a season, by definition means you had to have had some outliers and some extraordinary performances um i don't think he's going to rush the ball 380 times in in 16 game pace again i don't think he's going to average 5.4 yards per carry again and this is where it always gets difficult with the regression discussion why not he's averaged 4.9 yards per carry or more three straight years. So if he doesn't... Well, because 5.4 is significantly higher. What's he going to go? 5.2?

Actually, before you even answer that, I said this last month, I think. Every running back who rushed for 2,000 yards lost at least one yard per carry the next year that's wild now most of them average i don't know about most but i think yeah i would say most of them averaged more yards per carry than henry did so they had more to lose i guess but it would be shocking to see him average 4.4 yards per carry in my opinion yeah i'm not saying 4.4 but if he averaged my opinion. Yeah, I'm not saying 4.4, but if he averaged, let's say it's 5.9, and he ran the ball 320 times

instead of 378, that's a 1,600-yard season, which is amazing. Yeah, so here's the question. Does the regression matter enough where he's not a top five back? For me, yes.

In PPR. In non-PPR, no. He's top three for me there. But in PPR, it's kind of like he's a better version of Nick Chubb. I think he'll be better across the board than Nick Chubb, but I have him projected for 1,600 rushing yards,

14 touchdowns, and 160 receiving yards and 1.5 touchdowns. That's a really good season. That's 15 total touchdowns and over almost 1,800 total yards. And he's RB9. Who's the next most interesting running back in this discussion for you,

other than Austin Eckler? Because I know you've talked about him a lot's the next most interesting running back in this discussion for you other than austin eckler because i know you've talked about him a lot uh the next most interesting regression candidate at running back is uh i think miles sanders is really interesting um kind of for that same reason as daniel jones actually miles sanders had i think three plays of at least 70 yards last season. I'm remembering that. Three or four. Yeah.

Saints, Steelers and Ravens, I believe all against the toughest run defenses basically. And like, he's awesome. I love Miles Sanders. I think he's an incredible talent. Yes.

82, 74 and 74 last season. One of those he fumbled on. He's not going to do that again and that's not again none of this is a knock on miles sanders i think he's a great player but i think we can all agree he was probably better in 2019 at least certainly more consistent and his longest rushes were 65 and 56 yards and so it's another thing where it's, you know, the difference between a 50-yard touchdown and a 70-yard touchdown

is one starts at the 25-yard line. And so you're sort of beholden to where your starting position was. We're talking about Miles Sanders. Heath, welcome back. Here's the problem. And how reliant he was on big plays last season. The problem I have with this argument

is the Eagles offensive line and offense in general was so bad last year. I just don't really know what to make of it. I don't know if I should just throw this out for Miles Sanders or not. But I'm kind of nervous about him right now. I'm more nervous about his receiving game role. Yeah, for sure. Because he had the highest drop rate, I think, in the NFL

among players with at least 50 targets. And they just stopped. What made him so intriguing as a rookie and early on last season or in the preseason was that they were willing to split him out wide occasionally, but also just throw those deep wheel routes and stuff. And he was getting a lot of those early in the season. He was dropping them. I distinctly remember.

Yeah, he was, I know. I think it was the Ravens game. He just dropped like a 34 yard touchdown. And I, I'm pretty sure that was the last target that he had that was further than like 15 yards downfield.

Yeah. And I think like, if there's a way for Kenneth G gainwell to get on the field that's the place that he would do it yeah i yeah maybe but also i know that i know that he was part of the passing game with with jalen hurts but but that's still just not a good thing we know that mobile quarterbacks are not good in that respect but that you know that's not the only thing that made him very interesting going into 2020. I mean,

when he took over for Jordan Howard at the end of 2019, he was what I look for in a, in a star running back, you know, he got a lot of work and he got the touchdowns or, you know, and he got the catches. He was,

he was exactly what you're looking for, for a breakout. It didn't happen last year, but again, was the Eagles offense was the Eagles offensive line, was everything so bad that we just shouldn't penalize Carson Wentz for it? We shouldn't penalize Miles Sanders for it?

There's no penalizing Miles Sanders. He averaged 5.3 yards per carry. But we were just talking about it was the three 70 plus yard runs that really factored into that, and that's pretty impossible to do. I think when you have like a 65 yard run obviously the offensive line plays a big part of that but i don't think you can necessarily say the offensive line is the

reason he got 65 yards instead of 30 you know a long play like that by definition requires a lot of things to go right requires good blocking it requires defense. I don't want to get into one play. I just want to talk overall. Sure. He's not going to rush for 5.3 yards per carry again. I think he's more likely to be like 4.5, 4.6, which is where he was at as a rookie. I think he is both a positive and negative regression candidate

because the passing game role diminished and his yards per target went from 8.1 to 3.8. I don't think he's going to do 8.1 again, but I also don't think he's going to be 3.8. So there's room for him to improve both, to go both ways. Final thought, Heath? Yeah, it just like his production.

I agree with Chris about the yards per carry. I don't think he's a five point. My main regression candidates at running backs, I think, were J.K. Dobbins and somebody else who averaged over five and a half yards per carry. Sarah Penner. Yeah, they're not going to probably repeat that. The main thing for Miles Sanders is going to be, does the new coaching staff want to have a player in the Naeem Hines role or do they want to throw it to him 70, 60 times over 17 games?

And then the second thing, which we still don't really know, is can Miles Sanders be a 15 to 17 touch per game back and play 17 games? Yeah, that's a big part of it. All right, we'll talk about wide receivers when we come back on Fantasy Football today. Did you know that across Ontario, utility damage happens 19 times a day? That's over 4,222 incidents a year. Don't let your next dig be one

that causes costly delays or safety risks. Before you break ground, make it a point to request a locate. It's not just the law. It's a step to keep your team and community safe visit ontario one call.ca and avoid unnecessary damages to get the job done right data sourced from the orcga 2023 dirt report welcome back everybody here we go with wide receivers we got a couple of steelers guys on here chase Chase Claypool and Juju Smith-Schuster and... And Deontay Johnson.

And Deontay Johnson. Oh, okay. I... How can we say anything about what happened with the Steelers last year? That's kind of where I'm at. It's like they were ridiculous. They were a comic book. They were fiction. It was a ridiculous

offense. It was stupid. Which is a good reason, because they changed their offensive coordinator, it's a good reason to expect that things won't be the same that they were last year. It's easier with Chase Claypool to just say, nobody has a 9% touchdown rate. He's not going to have a 9% touchdown rate next year.

I don't care what offense they run. He's not going to have a 9% touchdown rate. So his target share has to significantly go up, or he's not going to be very good% touchdown rate. So his target share has to significantly go up or he's not going to be very good for fantasy. And like we mentioned, you mentioned Doug Martin earlier. Chase Claypool had a four-touchdown game. When you talk about he had 11 touchdowns for the season,

we had four in one game and seven in the other 15. I think the seven is much more right uh much more predictable he had two rushing touchdowns and he had 16 rushing yards right like although he he did then go out in the playoffs and score two touchdowns in his only game yeah that was a ridiculous game roethlisberger threw 68 passes in that game for 500 yards this is an example example of where he won't have a nine percent touchdown rate i think you can say chase claypool is likely to have a higher touchdown rate than certainly anyone else on his team i think that's true um and then with juju it's just like even without ben roethlisberger and anton Brown in 2019, he averaged eight yards per target last year that fell to six and a half.

Um, his 8.6 yards per reception last year was only two tenths of a point better than his career yards per target. Um, so he's going to be much, in my opinion, you should expect him to be much more efficient than he was last year. Now,

the way this could all even out is what we've talked about before. If Claypool's target share goes up and Juju's target share goes down, then these things for fantasy purposes may not mean as much. But if their roles remain similar, you should expect, even if Juju's completely limited to only slot routes and only short area targets, you should still expect him to be much more efficient than he was last year. And it doesn't sound like he will be. There was, I think, a quote from him in the last week or so that he's expecting to be used outside more often.

All right, well, that's big. And I'm glad you said that, Heath. That was my follow-up question. Can we really expect Juju Smith-Schuster to bounce back when they used him so differently? His ADOT the last three seasons

has been 8.8, 9.7, 5.5. So if it stayed at 5.5, you can't expect him to get up to that yards per target

and yards per catch, right? I think he will be better, though. I don't think there's any reason to expect it will stay at the 5.5, but yes, if it stayed at the 5.5, I would still think there's any reason to expect it will stay at the 5.5, but yes, if it stayed at the 5.5,

I would still think he would be better than what he was last year. Okay. So how are you ranking the three receivers? I want to know what the Deontay Johnson regression is because I'm really unsure. That might impact who I'm ranking higher. Okay. Go ahead,ris um this may be a controversial statement i've talked to i know i've talked to dave specifically about it and he

disagrees i don't think drops matter i think one like if you get enough targets where you drop a lot of passes that's more important than the drops uh and in deontay johnson's case he got so many targets that i don't think it's gonna matter but drops are also just not super predictive year to year they fluctuate a lot there are very few receivers who drop what was it for him like seven percent of their targets last uh six and a half is six and a half his rookie year nine percent last year yeah yeah so nine percent i think something like six percent okay maybe but he's played i think it's 31 nfl games including the playoffs 32 including the playoffs he has 20 drops 10 of them came in a seven week sample last season

now the rest of that, that's more drops than you would want in the other games. But I don't think it's going to be a problem. And I would expect he's going to catch more like 65% of his passes. Probably even more if he's used the same way as he was last year. Yeah, I just... And he is he was last year yeah i i just and i talked about this last year and he did not do anything to like the only thing i know about deontay johnson for sure is that this he gets open in the sealer's throat to him but he's been very mediocre when like on

an efficiency basis both years yeah or flat out bad last year. No, he's been, he's been their least efficient wide receiver each of his first two seasons. And I do think it's funny that like, if you threw a pass to both chase Claypool and Deontay Johnson, the chances of Claypool scoring last year was the same as the chances of

Johnson dropping that pass. But yeah, it's just going to, if they continue to throw it to him 10 times a game, then it doesn't really matter how good he is. It's almost like the running back argument.

And I tend to think they will. And so does Jacob Gibbs. I mean, Jacob Gibbs on Monday was talking about, when was this? What's today? Today's Thursday.

Yeah, I think that was Monday. He was talking about targets per route run. It's a big stat for him. And he's seeing trends with Deontay Johnson. Roethlisberger just loves him as his first read. And,

uh, he, he's comparing him to Michael Thomas in the targets per route run, not in the production, but so, so, okay. With that said,

Michael Thomas, how we, okay, there you go. How are we ranking the three Steelers wide receivers? Deontay's 19 for me. Juju's 32. Chase Claypool's 45.

I don't know that I'm too far from that. I think I might be a little bit more consolidated than that. I did lower Juju a little bit in my most recent update. I'm trying to pull up the PPR rankings. I've got Deontay at 20.

I've got Juju at 22.. I've got Juju at 22. And I've got Claypool at 37. Well, you know, I love wide receivers who get 900 yards as rookies. They're destined for stardom. I don't know how I feel about wide receivers who get 873 yards as rookies. That's just a total gray area.

Juju did have 900 yards as a rookie. He did, yeah. The thing about Juju is that he thrived when Roethlisberger was... I led the NFL in... Well, not his rookie year. In Juju's second year, I guess. I think Roethlisberger led the NFL in passing yards that year. It was just a really good setup for him, I guess.

I don't... He's a confusing player. He's been... I don't really care about 2019. No, Roethlisberger didn't play. But last year was really bad for him. Well, yeah. I don't like him in the slot as much.

Adolph was stupid. Ultimately, so much of it comes down to can Ben Roethlisberger throw the ball more than 10 yards down the field? Slash, is Ben Roethlisberger actually the ball more than 10 yards down the field slash is Ben Roethlisberger actually willing to stand in the pocket long enough to let a route longer than 10 yards down the field develop? Because that was the issue last year. One more wide receiver. I'm sorry.

One more wide receiver. Robbie Anderson averaged six touchdowns per season on the Jets with 114, 94, and 96 targets in the three seasons before last year. Then he blew those targets away at 136 and he caught three touchdowns. So obviously we're looking at positive regression here for Robbie Anderson.

And if he had caught seven last year, which I think is reasonable since he averaged six on fewer targets with Sam Darnold, the three, mostly, the three previous years. If he had seven last year, it would have been a top 15 wide receiver. Um, Chris,

this was, this was a guy you put in the notes here. So go ahead. Yeah. And I think a couple of things go into why his touchdown rate was lower last season. Uh, one is I think Teddy Bridgewater is a pretty good quarterback,

but he just for his career has had a very low touchdown rate. I think it's like 3.5% overall, which is really bad, especially for a quarterback who's pretty good. Otherwise, um, is he? And I think that kind of shows his limitations.

Okay. Um, I will just say that Sam Darnold's career touchdown rate is 3.7%. Right? Yeah. No, but I think the other thing that goes into it is um robbie anderson wasn't the same robbie anderson last year and the robbie anderson who

he was in new york is a player who is more likely to score on any given target than the one he was last year last year he was playing the dj more role and before that you know his average death to target last season was 9.7 yards, which is actually still pretty good. The previous two seasons was 15, and so you're less likely to score on a shorter target than you are on a longer target. That's just how it works. Okay, yeah.

He's a touchdown regression candidate because three on 136 targets is just an incredibly low number, even accounting for all of that. But yeah, it'll require Sam Darnold to play well. The real question is, is DJ Moore a touchdown regression candidate? Regressing to what? Exactly.

I think we're at the point now. Maybe we're still a year away. But we're getting really, really close to the point to where it's just DJ Moore is just a low touchdown guy. Yeah, it depends on... Again, he was using that deeper role last season. But still didn't score. I have the explanation.

But I think that was a Teddy Bridgewater thing. I tell you guys every time... Teddy Bridgewater left a lot of points on the field last year. I tell you every time what the reason is for DJ Moore. Nobody listens to me. He's small. The Panthers don't throw touchdowns. They've thrown 33 touchdowns in their last two seasons.

Two seasons. The reason we don't listen is because it's two different quarterbacks and two different coaching staffs. They've had two bad quarterback situations. And the Lions don't ever have good running back production. But that's the thing is that Teddy Bergeron wasn't bad last season. He's not a good quarterback. I'm sorry.

Right. No, I don't disagree with that. You just said he's a pretty good quarterback. I said he's pretty good except when it comes to throwing touchdowns. I don't agree with that. That's where his limitations are. His limitations are throwing the ball downfield. He's a top 20 quarterback currently, I think.

Yeah, fine. Maybe. You're not disagreeing with me. No, I am disagreeing with you. You're just saying it in a more harsh way. Exactly. I'm saying he moves the ball pretty well. He moves the ball efficiently.

He connects with his targets. His limitations, which I agree with you, are exposed on the types of plays where you would score touchdowns. DJ Moore has been the victim of bad quarterback play. That's why he's not scoring a lot of touchdowns. He also doesn't get a lot of red zone targets. That's not going to change this year. I mean, they're going to have bad quarterback play, I think. It's just hoping that Darnold can play better in a new situation with more talent around him.

It's a long shot. Look, I get it. And I think when you talk about regression, you can have a bad quarterback play and still score more than four touchdowns like Moore did and three than Anderson. So that's an important point. But I think over the last two seasons,

he's had 20 to 25% of the team's touchdowns. So if they had a 30 touchdown season, you could see seven touchdowns from him, and then that's not great. It's not going to get you in the top five at wide receiver, but it's going to make him a value big time in round four, wherever he's going. He has the lowest touchdown rate of any wide receiver ranked in my top 20 right now.

There you go. All right, let's finish up with tight ends. Heath, give me a tight end that's going to regress. Speaking of low touchdown rates, Noah Fant scored three touchdowns each of his first two years in the league. The first year he did it as a rookie tight end on 66 targets.

Last year he did it on 93 targets he also saw his yards per reception fall off and we may not know fully um what his true expectation in terms of yards per reception especially at tight end that can be a little bit scheme dependent but i think it's closer to 12 than it is to the 10.9 that he posted last year especially considering he was playing hurt and they've got a little bit of a floor. No matter what we think of Teddy Bridgewater, he's better than bad Drew Locke. So he's got a little bit of floor on his quarterback play now.

I guess we'll find out. And like I've said many times, I just don't see very much of a gap, if any, between TJ Hawkinson and Noah Fant. I think Noah Fant's a better receiver. I think that's possible. And so he is one of my favorite, if you don't get one of the good tight ends

to just wait and take Noah Fant later. I would expect that if he gets 110 targets, like he was basically on pace for last year, that you're going to see five or six touchdowns and he's going to be a top five or six tight end. 62 catches, 673 yards, three touchdowns for Fant on 93 targets in 14 games. I think we know Robert Tunyon

is not going to have the same touchdown rate. I want to add one thing on Noah Fant that is both a maybe unfair compliment, but also highlights why he may not be a super high touchdown rate guy. He's a lot like George Kittle. He might be the most similar to George Kittle of any tight end in the NFL.

What I mean by that is his abilities with the ball in his hands make him so special. He is such a playmaker in that way. But they use him very similar to how the 49ers use Kittle. A lot of lower, shorter yardage targets. His average death of target has been below eight each of his first two seasons. He gets a lot of yak, so I think he's going to still be an effective playmaker. But George Kittle famously has not scored many touchdowns. He has 14 on 369 targets. I think given that usage, it could be very similar for Noah Fant,

where he becomes a 900-yard tight end, but is still more of a five or six touchdown guy. Okay, and we'll end it on that note with our regression candidates. And check out the article on cbssports.com slash fantasy, which was, of course, as we now end it on that note with our regression candidates. And check out the article on CBSSports.com slash fantasy, which was, of course, as we now know, written by Chris. And make sure you stay tuned for our mailbag coming out tomorrow. Thank you so much for listening, everybody. I'm Adam Azer for Heath Cummings and Ben Schrager and Chris Towers.

Talk to you on the mailbag. If you don't listen to that, have a great weekend, and we'll have another show for you on Monday. By the way, if you want more regression candidates, Fantasy Football Today in 5, Jacob Gibbs on Thursday and on Friday, telling you who's going to have positive regression, negative regression,

and make sure you check that out. See you later.