Regression Session. Two Players Primed to Regress in 2023.
Jonathan Fuller highlights two players who are prime candidates for regression in the 2023 fantasy football season.
We are now fewer than 50 days from the start of the NFL season. Hot Best Ball Summer is in full swing, dynasty rookie drafts are mostly complete, and we are now beginning to turn our attention to redraft leagues.
As we focus on expectations for what we think will happen in 2023, it can help to take a look back at some of the outlier performances from last year.
Let’s start things off on a positive note with a player who should easily top his 2022 production.
Positive Regression
Diontae Johnson, WR - Steelers
The clearest positive regression candidate among fantasy-relevant players is Diontae Johnson. He set a truly absurd NFL record for the most targets and receptions in a season without a receiving TD last year.
His mark of 147 scoreless targets is 41 more than any player in NFL history. If that’s not the definition of a negative outlier, I don’t know what is.
Any way you slice it, Johnson ran bad last year. Per the PFF Expected Points model, the volume that Johnson earned could have reasonably resulted in more than 1,100 receiving yards and at least six TDs.
In reality, he only accumulated 882 receiving yards and no scores. This was by far his lowest output since his rookie season when he only saw 92 targets.
And for those of you wondering if Johnson is to blame, just know that he ranked first among all WRs for ESPN Analytics’ Open Score. For anyone not familiar, you can read more about what Open Score is measuring here.
The important thing to know is that Johnson continued to do in 2022 what he has done for his entire career: get open. Johnson is excellent at creating separation against defenders, and we have no reason to think that will change in 2023.
What could change is improved QB play from second-year signal caller Kenny Pickett.
Even if you don’t think that Pickett will take a step forward, it’s difficult to see how Johnson could get any worse from a fantasy perspective.
In our Fantasy Life projections, we only have Pickett projected to throw for 3,250 yards and 19 TDs, but still have Johnson topping his total fantasy points from last season when he finished as the WR32.
In my opinion, this is on the more conservative side of a full-season projection for Johnson, but it shows that he is essentially being drafted at his floor.
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Negative Regression
George Kittle, TE - 49ers
The San Francisco 49ers made an improbable run to the NFC Championship game last season on the back of Brock Purdy winning his first seven NFL starts.
George Kittle was one of the primary beneficiaries of the switch to Purdy, scoring seven receiving TDs in the final five regular season games to help him finish as the TE3 in full PPR scoring.
Jan 14, 2023; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers tight end George Kittle (85) reacts after catching a pass for a two-point conversion in the third quarter of a wild card game against the Seattle Seahawks at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Cary Edmondson-USA TODAY Sports
We know that TDs are one of the most volatile stats in football, so players who overachieve in that category are natural candidates for negative regression.
Referencing the PFF Expected Points again, based on Kittle’s role in the offense, six TDs would have been a reasonable expectation for his 2022 output. His tally of eleven was a massive outperformance and is unsustainable, even for a player of Kittle’s caliber.
The counter-argument is of course that Brock Purdy is still expected to be the 49ers starter, so maybe he will continue to dominate.
There might be some credibility to that idea if Purdy was absolutely peppering Kittle with targets, but he wasn’t. In the nine games last season where Purdy attempted the majority of the team’s passes, Kittle averaged just 5.1 targets per game and was held under 40 receiving yards in five of those contests.
That kind of volume isn’t likely to produce another double-digit TD season. In fact, our Fantasy Life projections have him forecasted for just 5.5 TDs on the season.
With all the mouths to feed in the San Francisco offense, it’s going to be difficult for Kittle to consolidate volume, and his efficiency in the TD department is due to regress, which makes him very likely to underperform his season-long fantasy points total from 2022.
