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.
Before we get into the Week 15 analysis, I hope you did not, in fact, give up on Rome Odunze ahead of Week 14. We take our wins where we can get them.
Positive Regression Candidates
Quarterback
Russell Wilson (PIT)
With six touchdowns over his past three outings, it’s not as if Russ is running all the cold in the run-first Pittsburgh offense. His touchdown rate over those three games (4.2) percent is neither all that high nor low.
The Steelers have been flirting with the pass, however, making Wilson an interesting regression candidate for the fantasy postseason. Russ since Week 12 has one touchdown for every 179 passing yards; on the season he’s averaged a TD on every 145 yards. After going ultra pass heavy (14 percent over their expected pass rate) in Week 13, the Steelers were just 3 percent below their expected pass rate in Week 14 against the Browns.
Russ is due for some of the good regression where it counts the most. He has only three touchdown passes on 16 inside-the-10 attempts in 2024. For context, Daniel Jones had six touchdown throws on 17 green zone attempts before parting ways with the Giants.
Taking on the beatable Ravens and Chiefs secondaries in Week 16 and 17, respectively, Wilson could figure prominently into the fantasy playoffs. We are once again asking Arthur Smith to let Russ cook.
Justin Herbert (LAC)
Herbert, since Greg Roman and the Chargers went pass heavy in Week 7, is seventh in passing yardage and 17th among quarterbacks with a mere eight touchdowns.
Herbie (the kids are calling him Herbie) has had some wretched luck in the red zone this season. He has six touchdowns on 41 inside-the-20 pass attempts. That might have something to do with lacking a true red zone threat, though the return of Ladd McConkey in Week 15 should increase the chances Herbert gets a good visit from the Regression Reaper against a Bucs defense allowing the NFL’s second highest drop back success rate.
Herbert is firmly in play as a top-12 Week 15 quarterback against the pass-funnel Bucs.
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Wide Receiver
Xavier Legette (CAR)
Does it pain me, the guy who suggested on last week’s Rotoworld Football Show that the Panthers would upset the Eagles in Week 14, to point out Legette — the guy who dropped what would have been the game-winning score — as a positive regression candidate?
Yes, it does. Thanks for asking.
I have no choice, however. The rookie’s usage has been solid during the Bryce Young renaissance. That includes last week’s near-win over Philly, when Legette piled up 137 air yards, the fifth most among all receivers in Week 14. He accounted for 25 percent of the team’s targets for 44 percent of the air yards against the Eagles. Legette leads the Panthers with a 30 percent air yards share over the team’s past three games. He’s been targeted on 18 percent of his pass routes over that stretch, hardly a hateful rate.
With the Panthers opening up their passing attack as Young looks more and more like an NFL starter, Legette — along with Adam Thielen — could be very much fantasy relevant in the next few weeks. A Week 15 date with Dallas’ disastrous secondary should be quite good for Carolina pass catchers.
Brian Thomas (JAC)
I’m giving you no choice but to keep bashing your head against that brick wall in your mind and start Thomas in Week 15 against the Jets. The rookie is piling on air yards, which you cannot feed to your family, of course, but are indicative of excellent usage in the misery-bound Jacksonville offense.
Thomas’ 115 yard yards in Week 14 against the Titans were the tenth most among wideouts. From Week 11 to 14, only Jordan Addison and Jerry Jeudy have more air yards than Thomas, who has averaged a heft 9.9 targets per game over that span.
Mac Jones remains terrible and the Jaguars offense remains as boring and predictable and imminently stoppable as any in recent memory. But Thomas is a good play and should remain in all lineups for the fantasy postseason. You never know: Those air yards might one day be edible.
Josh Palmer (LAC)
I take absolutely zero pleasure in including prayer yards champion Palmer in this space. He’s left me in a tough spot though. Only four receivers have more air yards over the past three weeks than Palmer, the Chargers’ only downfield threat who might be the worst ball tracker in league history.
It certainly helps Palmer’s case that the Chargers have been among the pass heaviest offenses in the NFL over the past month and a half. His 15 percent target share games now account for six or seven targets rather than two or three. Averaging almost 34 air yards per reception, Palmer is the prototypical downfield fantasy option — one that will boom or bust in your lineup depending on whether he can come down with a deep shot from Justin Herbert.
In deeper formats, you could do worse than Palmer, who has eight catches of more than ten yards over LA’s past four games. With Ladd McConkey out in Week 14, Palmer led the Chargers in targets and air yards.
Running Back
Saquon Barkley (PHI)
The most important player in fantasy history has somehow, some way run cold inside the ten yard line this season. He has three scores on 23 green zone rushes. His outstanding season could have (should have?) been even better, somehow.
Woe unto anyone (me) who did not draft Barkley in 2024. The analytics have never known such a defeat.
Tight End
Jonnu Smith (MIA)
Folks who played Smith in Week 14 might be blissfully unaware that, if not for a last second Jason Sanders field goal, they would have gotten a zero spot for their tight end.
Smith went on to catch three balls for 44 yards and the game-winning touchdown against the Jets in overtime, salvaging his fantasy day. It’s not as if the Miami offense changed in Week 14: Tua was still a check down machine, averaging a meager six air yards per attempt, in line with his season long average. It’s just that, for once, those looks were going to Jaylen Waddle and Tyreek Hill, not Smith.
Smith had been targeted on 27 percent of his pass routes over the three weeks headed into Week 14 — three games that saw the veteran catch 29 passes in the balanced Dolphins offense. On Sunday against New York, that rate fell to 10 percent. Probably that’s not cause for long-term concern. Smith still had a full complement of routes against the Jets.
It might’ve been nothing more than an unfriendly matchup. The Jets are allowing the sixth fewest tight end receptions and the seventh fewest tight end yards in 2024. Smith remains an integral part of a Miami offense that throws it short more than any other team in the NFL. The Jonnu PPR scam will continue until morale improves.
Negative Regression Candidates
Quarterback
Sam Darnold (MIN)
Darnold has bounced between the positive and negative regression parts of this article all season. His touchdowns tend to come in spurts, and so we have Darnold posting a gaudy 9 percent touchdown rate over his past four games. His five-TD outing against Atlanta helped land him here, obviously.
This isn’t to say you should bench Darnold this week against the Bears, against whom he passed for 320 yards and three touchdowns in Week 12. The Vikings had a 58 percent drop back rate in that game -- slightly below their season-long rate -- and Darnold got it done on limited passing volume. That the Bears are among the NFL’s most pronounced run funnel defenses will certainly play a factor here.
For superflex managers who have an embarrassment of QB riches, consider the potential regression of Darnold in Week 15 and beyond. This is the guy whose career touchdown rate is 4.1 percent.
Wide Receiver
Ray-Ray McCloud (ATL)
As a longtime advocate for McCloud and the only one on the Rotoworld Football Show who will acknowledge his existence, it brings me no pleasure to say his Week 14 output against the Vikings (eight catches, 98 yards) was sorta kinda flukey.
That the Falcons have decided McCloud is a superior option to Kyle Pitts tells us everything we need to know about Pitts’ future in the NFL.
Seventy of McCloud’s 98 receiving yards last week came after the coach, most of them on a first half catch and run on a Kirk Cousins check down. He had nine yards after the catch per reception against Minnesota, well above his season long rate of 5.8 (which is far higher than I would have thought). In an Atlanta offense that very much wants to be run heavy to protect the fading Cousins, McCloud got away with last week and shouldn’t be trusted outside deep fantasy formats in Week 15.
Marvin Mims (DEN)
The Regression Reaper lies in wait for Mims, coming off a three-catch, 105-yard, one-touchdown performance in Denver’s last game against the Browns before the team’s bye.
Mims remains a part-time player in the Broncos offense. Against the Browns, he logged a route on 15 of the team’s 37 drop backs. The speedster’s 5.7 yards per route run leads the NFL over the past month. The thing about a YPRR north of 5 is that it can’t last, per the laws of gravity and math.
One positive note for the seven remaining Mims truthers: Their man has been targeted on a stellar 31 percent of his routes since Week 11.
Tight End
Mark Andrews (BAL)
Andrews has continually embarrassed me — along with the wider regression-enjoying community — by getting away with it time and again. Andrews has a touchdown in three of his past four games despite seeing little change in usage in the run-heavy Baltimore offense.
In fact, Andrews has turned four inside-the-ten targets into four touchdowns this season. An incredible seven of his nine inside-the-20 targets have gone for touchdowns. This, as you know by now, can’t last, no matter how good Andrews is as a big-bodied target for Lamar Jackson. He’ll remain a touchdown-dependent option in Week 15 against the Giants.
Grant Calcaterra (PHI)
Calcaterra completed his Week 14 mission against the Panthers (catching one touchdown) but remains a desperation streaming option in Week 15 and beyond with Dallas Goedert on injured reserve.
Calcaterra ran a route on 24 of the Eagles’ 27 drop backs against Carolina and caught all three of his targets for 16 yards and the score. His three grabs were the second most among Philadelphia pass catchers in an offense that runs it as much as any in the league. In fact, the Eagles have an NFL-low 34 percent pass rate while leading in 2024.
And the thing about the Eagles is that they lead a lot because they’re good. Calcaterra, like every other Eagles pass catcher, has no path to target volume.