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Justin Carter looks at four NFL wide receivers who are set to catch fewer touchdown passes in 2024 than they did in 2023. These TD regression candidates are potential fantasy football fallers.
There always seems to be a player or two who has a big year in terms of touchdown scoring and then vanishes the next year. In 2021, for example, we saw Hunter Renfrow tie for ninth in the NFL in receiving scores with nine. In the two years since then, he's caught a total of two touchdowns.
Looking over the list of the 2023 touchdown leaders at wide receiver, a few names jump out as players who might also see their numbers drop.
Below are four negative touchdown regression candidates at wide receiver for the 2024 NFL season.
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Jordan Addison - Minnesota Vikings
Vikings wide receiver Jordan Addison ended his rookie season with 10 touchdowns, a number that led the team and was double that of star wide receiver Justin Jefferson. Of course, there's some important context missing from that last sentence, as Jefferson missed seven games. Not that Addison was only scoring touchdowns when Jefferson was sidelined, though -- he averaged 0.6 per game when Jefferson played and 0.57 per game when Jefferson was out.
Welcome to the NFL, Jordan Addison. Kirk Cousins connects with him for a 39-yard TD.
Lethal.pic.twitter.com/E0P6Sy0nbQ
— Ari Meirov (@MySportsUpdate) September 10, 2023
He did average more opportunities, though, when Jefferson was out. In 10 games with Jefferson, Addison averaged 5.5 targets per game. In the seven without him, that jumps to 7.71 per game, according to RotoViz's Game Splits app.
Also of note: seven of those 10 touchdowns came in the eight games that Kirk Cousins played. Once Cousins went down with a season-ending injury, Addison found the end zone just three more times, including twice in Week 15 against Cincinnati. Cousins is in Atlanta now and the Vikings will either have rookie J.J. McCarthy or Sam Darnold under center. Whichever they land on is a huge downgrade over Cousins.
Courtland Sutton - Denver Broncos
Courtland Sutton scored 10 receiving touchdowns in 2023, tied for fourth in the NFL with a host of other players. It was by far the most in his NFL career, with the only other season of more than five touchdowns coming back in 2019 when he caught six of them. From 2020-2022, Sutton caught a combined four touchdowns. 2023 was definitely an outlier based on his career numbers.
Sutton's poised to be Denver's No. 1 receiver in 2024, but he'll likely be catching passes from rookie quarterback Bo Nix. Nix was an extremely accurate passer at Oregon, but there are plenty of question marks about his ability to push the football down the field. Still, if his college accuracy translates to the NFL, he can make good use of Sutton's short-yardage skills.
That's a big if, though. Nix might take some time to get up to speed and the Denver offense as a whole will likely suffer while that happens. It also doesn't help Sutton's case that Denver added rookie wide receiver Troy Franklin, Nix's college teammate. Sure, they only spent a fourth-round pick on Franklin, but a lot of people thought Franklin could have been an early second-round pick. Add in Josh Reynolds and Marvin Mims Jr. and you get a potentially crowded passing attack, lowering the upside for Sutton.
Mims in particular scares me if I'm a fantasy football manager who plans to invest in Sutton. He wasn't particularly impactful on offense as a rookie, but Mims was a Pro Bowl returner and is a major second-year breakout candidate because of his potential to break off big YAC plays out of the slot. His game really fits what Nix is best at.
If the Broncos trade Courtland Sutton, where is the best landing spot? 👀 pic.twitter.com/ReXlo0HMmt
— PFF Fantasy & Betting (@PFF_Fantasy) April 27, 2024
(Note: there are plenty of Sutton trade rumors out there, so this is all subject to change.)
Brandin Cooks - Dallas Cowboys
On one hand, Brandin Cooks is set to enter 2024 as the No. 2 receiver for the Dallas Cowboys again, so he definitely could equal his eight touchdown receptions from 2023. I mean, there isn't really an obvious player on the roster to take targets away from Cooks this year. There's CeeDee Lamb and then there's kind of a void in this passing attack that Cooks could easily fill.
On the other hand, how much can we trust a 31-year-old receiver with this much wear on the tires? Cooks is entering his 11th NFL season and just had his most touchdowns since 2016, but he also had the third-fewest targets of his entire career. That doesn't feel like a great sign for continued success.
Jalen Tolbert could also see a larger role going forward, eating into Cooks' upside. Tolbert caught just 22 passes last season, but he flashed some enticing talent at times. With Michael Gallup gone, Tolbert should be on the field when the team is in three-receiver sets, so he'll have a direct shot to show if he can outproduce the veteran Cooks. I'd lean Cooks being better than Tolbert, but the fact that it's close enough for that to be a consideration definitely gives me a bit of pause.
Tank Dell - Houston Texans
Despite playing in just 11 games last season, Houston Texans rookie wide receiver Tank Dell caught seven touchdown passes. No player had more touchdowns while playing fewer games than Dell -- in fact, Keenan Allen is the only other player with seven or more touchdowns to play fewer than 16 games.
So when I talk about Tank Dell as a touchdown regression candidate, I want to make it clear that I'm thinking of that on a per-game basis. If Dell plays 17 games, he can definitely score seven touchdowns again, but I just don't see him scoring at the same rate that he scored at in 2023.
The Texans added Stefon Diggs to the team this offseason, so there's suddenly a lot of mouths to feed in this passing attack. What looked like a weakness for the team before the 2023 season has become its biggest strength after the breakout campaign by Nico Collins last season.
It's just hard to really see any particular player racking up huge touchdown numbers in this offense, unless C.J. Stroud comes out and throws 40 touchdowns. I'm not sold on that happening, though, because the addition of Joe Mixon shows that Houston still wants to use the run game to set things up.
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