Second-Year Fantasy Football Regression Candidates: Potential Sophomore Fallers

John's potential second-year fantasy football fallers and regression candidates. Potential busts and overvalued second-year players for 2025 fantasy football.

No one likes to hear that one of their favorite rookies, who just had a nice season to start their career, could be set to regress and put up disappointing (relatively) numbers in their second season. But the fact is that it happens all the time, no matter how much dynasty fantasy football bagholders want to deny it.

Houston Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud is a perfect example. After winning Offensive Rookie of the Year honors in 2023, it seemed to many that he had basically unlimited potential and would be an elite NFL QB for years to come. Instead, he regressed hard in 2024.

There were reasons it happened. His offensive line took a big step back, and he played as if he was rattled. One of his star wideouts, Tank Dell, entered the season recovering from a leg break and later basically shredded his knee. It would have been nice to predict some of these things, so let's try to do that now with second-year players for 2025!

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Bucky Irving, RB, Tampa Bay Buccaneers

One of the common tendencies of the fantasy football community is not to give offensive coordinators enough credit for the jobs they do in making certain offenses some of the best in the NFL. Many seem to completely forget what the offenses looked like before a new OC transformed them into an elite unit.

We're seeing this in real time with the Tampa Bay Bucs. Liam Coen, the team's offensive coordinator last year, is now the head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars. Coen helped WRs Chris Godwin and Mike Evans and quarterback Baker Mayfield have absolutely elite seasons. Godwin got hurt but was a league winner before his injury.

Nice way to deal with an aggressive 4 down over front from Liam Coen's Buccaneers pic.twitter.com/KctJpXeyS6

— Shawn Syed (@SyedSchemes) September 12, 2024

He was also the engine behind first-year back Bucky Irving having a massive breakout. Of course, there's plenty of revisionist history now. Irving was drafted late in the 2024 NFL Draft, and most fantasy managers entirely wrote him off. Now, rather than giving Coen credit, it's just that Irving is an absolute superstar.

Irving is excellent. I drafted him in every league I could in 2025. But without Coen and the elite run-game scheming of Coen, he could take a step back. The Buccaneers were the best rushing offense in the league from a purely RB perspective -- a few teams had more rushing yards, but they had hyper-mobile quarterbacks.

The Genius of Liam Coen offense 🎥

This is from 3 straight weeks.

•Knowing the defense have scouted this TE cheat motion.

•Makes it look identical, but runs 3 totally different unique plays to confuse the defense.

•3 Touchdowns.

Jax has missed this type of creativity ‼️ pic.twitter.com/jI7aVge8pg

— N F L (@DTWD904) January 30, 2025

TB's new offensive coordinator could be outstanding, and filling Coen's shoes would still be tough. There are examples all over film of Irving not only getting great blocking but having huge lanes to run through for big gains. The Bucs' offensive line deserves credit, but they were helped immensely by Coen's scheme.

I'm not saying Irving will suck in 2025, but I have a hard time believing he puts up the production he did in 2024. Not to mention, opposing defenses will know he's a big threat to gash them, and will likely prepare much more intensely to slow him down. He's also not a good pass-protector, which doesn't help.

Jalen McMillan, WR, Tampa Bay

Unsurprisingly, the second player on our list is also a Buc. This one should be a bit more obvious, though. Before the NFL Draft, I still had JMac pegged as a regression candidate. The problem is that he wasn't good. He caught several touchdowns to end the season, though, which seemed to convince people he was.

Breaking down the film of his plays shows more of Coen's genius than anything, though, which isn't a surprise. Obviously, Mayfield throwing 41 TDs in 2024 after never throwing more than 28 in his career meant his receivers would have better production. The injury to Godwin opened up a lot of vacated targets.

The Jalen McMillan biggest gains of the year are a great highlight package for Liam Coen. pic.twitter.com/T3W77nUI4m

— Hayden Winks (@HaydenWinks) May 19, 2025

Things that might not make sense to fantasy managers will become much clearer when you turn on the film. That's why it's important to do so, and why not doing so can lead you to wrong conclusions. It's probably true that Michael Penix Jr., McMillan's QB in college, led to all three of his WRs being over-drafted -- Rome Odunze, Ja'Lynn Polk, and J-Mac.

It's even clearer that McMillan is set to regress now. Had the Bucs thought he was a suitable WR2 at any point moving forward, there's no reason they would have drafted wideout Emeka Egbuka in the first round of the 2025 NFL Draft.

With the 19th pick in the 2025 NFL Draft... @EgbukaEmeka officially joins the Krewe ‼️

📺: #NFLDraft on NFLN/ESPN/ABC pic.twitter.com/gGMGLfoioy

— Tampa Bay Buccaneers (@Buccaneers) April 25, 2025

Egbuka is the team's WR3 for now and could serve as the second option while Godwin recovers. But he's not about to be behind McMillan in target priority, not with that draft capital. TB also drafted WR Tez Johnson from Oregon, who wouldn't have fallen so far if it weren't for his low weight.

I wouldn't even be surprised if Johnson leapfrogs McMillan on the depth chart within the next two seasons. He's a talented route-runner with good separation skills.

Tyrone Tracy Jr., RB, New York Giants

The Giants' drafting running back Cam Skattebo early in the fourth round is the most significant factor in predicting a regression for Tracy. Skattebo was ultra-productive in college, racking up a ludicrous 2,316 yards from scrimmage (1,711 rushing and 605 receiving) and 24 total touchdowns.

I don’t care if Cam Skattebo is slow.

I don’t care if his game “isn’t sustainable.”

I don’t care if “teams are lower on him than the media.”

He’s an absolute dawg who elevated his team on the biggest stage. 3-down back who can do EVERYTHING. pic.twitter.com/Rz3V0xDOjM

— NFL Draft Files (@NFL_DF) April 19, 2025

Skattebo has pretty much everything except for raw speed, and we've seen that work for many running backs. With his college pedigree, it's hard not to see him immediately taking a pretty solid share of the backfield opportunities for the Giants.

It's not like Tracy won't have a role, but his blow-up games from 2024 might be a lot harder to come by. Volume is essential for running backs in fantasy football. Skattebo is a threat to ensure that Tracy never gets the workhorse role he had for much of last season, due to backup Devin Singletary's ineffectiveness.

I'm ready for Year 2 of Tyrone Tracy pic.twitter.com/ChYI1hTynb

— Zain (@ThisIsNotZain) May 16, 2025

This could be an RB1A/RB1B situation, which is never that fun.

Brock Bowers, TE, Las Vegas Raiders

This is not a regression candidate I have a lot of confidence in. The Raiders upgraded at quarterback, landing Geno Smith through a trade. Smith is one of the NFL's better quarterbacks. They also overhauled their coaching staff.

There are just a few red flags here. Bowers is an elite talent, no doubt, but Raiders head coach Pete Carroll somehow found a way to immediately ruin tight end Jimmy Graham in fantasy when he went to Seattle. The team still has Michael Mayer, and Carroll loved keeping his second TE involved with the Seahawks.

Pete Carroll already has a play to not throw to Jimmy Graham

— Playmaker TD 🏈 (@playmakerTD) March 10, 2015

The team also drafted WR Jack Bech in the second round. I wouldn't be surprised to see a target reduction for Bowers. He was thrown the ball 153 times in 2024. As the team's only viable pass-catching option opposite WR Jakobi Meyers, he got a ton of looks.

Now, the targets will likely be more evenly distributed between Bowers, Meyers, Bech, and new rookie RB Ashton Jeanty, who was selected with the sixth overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft. RB and TE targets are inversely correlated to a not-insignificant degree, too.

If Carroll does get Mayer more involved, we could see Bowers not utilized as much as he was in 2024. It's possible he could still be uber-productive, but in PPR leagues, there's some danger to look out for when a player starts getting reduced targets, unless they make up for them with touchdowns or a big boost in yardage.

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