Fantasy Football Yardage Fallers - Wide Receiver Regression Candidates

May 7, 2023

Robert Lorge identifies some wide receivers who might have fewer yards than they did in 2022. Recognizing these players can help fantasy managers avoid negative values in their drafts. Who are some such receivers this year?

With all things, there are ebbs and flows. Good seasons and bad years. That’s no different in fantasy football either. It’s easy to look back at any given year and find players who vastly over and underperformed expectations. As we look forward to a new fantasy football season, being able to identify who those players are can help fantasy managers identify positive and negative values in their fantasy football drafts.

Here you can find our previous series on touchdown regression candidates.

• Positive Touchdown Regression Candidates – WR
• Negative Touchdown Regression Candidates – WR
• Positive Touchdown Regression Candidates – RB
• Negative Touchdown Regression Candidates – RB
• Positive & Negative Touchdown Regression Candidates - TE

For this edition, we’ll be focusing on wide receivers who are likely to see their 2022 yardage totals increase and decrease. Oftentimes, this could be due to a change in target volume - good or bad - but it can also be due to positive and negative efficiency from the previous season that is unlikely to repeat itself. Let’s get started with those receivers likely to see a negative regression in their yardage totals from 2022. Please be sure to use promo code "BOOM" for 10% off of any premium purchase.

Mike Evans, Tampa Bay Buccaneers

This one should be fairly obvious, right? Last year Mike Evans finished with 127 targets, 77 receptions, and 1,124 yards. That was his best finish in all three categories since 2018, which was actually the last year he played with Jameis Winston at quarterback before Tom Brady arrived.

In 2020, Evans had 109 targets, 70 receptions, and 1,006 yards. It was more or less the same in 2021, 114 targets, 74 receptions, and 1,035 yards. He was able to beat all three categories in 2022 despite playing in one fewer game than he did in 2020 and 2021.

Considering his output in 2020 and 2021 with Brady compared to his 2022 output, it would’ve been a fair argument to say he’s a likely candidate for yardage regression even if Brady was the quarterback in 2023. Alas, he is not. That falls to Baker Mayfield.

Since 2020, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are first in team pass attempts with 2,738. That’s 129 more than the next closest team. They also have the most passing yards over that span with 20,032 yards, 150 more than the next closest.

Mike Evans and Chris Godwin have been out-performing their underlying peripherals for many years thanks to outrageous pass volume in Tampa Bay

Pass Attempts

2022: 751 (1st)
2021: 731 (1st)
2020: 626 (6th)
2019: 630 (4th)
2018: 625 (4th) https://t.co/7FGrZsMsj7

— Josh Larky (@jlarkytweets) March 17, 2023

Ladies and gentlemen, the Buccaneers are not going to pass even remotely as much as they did this year with Mayfield under center. The offense could realistically be losing as many as 10 attempts per game and if that happened, they’d still be in the top-12. Tampa averaged 45.4 attempts last year, which was 3.5 more than any other team.

If you combine the significant decrease in team passing volume, which is going to lead to a sizable decrease in overall targets for Evans, he’d already be a clear and obvious regression candidate. Combine that with the fact that Mayfield can’t even hold Brady’s jockstrap and it becomes increasingly worrisome.

At this point, predicting Evans doesn’t break the 1,000-yard barrier should be a hot take. It’s something he’s done in every season of his nine-year career, but he won’t hit double-digits. That streak, sadly ends in 2023.

Christian Kirk and Zay Jones, Jacksonville Jaguars

Christian Kirk and Zay Jones also make for rather obvious yardage candidates, especially Jones. Kirk finished the 2022 season with 133 targets, 84 receptions, and 1,108 yards. It was a breakout season for the former Cardinal. Jones also had a career-best year with 121 targets, 82 receptions, and 823 yards.

However, Jacksonville will be welcoming Calvin Ridley to the team this year. The last time we saw him play a full season was back in 2020, but he was absolutely dominant at that time, finishing with 143 targets, 90 receptions, and 1,374 yards.

In his shortened 2021 season - the last time we saw him on an NFL field - he averaged over 10 targets per game for Atlanta. Ridley will essentially be replacing Marvin Jones Jr. in the Jacksonville offense who finished the 2022 season with 81 targets, 46 receptions, and 529 yards. Ridley is a massive, massive upgrade to that.

He’s going to command a much larger piece of the pie this year and that is going to have to come from somewhere. The most obvious place is Zay Jones. He’s likely to fall into the role and target share previously occupied by Marvin Jones and that’s coming to result in a significant loss of volume and in the end, receptions and yards.

Kirk is more interesting. Many think Kirk will maintain his No. 1 role in Jacksonville this season. Others think it’ll be a 1A and 1B situation. Personally, I suspect Kirk’s chemistry with Lawrence will help him maintain the edge early in the season, but as Ridley and Lawrence begin to get more comfortable with each other, Ridley will take over as the alpha receiver, the one who looks like he was on his way to stardom following his 2020 season.

The result of that kind of scenario would likely cause Kirk’s targets to decrease slightly, along with his yardage, although I wouldn’t suspect the decrease would be substantial.

Allen Lazard, New York Jets

Allen Lazard followed Aaron Rodgers to New York and he now settles in as the who even knows what receiver in New York. They have like a million of them. Currently, the team has Garrett Wilson, Lazard, Corey Davis, Denzel Mims, Randall Cobb, and Mecole Hardman. Now, other than Wilson, none of them are overly talented, but I suspect it’ll be a receiver-by-committee approach behind Wilson, who will be the team’s only full-time player, assuming another move is not on the horizon.

Lazard was a favorite of Rodgers last year in Green Bay and finished with 100 targets, 60 receptions, and 788 yards. For the early portion of the season - prior to Christian Watson’s arrival - Lazard largely operated as the team’s No. 1 receiver and the role helped boost his stats. He’ll receive no such help in New York.

Garrett Wilson is locked into the alpha role, after a rookie season in which he had 147 targets. After that, everyone else will be fighting for crumbs. I suspect the coaching staff will have specific roles for all of the remaining receivers on the roster.

Davis and Lazard seem to be the most likely starters, but Davis has been a far more productive NFL career in his career, and as long as he’s healthy, Lazard should mostly settle in as the team’s No. 3 target.

Jaylen Waddle, Miami Dolphins

It pains me to put Jaylen Waddle on this list, but it just makes too much sense. Last year, Waddle finished with 117 targets, 75 receptions, 1,356 yards, and an 18.1-yard per reception average. In his rookie season, he had 140 targets, 104 receptions, 1,015 yards, and a 9.8-yard per reception average. What happened?

It’s no mystery that Tyreek Hill’s arrival in Miami and the new coaching staff have altered how Waddle is being used. He went from a 6.3-yard average depth of target to 12.1, almost double. We see a similar trend with his yard per reception average from 2021 to 2022, at 9.8 and 18.1 yards, respectively.

Despite the massive increase in both categories, Waddle’s 64.1% catch rate is very impressive. In fact, since 2000, looking at receivers with at least 50 receptions and at least a 17.5-yard-per-reception average, Waddle’s catch was the third-highest among 41 receivers who qualified. Of those 41, only 15 were over 60%.

What that means is that if Waddle is used in the same manner next season, we should expect his catch rate to dip and it could be fairly significant.

Even if we increase his targets to 125 - up from 117 - but give him a 60% catch rate, which would still rank 16th out of 41, he’d finish with 1,350 yards, six fewer than last year. Now you might be thinking, “Really… six yards? Come on.” That’s fair.

But what if his targets don’t go up to 125? What if his catch rate falls to the 50th percentile range out of those 41 applicants, which would be 58%? What if he doesn’t average 18 yards per catch and “just” 16? Because very few receivers have ever put up back-to-back seasons with an 18+ yard per reception average. If any of those what if’s happen, he’s going to finish with fewer yards than just six. If multiple of them happen? Who knows.

The bottom line is if Waddle is to have any chance to repeat that kind of yardage total, he’s going to need his target volume to increase rather significantly.

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