Candidates for regression in Fantasy Football: Kyren Williams down?

Football is back. We've waited months for this moment and now it's finally here. Our drafts are complete and we can finally turn over the cards and find out which players we were right about and which we were wrong about. Let's enjoy these last days of optimism before fantasy football inevitably humbles us.

Quick programming note before we get started. During the season, I will be writing down weekly regression candidates to identify players who are performing too well or too poorly before their results return to average.

Since we don't have any 2024 results to analyze yet, this week I have two more positive regression candidates and two more negative regression candidates from a seasonal perspective. Be sure to check back next week for the first installment of the seasonal series.

Good luck this year and win your league.

Positive regression

Hollywood BrownKansas City Chiefs

It's never nice when a player misses Week 1 due to injury, but as I said in the introduction, these are candidates for a down season. After starting his career with three solid seasons in Baltimore, Brown's efficiency dropped off rapidly during his two years in Arizona. He's been under 1.5 YPRR in each of the last two seasons and has also posted his two worst YAC per reception totals.

At just 27 years old Brown should not be over the age limit and he is now in the best possible offensive situation if he Patrick Mahomes in Kansas City. Brown will not be a target when he is next to Travis Kelce, Rashee RiceAnd Xavier Worthy but he doesn't have to. The two easiest paths to a comeback season for Brown are improved efficiency and positive TD variance.

Over the last two regular seasons, Arizona Cardinals quarterbacks have thrown a combined 35 touchdowns, and Brown scored 7 of them. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if Mahomes throws 35+ touchdowns in 2024 alone.

Early in his career, Brown averaged over 13 yards per catch and averaged over 4.7 yards after the catch per reception in his first two consecutive seasons. Those numbers dropped rapidly during his two seasons in Arizona. Any significant improvement in yards per reception or yards after the catch would make a 1,000-yard season possible for Brown.

Now that he is very late in drafting (WR49 on ESPN), Brown doesn't need much to outperform his price tag. Since he missed the first game, he could be on the waivers list in some of your leagues. He may not be as exciting on the roster as the Chiefs' younger receivers like Rice and Worthy, but Brown will play a big enough role to be relevant weekly in fantasy, and he'll always be a threat to provide top weeks in this Chiefs offense.

Terry McLaurinWashington Commanders

The Washington Commanders are one of the biggest mystery box teams heading into Week 1. I could see them evolving in all sorts of areas, from a Houston Texans-like jump to outright relegation as one of the worst teams in the NFL. How it plays out will largely depend on how well the rookie QB Jayden Daniels Is.

The two things we can say with some certainty about Daniels' game are that he is a dynamic rusher and throws a good deep ball. His college production and Preseason Band Those skills will almost certainly translate to the NFL, which should bode well for his top receiver. McLaurin has struggled with subpar QB play throughout his career, which has hurt his fantasy production. He has 115 targets and 1,000 receiving yards in each of the last four seasons, but hasn't managed more than 5 receiving TDs in any of those seasons.

It's quite possible that McLaurin will get 120+ targets again, and those should be of higher quality than last season when he set a career-low in yards per reception. This makes it easy to project a peak scenario where McLaurin gets the volume of 2023 (128 targets) and runs it at his 2022 efficiency rate (67% catch rate, 15.5 yards per reception) to put together the best season of his already impressive career. A few deep bomb TDs or just more end zone targets in general would push McLaurin even closer to the top ranks of fantasy WR production.

Negative regression

David MontgomeryDetroit Lions

It feels odd to write about Montgomery in the negative regression category when I've been actively drafting him all summer. But just because he's a negative regression candidate doesn't mean he's overvalued in drafts.

Montgomery had the best season of his career in 2023, setting new career highs in rushing yards, YPC, forced missed tackles, rushing TDs and explosive runs (10+ yards). The only category where his performance dipped was the passing game, where he posted career lows in receptions and receiving yards.

The efficiency and touchdowns put him in the RB12 spot in half PPR points per game and RB13 spot in total points. He is now drafted as RB23 on ESPNMontgomery's situation hasn't really changed since last year, so calling for a significant drop in production is a looming problem. But there are reasons for concern.

Most importantly, Montgomery performed well in the TD department last year. PFF model for expected points Montgomery had 10.8 expected TDs in 2023 and his 17 runs inside the 5-yard line were balanced with Christian McCaffrey for the fourth most in the NFL. In other words, he had one of the most valuable goal-line positions in all of football. I don't expect Montgomery to lose that role entirely, but the Lions offense has a lot of young, up-and-coming weapons that could get a larger share of the looks near the end zone.

Assuming he doesn't get more involved in the passing game this season, it will be very difficult for Montgomery to replicate his fantasy performance from last year unless Gibbs is out. Fortunately, there shouldn't be a need to draft him this year based on his ADP. He can still be a solid RB2 for a fantasy team, even with some regression in the TD department.

Kyren WilliamsLos Angeles Rams

No, this negative regression prediction has nothing to do with Kyren Williams named Rams' primary punt returnerIt has to do with him He played 82% of the snaps and took 74% of the carries in his healthy games. Both of those totals would have led all RBs had he played the full season, but he only managed to play in 12 games.

The Rams will no doubt want to keep Williams on the field as much as possible this year, but that means he will have to lighten his workload somewhat. To that end, they have spent significant draft capital to Blake Corum to serve as a capable second back. McVay and Co. have been raving about Corum all summer, specifically stating that they like Corum because he's a complete back who can do everything Kyren can. To me, that sounds like Kyren and Corum will rotate entire drives rather than having specific roles on offense.

The logical conclusion of Williams' fewer snaps and rotating drives is that he won't have the valuable touches as assuredly as he did last season. Hopefully Williams can stay healthy in 2024, and if he can, he can easily match his raw production numbers from last year, but his per-game stats would almost certainly suffer in that scenario. He's unlikely to average a touchdown per game like he did last season, and there's a real danger that the backfield split will shift more toward Corum as the season goes on if he proves himself to be a good NFL player.

The market hasn't factored Kyren into this opportunity, as he went as the RB8 in the draft after finishing as the RB2 last year. But only time will tell if this discount is enough or if he's still overpriced.