Welcome to another edition of The Roundup, where we showcase the greatest hits from the past week at FantasyPoints. Sit back and read, draft Elijah Moore and win titles.

Breece Hall truthers, take a deep breath. ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler reported that the Jets have “done their homework” on free agent RB Dalvin Cook. There’s a chance Aaron Rodgers doesn’t want to bet on a sophomore RB returning from an ACL tear. While it’s an unlikely resolution to this saga, it would undoubtably lower Hall’s value in 2023.

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Thanks for joining us, let’s get after it.

— JR

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MOST POPULAR

TD Regression Candidates

Using expected touchdowns (XTD), Scott Barrett finds which NFL players are most likely to score more or fewer TDs in 2023 fantasy football in this article.

Touchdowns are extremely valuable in fantasy football. But these rare events are extremely hard to predict. At each position, touchdowns were far less sticky (showing a much lower correlation year-over-year) than targets, receptions, carries, or yards.

A player’s talent plays a role in scoring touchdowns, but touchdowns are mostly a function of a player’s opportunity. The more opportunities — specifically, the more opportunities closer to the end zone — the more likely a player scores a high number of touchdowns.

Scott found expected touchdowns (XTD) to be one of the best stats for predicting touchdowns and stickiest year-over-year predictors of touchdowns in the following season. Two stats you need to know:

1. Of the top-25 seasons where players scored more TDs than expected this decade, these players (on average) saw their touchdown total decline by 52% in the following season.

2. Of the bottom-25 seasons, touchdown totals among players improved at a 63% clip.

Clearly, players at the extremes are likely to revert. With that said, here are the players likely to regress in 2023.

More TDs in 2023?

Had Diontae Johnson been perfectly average in touchdown efficiency/luck, he would have gone from WR50 by FPG to WR32. Last season Johnson became the first player in NFL history to fail to score a touchdown despite seeing more than 110 targets (Johnson had 147). He fell 6.4 touchdowns short of his expectation, but was also inefficient everywhere. He averaged just 6.0 YPT in 2022 – the 6th-worst mark by any WR with at least 145 targets since targets became a stat in 1992.

However, Johnson has not only earned targets at an elite rate since entering the league, but he’s also been fairly elite at getting open. He led the league in ESPN’s Open Rate last year, and ranked top-4 in every season since entering the league. All of this is to say, that yes, we do want to be betting on Johnson at his WR34 ADP.

Travis Etienne is a positive regression candidate we won’t be targeting at ADP. Had Etienne been perfectly average in touchdown efficiency/luck, he would have finished RB16 in FPG (14.0). After Etienne converted just 4 of 40 red zone carries into touchdowns – rookie RB Tank Bigsby seems specifically brought in to serve as the team’s primary short yardage and goalline back.

Less TDs in 2023?

We are not worried about Austin Ekeler. Last season, Ekeler ranked only 7th in YFS/G (96.3), with only 3.8 more YFS/G than Alvin Kamara (ADP: RB31). But he smashed Kamara and all other RBs in FPG thanks to a position-high 107 catches and a league-leading 18 total touchdowns. If he regresses in the touchdown department that could add up to a disappointing season for a player who cleared 60 rushing yards in only 4 of 17 games last year. That said, Ekeler was our top touchdown regression candidate last year as well, and he’s always been hyper-efficient.

George Kittle is a player we are worried about. In addition to an almost inevitable touchdown regression (5th highest differential), he’s also now dealing with a great deal more target competition. Kittle’s target share dropped from 21.9% in 2021 to 18.7% last year, and in games in which Deebo Samuel and Christian McCaffrey were both healthy, that fell to just 15.6% (would have ranked 15th, just ahead of Tyler Conklin and Hayden Hurst). Kittle needs to be outlierish-ly hyper-efficient if he’s going to pay off his TE4 ADP.

Read the full article to learn whether Tony Pollard and Christian Watson can be expected to regress, and why it might not be worth drafting Courtland Sutton, despite his second-rank in positive regression.

Franchise Focus

AFC South

This AFC South review is part of our Franchise Focus series, breaking down each NFL team from a fantasy perspective.

TITANS

Since 2019, Derrick Henry has averaged an absurd 109.9 rushing YPG and 1.0 rushing TD per game – translating to about 17 FPG before adding receiving work. While the passing game hasn’t been Henry’s forte, he is improving on that front. His 2.6 targets/game and 24.9 receiving YPG in 2022 were career highs. He also led all RBs (min. 100 routes) with 2.6 YPRR, well ahead of Breece Hall (2.2) and Christian McCaffrey (2.1). Henry arguably has the highest weekly ceiling of any RB, owning the most top-5 weekly finishes at the position over the last two seasons.

So why is Henry not being selected until the first pick of Round 3 in Underdog drafts? Drafters may be wary of the impact of age, with Henry entering the eighth season of his career – a time when even the league’s best RBs often experience a sharp drop in production. Even RBs previously as hyper-productive as Henry have averaged only high-end RB2 output in Year 8. But we’re not betting against the king.

The full article covers Will Levis, Treylon Burks and the rest of the Titans offense.

JAGUARS

Christian Kirk ranked 16th in targets (123), 13th in receiving yards (1,108), 21st in air yard share (35%), 16th in 1st read targets (112), and 9th in end zone targets (13) – roughly in line with the value of his contract. That led to a career-best fantasy season for Kirk, who posted 14.4 FPG (2.0 better than his 2021 season) and finished as the WR19.

The key for Kirk in Jacksonville was heavy slot usage, as he earned the 2nd-most slot targets (92) of any player and was responsible for 49% of Jacksonville’s slot targets and 57% of their slot receiving yards. Kirk’s tenure as Trevor Lawrence’s favorite pass catcher could come to an end in 2023 with the addition of target hog Calvin Ridley, but Kirk’s slot role is as secure as can be after the impressive numbers he put up inside last season.

Calvin Ridley, Trevor Lawrence and the Doug Pederson-led group are detailed in the full article.

COLTS

Jonathan Taylor missed six games with an ankle issue, which was extremely disappointing for anyone who drafted fantasy’s consensus top pick last summer. Taylor posted 4.5 YPC and finished as the RB17 with 12.3 FPG. He owned a 70% snap share and a 63.8% carry share and ran 229 routes (20.8 per game) in his 11 contests.

Taylor had just two weekly finishes as a top-five RB in 2022, after eight top-five finishes alone in 2021 when he finished with the most FP (353.1) at the position. Taylor still averaged a generous 21.9 touches per game in the contests when he played more than 2 snaps, but his league-leading marks in touchdowns (20) and carries inside the 5-yard line (26) from 2021 plummeted to 4 TDs and 8 carries.

Taylor will face little competition for touches from Indy’s current RB depth chart, so he’s headed toward another massive workload if his ankle is 100%. Anthony Richardson is one of the most athletic quarterbacks to enter the league, which should create more clear running lanes., but Richardson will steal some of Taylor’s goal-line opportunities. Still, Taylor is set up for a bounce-back campaign.

How will the Colts WRs Michael Pittman and Alex Pierce fair in the Anthony-Richardson era? Read the full article.

TEXANS

John Metchie will be full-go by the time training camp rolls around, per Texans and NFL insider Aaron Wilson. If he’s healthy, we believe Metchie is the most talented receiver on the Texans roster. Remember, this is the same John Metchie who was the top target earner for Alabama in 2021. Metchie saw 0.26 targets per route run in his final season – besting Jameson Williams (0.22) for the team-high.

While his other efficiency stats don’t pop off of the page, Metchie is sixth all-time among Alabama WRs in receiving yards per game (69.4) – just behind Jerry Jeudy (76.2) and ahead of Calvin Ridley (63.2) and Jaylen Waddle (58.8). Impressive company. Metchie profiles as a potentially team-leading target who can play outside and in the slot for C.J. Stroud.

Find a full breakdown of Dameon Pierce and the Texans rebuilding offense in the article.

🎤 Top-10 QBs - Brett Whitefield, Chris Wecht, and Steve O'Rourke debate and rank the top 10 QBs in the NFL heading into the 2023 season (podcast)

🎤 Jags Preview - John Shipley of @JaguarReport joins Joe Dolan to discuss the expectations for the 2023 Jacksonville Jaguars and break them down from a fantasy football perspective (podcast)

🎤 Broncos Preview - Can Sean Payton help Russell Wilson turn it around? Well, if he can't… no one can. Troy Renck of Denver7 joins Joe Dolan to discuss the Broncos’ offense in 2023 (podcast)

Tweets

PSA: A healthy Kupp & Stafford duo is one of the best in the league.

More Jalen Hurts hype thanks to FantasyPoints Data.

A healthy Rashaad Penny is a perennial All-Pro.

Dynasty Corner

Broncos Second-Round WR

Continuing last week’s series, Nick Spanola wrote a comprehensive dynasty startup draft plan and strategy guide, looking at FFPC ADP and highlighting the best values within each round for FFPC’s Tri-Flex format.

Nick outlines the optimal strategy in each round, including:

Round 10: Marvin Mims. The Broncos second-round WR is a very intriguing prospect from an analytical perspective. Mims is the first draft pick of the Sean Payton era in Denver, and when we look at college YPRR vs zone coverage, it’s clear Mims is a zone beater:

Courtland Sutton and KJ Hamler have proven unreliable in the health department (Payton has also tried to trade them all offseason), so even if Mims does not make an impact in 2023, he is an awesome dynasty asset for the future.

As always, all this content and more is available at FantasyPoints.com. We’ve got an exclusive subscriber code: 23FPOINTS5 for an extra discount off that FantasyPoints subscription you know you deserve.

And that concludes this edition of The Roundup.

Please reach out to [email protected] if you have any questions or issues.