Regression Session Week 4. Don't lose hope in Calvin Ridley.

With three weeks of real NFL games now in the books, we have legitimate trends to analyze. Now we can actually start to panic on some underperforming players, but the key is to know which ones to panic over and which ones just need a little bit more patience. 

With that in mind, let’s take a look at two positive regression candidates and two negative regression candidates heading into Week 4.

Positive Regression Candidates

Calvin Ridley, WR - Jaguars

It hasn’t been quite the start to the season that Ridley drafters would have hoped for after spending an early-round pick on him. He had a solid Week 1, putting up 101 yards and a TD, but it’s been tough going since then with just 72 scoreless yards over the past two games. 

Ridley’s usage has dipped a bit since Week 1, but he’s still seen seven targets in each of the last two weeks with a healthy air yards share to boot. 

The real story behind Ridley’s struggles over the last two weeks has been drops. He had four drops in these last two games and is now already halfway to his previous career-high of eight drops in a season. 

We shouldn’t be totally shocked that a player who hadn’t played in an NFL game for nearly two years might have rust to knock off or some occasional bumps along the road in his return. The good news is that drops are fixable, and they shouldn’t be a long-term issue for a WR of Ridley’s caliber.

Per the Pro Football Focus (PFF) expected points model, Ridley has underperformed his usage by 15.5 points in PPR scoring over the last two games, making him a clear bounce-back candidate. Better days are ahead for Ridley and the entire Jaguars offense.

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Jahan Dotson, WR - Commanders

It looked like Dotson was in line for a huge early-season role when Terry McLaurin suffered an injury during the preseason. However, that wasn't to be. McLaurin returned sooner than expected, and Dotson has seen just a 17% target share through three games and has failed to post a top-40 finish at the WR position so far.

This lack of production is only partially Dotson's fault, as just 67% of his targets have been deemed catchable this season. Sam Howell has been really up and down to start the year and is coming off of what will (hopefully) be his worst performance of the season with four INTs against Buffalo last week.

Dotson was Howell’s favorite target in the preseason, but thus far, Washington's offense has really spread the ball around. No player has above a 20% target share for the season, and it doesn't help that Howell has also taken a lot of sacks, which hurts the Commanders' overall passing volume and limits opportunities for the WRs. 

Sep 24, 2023; Landover, Maryland, USA; Washington Commanders wide receiver Jahan Dotson (1) runs onto the field during player introductions prior to the game against the Buffalo Bills at FedExField. Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports

I believe Dotson's QB play will improve, whether from Howell becoming more consistent as he gains experience or from Washington eventually turning to Jacoby Brissett if Howell's struggles continue.

Dotson proved his ability to be a downfield threat as a rookie, but his average depth of target (aDOT) has plummeted to just 8.7 yards this season compared to 15.4 yards last year. I view this as a glaring usage error that the team will hopefully remedy as they look to get their vertical passing game going.

For now, Dotson should be on your bench, but I’ve seen him dropped in a few of my leagues, and I think that is a massive mistake. Dotson is too talented to remain irrelevant in fantasy, and I expect the Commanders to correct their early-season usage mistakes. 

With some tweaks to the offense and hopefully improved QB play in the coming weeks, Dotson still has a chance to contribute plenty of big fantasy performances this season.

Negative Regression Candidates

Jerome Ford, RB - Browns

The Browns' season took a turn for the worse when Nick Chubb went down with a season-ending knee injury in Week 2. The silver lining is that Ford has filled in admirably, having since finished as the RB7 in back-to-back weeks.

A lot of this fantasy production has come from the three total TDs he's scored in these last two games. That level of scoring efficiency is unlikely to continue unless Ford starts to see a much larger share of the workload.

In Cleveland's first full game without Chubb, Ford saw just 55% of the snaps and 33% of the rush attempts. The Browns also signed Kareem Hunt and got him involved right away in Week 3, so I’m not too confident in Ford’s ability to be the feature back despite what Kevin Stefanski has said.

At best, Ford looks to be the lead back in a three-way committee, which makes him a TD-dependent flex play rather than the top-10 RB his recent weekly fantasy finishes might suggest.  

PFF's expected points model backs this up, as their data suggests that Ford’s workload should have resulted in just 1.4 TDs so far.

Ford should absolutely be rostered in all fantasy leagues and will have plenty of weeks where he's startable, but he is a prime sell-high candidate if any of your leaguemates value him as a high-end RB2.

Mike Evans, WR - Buccaneers

It's been a sensational start to the season for Evans in the post-Tom Brady era, as he's currently the WR5 in PPR scoring through three games. He's been consistently good, having finished as the WR21 or better each week thus far on the year. 

Evans is clearly the top target for Baker Mayfield, and while I don’t necessarily expect that to change, I’m not very confident that Evans will be able to maintain the kind of efficiency he's shown over the first three weeks.

I’m also not a big believer in Mayfield, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see Tampa Bay's level of QB play regress in the coming weeks, which would also hurt Evans's fantasy prospects.

According to PFF, Evans ranks as the WR13 in expected fantasy points thus far, which is more in line with what I expect from him going forward as a weekly WR2 play rather than a top-5 WR option.

To look at things from another perspective, if we were to compare Evans’s current efficiency metrics to his career averages, we can see that he's clearly outperforming those averages. We have a large enough sample size on Evans to say that it's far more likely these numbers will regress toward his career average in the coming weeks.

I do believe that Evans will continue to outperform his preseason ADP, but I'd be surprised if he were to finish the 2023 season as a top-10 fantasy WR.

For fantasy managers with Evans on their roster, my recommendation is to enjoy the value you got, but don’t make roster moves with the assumption Evans will continue to slot in as a consistent WR1 for the remainder of the season.