Regression Files Week 7: The Drake Maye effect and the Patriots offense

Identifying players who have run particularly hot or cold in recent weeks will be the goal of his space over the 2024 NFL season.

Spotting guys who are “due” won’t always work out because my children recently lost my magic eight ball, leaving me powerless to predict the future. Nevertheless, we persist in finding NFL players who have overperformed their opportunity and those who have been on the wrong side of what we’ll call variance. Because “luck” is so crass and unsophisticated.

Positive Regression Candidates

Quarterback

Geno Smith (SEA)

The Geno Industrial Complex will have you know our man leads the NFL in passing yards and has a halfway decent shot to set the single-season passing yards record if the Seahawks remain unrelentingly pass heavy.

The touchdowns should be on their way for Geno. Any minute now, the regression will hit and all his empty yards will turn into the kind of yards that fill your tummy and the stat sheet and your fantasy team’s score. After last week’s miserable outing against the Niners — a game that embarrassed the Geno Industrial Complex on a national stage — Smith’s touchdown rate sits at 2.4 percent. It’s the third worst among quarterbacks in 2024.

There’s also this tidbit of (good?) news: Geno is fourth among QBs with 15 inside-the-ten pass attempts. He has just three completions in the green zone, all of them for touchdowns. Seattle’s drop back rate is a league-high 70 percent, 8 percent over expected. Keep starting Geno and his pass catchers. If he reaches last year’s fairly low TD rate of 4 percent, things should get slightly more fun, and soon.

The structure of the Seahawks offense, the ineptitude of their defense, Geno’s pass-catching weapons, and his rushing prospects — he has 21 rushes through six games — should, in theory, make him a top-end fantasy option. The process.

Bo Nix (DEN)

Trigger warning: Do not read the following if you thought Nix would never be fantasy relevant in the wretched Denver offense.

Nix is fantasy’s sixth highest scoring quarterback over the past two weeks thanks almost entirely to his rushing (are you triggered?). His running production — Nix has 180 yards and three touchdowns on the ground — confirms my most ardent preseason takes and has made Nix more than a little bit interesting in superflex formats. Nix has logged a rushing attempt on a healthy 20 percent of his drop backs over the past two weeks.

None of this strikes me as unsustainable. Nix has four touchdown passes over his past two outings for a TD rate of 5 percent. Even if that dips a bit, a handful of rushing attempts should keep him afloat as a top-20 option. It also matters where Nix is running: He has nine red zone rushes this season, third most among quarterbacks. His four inside-the-ten rushes are tied with Jalen Hurts for the most among signal callers. Nix has a quirky but sustainable fantasy profile for now.

Wide Receiver

Calvin Ridley (TEN)

Do I enjoy writing about a wideout who in Week 6 had exactly zero fantasy points while seeing 120 air yards — the fourth most of the week — and a team-leading eight targets? Yeah, actually, I do. It’s fun.

Ridley ran as cold as any receiver in recent memory last week against the Colts. With Will Levis among the most inaccurate passers of Week 6 — something of a surprise considering he was fifth best in completion rate over expected headed into the week — Ridley couldn’t come down with any of his opportunities against a burnable Indy secondary. Ridley took in 56 percent of the Titans’ air yards, all for naught. He’s 17th overall in air yards in 2024. The process, the process, the process.

I don’t know what to say about Levis. He’s bad this year, he was bad last year, he was bad in college, and I have anonymous reports he was bad all the way back to middle school flag football. I take no pleasure in reporting this.

It’s not that Ridley will be an elite fantasy play once he starts converting these opportunities. The down-unfathomably Tennessee offense, with Levis at the controls, is a decidedly low-volume unit. They are, in fact, 28th in plays per game. This leaves exceedingly narrow paths to fantasy relevance for everyone in the Titans offense, including Ridley and DeAndre Hopkins. With a meager 59 percent drop back rate — 1 percent below the team’s expected drop back rate — Ridley and Hopkins will have to run red hot to be reliable options for the rest of the season. Unless, of course, Mason Rudolph is considerably better than Levis once Levis is finally benched.

Darius Slayton (NYG)

Know that you did not make a mistake in starting Slayton after agonizing over that start-sit decision for 72 hours before Sunday kickoff. Slayton was (predictably) a despair yards champ against the Bengals, turning 107 air yards into six catches for 57 yards. Only six players logged more air yards in Week 6.

If Malik Nabers (concussion) remains out for a third straight game in Week 7, Slayton is something close to a must-start in 12-team formats. Even if Nabers is able to suit up, Slayton was running a (relatively) full complement of routes with the Giants WR1 in the lineup, and should be a high-variance fantasy play at worst. The intermediate looks from Daniel Jones, of course, would revert back to Nabers. That would leave Slayton with downfield targets. Like I said, high variance.

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Negative Regression Candidates

New England Patriots Offense

This is the part of the Regression Files where I break down in painstaking detail how an offense operated with a new quarterback. You love this because you’re desperate to know the gritty details rather than having a fantasy writer tell you what to do with your lineup. You are autonomous. I will not tread on you.

New England, with Drake Maye drawing his first NFL start, had a 44 percent early-down pass rate in Week 6 against the Texans, the 10th most run heavy of the week. The Patriots were 9 percent below their expected pass rate and a downright shameful 27 percent below their first down pass rate. That’s loser stuff right there. That’s a team afraid to compete. Perhaps the Patriots have bought into this idea that you can’t play your rookie quarterback if he has a chance to be sacked. I’ve never seen an organization handle their franchise player with such kid gloves.

Maye threw three touchdowns and two picks against Houston in blowout game script. His 9.2 percent touchdown rate won’t hold, naturally, but it’s good for everyone in this offense that Maye pushed the ball downfield a little bit. Twelve percent of Maye’s attempts were more than 20 yards downfield. He had three attempts of over 30 yards — only Jared Goff had more in Week 6. Maye, importantly for our purposes, logged five rushes for 38 yards against Houston. We’ll take a handful of rushing attempts from our QB; we’ve seen how important that’s been for Bo Nix’s fantasy usefulness over the past few weeks. The sieve we call the Patriots defense is sure to put Maye into trailing game script over and over again this season. It’ll be messy at times, with opposing defenses able to play the rookie in obvious passing situations. But it should create the conditions of a volume-based passing offense that will finally bring fantasy relevance to Patriots pass catchers.

That includes Demario Douglas, who caught six of his nine targets for 96 yards and a score against the Texans. His 29 percent target share easily led the Pats, as did his (meager) 80 air yards. Douglass ran 88 percent of his pass routes from the slot, and profiles as the most obvious PPR scam this side of Wan’Dale Robinson. Sixty-eight percent of his 2024 targets have come behind the line of scrimmage or within nine yards of the line. Douglas is top-20 in ESPN’s Open Score. He leads the Pats in yards per route run. That’s good stuff.

Hunter Henry also becomes interesting with Maye replacing Jacoby Brissett. With a scammy 6.2 average depth of target against the Texans, Henry had 41 yards and a TD on three grabs. He ran a full route rate and appeared to be one of Maye’s most trusted red zone targets. More pass volume for New England — if they decide to turn up the PROE dial a bit — should create fantasy-friendly conditions for Henry.

I would tell you better things are in store for Ja’Lynn Polk, but the rookie has been awful through six weeks. He’s shown zero ability to command targets no matter which quarterback is under center. Polk in Week 6 ran a full complement of routes, but so what? He’s playing almost exclusively from the boundary and sports one of the worst Open Scores in the NFL this season. Polk can be safely ignored.

Quarterback

Justin Herbert (LAC)

The Chargers aired it all the way out against the Broncos and Herbert managed 237 yards and a touchdown on 38 drop backs. The ticker-tape parade will be tremendous.

I’d note here that the Chargers in Week 6 led the NFL in early-down neutral pass rate (70 percent). It’s news that should be splashed across the front page of every newspaper in the country. LA had been 31st in early down neutral pass rate coming into Week 6. Chargers OC Greg Roman, whose primary play calling goal seems to be summoning the ghosts of the Franco Harris-era Steelers, went (relatively) wild against Denver. The Bolts were a little bit above their expected pass rate overall and on first downs.

Weirdly, inexplicably, the Chargers are second in the league with a 66 percent pass rate inside the ten yard line in 2024.

If this shift holds, it would mean quite a bit to Chargers pass catchers. It might even make Herbert fantasy viable. Hark!

Running Back

Tyler Allgeier (ATL)

Please don’t tell Patrick Daugherty that Allgeier, per the analytics, is better than Bijan Robinson. He will cut your mic during a podcast. Trust me on this.

Allgeier in Week 6 against the Panthers had 18 carries for 105 yards and a touchdown. Coming into Week 6, Allgeier had not had more than nine rushing attempts in a game this season. The Falcons, as you may have surmised, reverted to the run-heavy ways of the season’s first month against a terrible Carolina defense.

Atlanta was 8 percent below its expected drop back rate against the Panthers, a big shift from Week 4 (11 percent over) and Week 5 (18 percent over). It appears the Falcons are content to establish it when they can. Seeing about 39 percent of the team’s rushes, Allgeier will be fantasy relevant in these situations.

Predicting when the Falcons will hammer the opposition via the run won’t be easy, but it’s not impossible either. When Atlanta is a heavy favorite (as they were in Week 6) against a poor rush defense (Carolina allows the sixth highest rushing success rate), Allgeier will be in play as a flex in deeper leagues. The Falcons in Week 7 are slight home favorites against a Seattle defense with the NFL’s tenth highest rushing success rate.

It doesn’t exactly hurt Allgeier that Atlanta has the league’s third lowest red zone pass rate (39 percent) this season, and that they are among the league’s run heaviest teams while leading.

Sean Tucker (TB)

Tucker, a favorite of spreadsheet warriors coming out of college, broke into the fantasy football consciousness in Week 6 against the Saints with 192 total yards and two TDs on 17 touches. It was enough for head coach Todd Bowles to suggest the most frightening thing you’ll hear with October: A three-headed backfield monster of Tucker, Rachaad White, and Bucky Irving, in no particular order. I’m scared. I’m quaking.

I’m hardly breaking news in saying Tucker can’t sustain 9.7 yards per carry and 5.2 yards per route run. He ran hotter than the sun against New Orleans, a defense that has collapsed over the past few weeks (the Saints now allow the league’s fourth highest rush EPA). Irving, who has been as efficient this season as White has been inefficient, will continue to figure prominently in the Tampa backfield. In fact, Irving ran far more pass routes (27) than Tucker (11) in Week 6. White would likely take on the primary route running role when he returns to the lineup.

This is not me saying Tucker should remain on waiver wires. He shouldn’t. Predicting his weekly workload is going to be an everlasting headache unless or until we get some clarity about which Bucs running back gets which role in an offense with the eighth most total yards in 2024.

Wide Receiver

Ladd McConkey (LAC)

Back to Greg Roman’s offense, which, as previously mentioned, was relatively pass heavy in Week 6 against Denver. This was a welcomed development for McConkey’s prospects, as the rookie ran a season-high 31 routes and tied his season high of seven targets.

McConkey has proven a fairly reliable target earner in the usually run-first LA offense. He’s seen a target on 27 percent of his routes — a solid rate, to be sure, but one that would probably need to be 30 percent or higher in an offense with so little pass volume to go around. McConkey isn’t quite a PPR scam because his average depth of target bounces around from week to week. Against the Broncos last week, he had a season-high 13.4 aDOT.

If the Chargers continue operating the way they did coming out of their bye week, and if McConkey’s recent aDOT and targets per route run holds steady, he certainly has a path to weekly WR2/3 consideration in 12-team formats. If, however, Roman reverts to his prehistoric offensive ways in Week 7 and beyond, McConkey will be overly reliant on big plays.