Dynasty Target and Regression Trends: Week Four

Do players get on the field a lot and then earn targets, or vice versa?

I try to keep this series short and sharp, and sometimes sweet, so while I’d love to pontificate or investigate this question, I can’t here and now. Here’s the quick version: yes, both, all of it. Context is just another way of saying that any trend can be good or bad, it depends on the result, and we spin narratives to try and make us faithful enough to chase one side or the other.

So, let’s get to it, shall we? Here’s my walk through the deeper nooks and crannies of dynasty data and my main observations in NFL usage and regression from the first four weeks.

You can find my tables for each team in my free weekly database here.

ARI: Michael Wilson Arrives

A lot will be made of his routes this week, or his targets maybe. However, my eye is on the spread of the offense. Wilson had 17% of the targets this week, but the team passed 41 times. Also, his red zone presence is potentially weak, having had 0, 0, 0, and 2 red zone targets by week in 2023.

Simply put, Wilson has arrived as someone we need to acknowledge in fantasy football. We’ve consistently noted his ability to earn routes, his Yards Per Route Run numbers are solid on those routes, and in week four he finally earned targets efficiently, 20% TPRR, with two coming inside the red zone.

But is his top-12 finish sustainable? No. His volume is top 36 at the position, adjusting for red zone work, and he can’t catch a touchdown every time. Rondale Moore still out-routes him, as does Marquise Brown.

ATL: This is where “Kyle Pitts is more a wide receiver” gets complicated

The average aDot of a top 12 TE in fantasy football has been 7.8 since 2015. Jonnu Smith‘s aDot is 7.1 this season while Kyle Pitts has an aDot of 11.8. Drake London leads the team with over 20% of the overall routes, but Smith’s lower aDot makes for a slightly higher slot rate and, as such, reception percentage.

Combined with twice the red zone presence (Pitts, 7%, Smith 14% of touches inside the 20-yard line) and Desmond Ridder at the helm, this all results in some difficult start-sit decisions.

I still don’t see any long-term value in Smith in dynasty, but right now, in this manifestation of the offense, his role is built to be more consistent with a quarterback whose season-high in PACR (rate of converting air yards into receiving yards) is 54%, while the league average is 77%.

BAL: Zay Flowers the new Marquise Brown?

Remember when Brown was a promising young player on a rushing offense that had Mark Andrews? We’re back baby, with rookie Flowers.

The league average in passing attempts is 34.5. The Ravens have yet to hit that number in a single week in 2023. Flowers hasn’t dipped below 15% of the team’s targets or 19% of the team’s routes.

Side Note: Justice Hill came back after limited practices this week, he was efficient. He could return to the usage we saw earlier in the season and that’s something to keep in mind.

BUF: Dalton Kincaid continues to arrive like a very slow bus to somewhere, probably… just fine

Dawson Knox had his season-low target share, 4%, and season-low snap share, 7%, while Kincaid hit a season-high 20% of targets.

This is nice. But it’s also the third game in a row the teams put up over 30 points and Kincaid hasn’t seen a red zone target since week two.

CAR: Bryce Young is still a top-three rookie QB

You probably already know that, but we are driven to chase production and despite Young returning in week four with his season-high PACR and completion percentage, his 7.2 fantasy points weren’t exactly rewarding.

Earlier is better, but better players don’t always produce earlier.

CIN: Sit Joe Burrow

The Bengals wide receivers have averaged an aDot below 7.6 for the last three games, a mark hit only three times in the past two years with Burrow at the helm.

True, Tee Higgins went out last week in the second quarter and Tyler Boyd’s snap share increased, but I don’t think that’s it.

I can’t find anything that stands out with significance. It’s just been bad, and it’s not the matchups. Narratives and guesses are what we have left.

To be clear, I don’t imagine this last forever, but for whatever reason, Burrow isn’t playing well right now.

Boyd didn’t increase in route percentage but was able to earn more targets while Higgins was out, which is what we should expect moving forward.

CLE: No one has upside with Dorian Thompson-Robinson

With Deshaun Watson deciding to sit out for the week, the only player with an aDot over 8 was Donovan Peoples-Jones (with four targets). Elijah Moore had 20 receiving yards and -20 rushing yards.

This benefited David Njoku at the tight end position (despite suffering burns in an accident at home), and I’d sell it for all it’s worth in dynasty.

DAL: Jake Ferguson – exciting unsustainable production

Maybe you can get excited about Jake Ferguson. His touchdown production is stable (157 yards per touchdown) and he should score more having scored about two fewer touchdowns than you’d expect on his red zone touches.

Ferguson has run 14, 19, 29, and 26 routes over the first four weeks. He has finished in the top 12 each of the last three weeks and scored one touchdown on 16% of the team’s red zone touches (a distant second to Tony Pollard).

He probably can’t sustain a 1.67 YRR on a 4.4 aDot nor a TPRR of 30%, but he is a growing and potent part of this offense.

DEN: Jaleel McLaughlin should be rostered, but so should Samaje Perine

Javonte Williams, after two carries and three targets (and it’s so tempting to think the beginning of that upside we were hoping for!) left the game in week four. We have no information as to the extent of the injury or likely time missed right now.

McLaughlin paid off on a lot of late off-season waiver wire moves if you were paying attention to DLF ranks and ADP. But 72 yards on seven carries is very misleading since Samaje Perine had six carries himself.

Perine even had two targets to McLaughlin’s three, though he did have two of those inside the 20-yard line and Perine’s targets were consigned to the rest of the field (but he did get two carries inside the red zone).

DET: Jahmyr Gibbs is who we thought he was

The Detroit Lions passed 28 times in week four, and rushed the ball 43 times, meaning they passed the ball 39% of the time (league average weekly is 56% in 2023).

I think having Alvin Kamara as the top 1% outcome for Jahmyr Gibbs was the right idea, but maybe, especially given his dynamic play in week one, some are now disappointed it’s not here yet.

It’s important to remember that in Kamara’s rookie year, Mark Ingram led the Saints in rushing attempts, and as a player who has more target share than rushing share, David Montgomery’s presence should be limiting his role.

Gibbs is fine, he has an impressive overall share of the offense for a running back and is, indeed, more target share than rushing share.

1% outcomes are hard to hit, but right now he’s a safe bet to land inside his range of outcomes, which is a good young running back who gets targets.

GB: Christian Watson returns, now we wait

Watson returned to the field with 10% of the team’s routes and earned a target 20% of the time (TRR). He only ran out of the slot 22% of the time and had an aDot of 10.3.

Now we wait to see how the balance of this receiving corps reacts as he works to his full role.

In the meantime, Romeo Doubs had 38% of the team’s targets in week four and still leads, by a small margin, in the percentage of the team’s overall routes, 18.4%, over Jayden Reed, 15.6%.

Last year during weeks 15-17 – the only time both Doubs and Watson really played together – Watson led in route percentage. But Doubs was only just working back from his injury at the time, and Reed wasn’t there yet.

Side Note: Luke Musgrave suffered a concussion this week. Jordan Love continues to regress after his high touchdown rate early in the season and the team has yet to complete passes at a league-average rate in 2023.

HOU: Tank Dell has the volume, Nico Collins the air yards

It was easy to write off Collins’ week three dip to a matchup and consider week four a return to the norm. I did warn against confirmation bias last week after all. But Tank Dell once again improved in route percentage (20%) and Collins (18%) caught two touchdowns, one of them on his lone red zone target.

The thing about chasing volume is, that it makes it more likely that the down weeks are temporary, and the good weeks are more common.

Collins is having an excellent year, to his credit. But a volume of air yards is weaker than a volume of opportunities.

The best dynasty signal remains to really like CJ Stroud.

IND: Anthony Richardson was inaccurate last week

It is not the main concern of many, but it’s my only question about the player. He had 32% of the team’s rushing attempts and finished as the QB4 on the week, he scored a rushing touchdown and had 56 rushing yards. Cool.

He also only completed 44% of his passes and 64% of his air yards and this was the first game his wide receivers averaged aDots over 6.

I’m not condemning the rookie, I’m just keeping my eyes on the prize. This is the main difference between the Justin Fields value arc and the Lamar Jackson one (who has never had a completion percentage as low as 44% in the NFL, by the way).

JAC: Trevor Lawrence continues to prefer Christian Kirk

It would be easy to fall back into my priors with Team Old Guy having Calvin Ridley put up over 50 receiving yards or a touchdown, but he had a dead-even split with Christian Kirk last week (22% of team routes), and while he has the lower aDot (7.2 vs Ridley’s 11).

Ridley had two targets last week, 6.7%, and Kirk had 12, 40%, (and 92% of the air yards). I know that’s the matchup and Kirk’s targets are lower value, but those numbers do seem to be leaning one very specific way.

Ridley is a decent buy low for a contender but builders should consider shopping him.

KC: Justin Watson has increased in route % in 2023

Rashee Rice is still the only Kansas City wide receiver I’m interested in. But check out Watson’s route percentage by week:

• Week 1: 7.4%
• Week 2: 12.4%
• Week 3: 11.3%
• Week 4: 14.6%

Rice has had over 10% both in the last two weeks, and both are higher aDot players. The Kansas City passing game remains Travis Kelce and then a broad split, in general, however.

LAR: Kyren Williams is RB6 this season in Weighted Opportunity

Sure, Puka Nacua is the big dynasty conversation right now, but some teams in dynasty are just trying to win games.

The loss of Cam Akers agrees with Williams, while his target percentage was down last week, and his yards per touchdown is unsustainable, he also hasn’t been below 63% of the team’s rushing attempts since week two (or below ten total rushing attempts) and his red zone presence in both targets and rushing attempt is immense (80% of total touches inside the 20).

There are only two other players with this kind of red zone opportunity and neither of them can be had for anything as low as Williams in most dynasty leagues.

MIA: Durham Smythe bounced back

I noted all the interesting items already last week, but Smythe did bounce back with 11% of the targets and 14.9% of the team’s routes in week four.

I just wanted to mention it as we’re learning about young players and their relationship to on-field opportunities whenever we can.

MIN: Jordan Addison still had 17% of the team’s routes

Just in case you too are worried I jinxed him last week, it’s going to be fine.

Cam Akers took on 11% of the target share in his debut on the team, and 21% of the team’s rushing attempts. Alexander Mattison is still a dominant half of the split, but it did drop his weighted opportunity to its season low (13.4) which is outside the top 24 on average. It is something to keep an eye on.

NE: Mac Jones is aggressively mediocre, and last week he was aggressively terrible

Jones has only completed 51% and then 57% of his passing attempts in the last two weeks and last week’s performances would be tough if your coach didn’t have a habit of regularly dog-housing players.

But the schedule does seem to ease up a little – in terms of points allowed by defenses this season – over the next few weeks.

NO: Alvin Kamara immediately a top-ten RB in weighted opportunity

Eleven rushing attempts, 14 targets. Good night to the other running backs on the roster to be honest.

NYJ: Breece Hall ran 17 routes this week

Up from 11 in week three and nine in week two, and so on. His snap percentage stabilized, and his rushing attempts receded (just a little). The net effect, for me, is that this is just one more week I could potentially add him on more dynasty rosters before the workload comes back.

TB: Chris Godwin and Rachaad White are due TD regression, still

Both have a high workload in the red zone, but not many touchdowns to show for it.

Rachaad White’s weighted opportunity is top 12 right now, if he could find the end zone at just a league-average rate he’d even be exciting. Right now, he’s RB27 in PPG and if there was any healthy competition in that backfield it’d be a good idea to pick them up just in case he doesn’t start producing on those touches.

But never roster Ke’Shawn Vaughn.

TEN: Josh Whyle sighting!

He had a seven percent target share (two targets) and 3.6% of routes. No one cares except me and maybe a few other degenerate rookie tight end profilers, but I’m telling everyone anyway.

He caught a touchdown as well. I honestly have an interest in stashing him on deep rosters, and I’ll take the positive while I can.

A fifth-round pick from Cincinnati, he’s 6’6” tall and weighs 245 lbs. He had interesting yards after catch numbers but played for four years in college with only 88 receptions to show for it.

Well, that’s about all I have for you right now. But let me know what you think and feel free to look through my data to make your observations.

Until next week, good luck, and have fun.