So Much for Regression: 2019 Breakouts Continued

September 23, 2020

Justin Carter examines breakout players from last fantasy football season who are off to hot starts and may not show regression in 2020 as expected.

Sometimes, players do things that seem unsustainable, and before the next season, the analysis community universally goes "yeah, they're regressing."

But what happens when those players just... don't regress?

Through two games, we're seeing some examples of players who are sustaining things we didn't think were sustainable. Let's look at some of those things.

Lamar Jackson's Touchdown Rate

Lamar Jackson threw touchdowns on nine percent of his passes last season.

That tied him for the second-highest single-season mark of this century, behind 2004 Peyton Manning's 9.9 percent and tied with Aaron Rodgers. Sustaining a touchdown rate that high is incredibly difficult. There's only been 140 seasons in the entire history of this league where a player's rate was even seven percent.

So, through two games, 2020 Lamar Jackson is at 8.2 percent, which is still really, really good.

Sure, he only ranks tied for fourth through two games, but he's still throwing touchdowns on a very high percentage of his passes.

Why? Because of the way the Ravens play. Jackson's such a huge threat with his legs, which warps a lot of things for the defense and leads to more chances for scoring throws. He's also got a really good red zone threat in tight end Mark Andrews, which helps.

Jackson can be selective on what throws he takes, which should mean that he's able to keep sustaining this touchdown rate.

Ryan Tannehill!

Let's just do a quick rundown of where Ryan Tannehill ranked in some things last year:

• first in passer rating
• first in adjusted yards per pass attempt
• first in adjusted net yards per pass attempt
• third in completion percentage
• second in touchdown percentage

Let's see where he currently ranks in those same things this year:

• fourth in passer rating
• seventh in adjusted yards per pass attempt
• sixth in adjusted net yards per pass attempt
• ninth in completion percentage
• third in touchdown percentage

Technically, his rank in each of those categories is worse than it was last year. But Tannehill is still maintaining a high level of play, and if the narrative around him this offseason was that he was bound to regress in an offense that lacked a lot of weapons, it looks like that...might be wrong.

And like with Jackson, two things have helped Tannehill a lot this year. First, his team's run game. Sure, Tannehill isn't as involved as a scramber as Jackson, but he has an elite running back in Derrick Henry to take pressure off of him, and he also has a really good tight end receiving threat. Maybe the secret to quarterback efficiency is to have a tight end who can do this:

Mismatches: they can really help your quarterback's numbers!

Everything About Aaron Jones

Aaron Jones tied Derrick Henry for the rushing touchdown lead and Christian McCaffrey for the overall touchdown lead in 2019 despite not finishing in the top 10 in rushing yards.

His 11 touchdowns on carries inside the 10 was tied for the league lead, but he has just 19 carries inside the 10, while the other three players tied had at least 29 each.

That means Jones scored a touchdown on 57.9 percent of his carries inside the 10. [eye emojis]

He's only scored on 25 percent of his carries inside the 10 this year, but he has gotten 80 percent of Green Bay's work inside the 10-yard-line, so that percentage of touchdowns should rise. He's still getting the type of work that led to his big 2019 campaign, and he's tied for fifth in the NFL in first down runs. His 6.9 yards per attempt are tied for second and he's averaging 117 yards per game.

Jones is actually a very good running back. 2019 was not a fluke.

Diontae Johnson's Target Share

With a healthy and very good JuJu Smith-Schuster back, it seemed that Diontae Johnson would see his workload on this Steelers offense drop off.

In 2019, Johnson and Smith-Schuster both took 573 offensive snaps, and Johnson led the team with a 19.09 target percentage, with Smith-Schuster at 14.52 percent. He also had a higher air yards percentage than Smith-Schuster, though both trailed James Washington in that number.

The numbers essentially said Johnson was the No. 1 receiver in Pittsburgh last year.

This season, Johnson's role is growing. He's been outsnapped by Smith-Schuster 114-109, but has gotten a 31.94 target share, with Smith-Schuster trailing at 19.44 percent. He's also jumped to the lead in air yards:

I know everyone loves Smith-Schuster. I also love Smith-Schuster. But Diontae Johnson is currently being used like a No. 1 receiver for the Steelers, which is also how he was used last year. That trend from last season is fully playing out now that the Steelers have Ben Roethlisberger back on the football field.

Mike Gesicki's Air Yards

In 2019, Dolphins tight end Mike Gesicki finished fourth among tight ends in air yards in a pass-happy Miami offense. He had 16.14 percent of the team's air yards and an aDOT of 9.9.

This year, Gesicki is currently leading all tight ends in air yards and has 31.1 percent of the Dolphins air yards. His aDOT is 11.

Gesicki's career got off to a slow start, but last year there were signs that the former second-round pick was on his way to being a top-tier tight end due to his down-field usage.

And in 2020, that's proving to be true.

In Week 2, Gesicki set the Dolphins team record for receiving yards in a game by a tight end with 130. He continues to be a threat in the deep passing game and is getting a lot of opportunities to pile up yardage because of his air yards.

If you thought that Gesicki's performance last season wasn't indicative of who he'd be in 2020, it's looking like you miscalculated something, as he continues to play an expanded version of his 2019 role.

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