Fantasy Football Yardage Risers - Wide Receiver Regression Candidates

May 8, 2023

Robert Lorge identifies which receivers will have more yards in 2023 than they did in 2022. Recognizing these players can help fantasy managers target positive values in their drafts. Who are some such receivers this year?

Fantasy managers, as they start drafting, should always be looking for players who, without anything changing, should experience a little positive regression. Guys who, for lack of a better term, were just a tad bit unlucky the previous season. Oftentimes, the market overcompensates on these scenarios, devaluing these players far more than they should. Luckily, we’ve helped you identify some positive touchdown regression candidates in a previous series.

Here you can find the rest of the series on touchdown regression candidates.

• Positive Touchdown Regression Candidates – WR
• Negative Touchdown Regression Candidates – WR
• Positive Touchdown Regression Candidates – RB
• Negative Touchdown Regression Candidates – RB
• Positive & Negative Touchdown Regression Candidates - TE
• Negative Yardage Regression Candidates – WR

For this installment, we’re going to be focusing on receivers who will have more receiving yards than they had last season. Sometimes the market is able to identify these players and price them appropriately, other times, not so much. We’ll be casting a spotlight on a few obvious candidates because their upside is so high, but also a few other underpriced players who offer great value. Please be sure to use promo code "BOOM" for 10% off of any premium purchase.

Garrett Wilson, New York Jets

Since 2000, there have been 249 receivers who finished a season with 140 or more targets. Garrett Wilson ranks 159th in catch rate. He also ranked 157th in yards per target with 7.5. Pretty disappointing stuff, am I right?

It shouldn’t be all that surprising, however. Since 2000, there have been 732 instances where a quarterback has started at least eight games or more in a season. Of those 732, only 130 have had a passer rating below 75. Zach Wilson was one of them. Wilson’s 72.8 rating ranked 633rd. Bottom 15th-percentile. We are talking historically bad. Coincidentally, the highest quarterback rating of all-time is held by none other than Aaron Rodgers, who is the new starting quarterback of the Jets. Even in a down year, Rodgers still had a 91.1 quarterback rating, significantly better than Wilson. I know there are plenty of "look at what Garrett Wilson did when Zach Wilson wasn't the quarterback stats" out there and they're impressive but consider this... Joe Flacco had a 75.2 quarterback rating, and Mike White was at 75.7. They were only slightly better than Wilson, but all three were garbage.

Garrett Wilson had 83 catches, 1,103 yards, 4 TD and won NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year last season with a QB room that finished last in Total QBR.

The upgrade to Rodgers makes Wilson the clear winner from a fantasy perspective in this trade. Massive upside this season 🛫🛫

— Field Yates (@FieldYates) April 24, 2023

Even if Wilson's target share doesn't improve at all in his second season, which honestly, would be somewhat surprising, we can reasonably expect his catch rate to climb, at the minimum by 5% and it's not out of the question that it increases by 10%, which would bring him to 66.5%.

The quarterback upgrade truly cannot be overstated. The upgrade is massive. It's not out of the question that Wilson's total receiving yardage total increases by over 200 yards. If you're looking for a more in-depth review of what to expect from the new Jets offense and their passing game largely centered around Aaron Rodgers and Garrett Wilson, you can read that here.

Diontae Johnson, Pittsburgh Steelers

Diontae Johnson finished with 147 targets in 2022 and had just 882 yards to show for it. How insanely bad is that? Well, since 2000, there have been 102 receivers to finish a season between 140 and 150 targets. Johnson's 882 yards ranked 101st. His receiving yardage last year was one of the biggest outliers of the past 22 years at the receiver position. In case you were wondering, as I would be if I were reading, the only receiver to finish with fewer yards with a target total between 140 and 150 is Peerless Price with 838 yards.

The narrative around Johnson is that he's nothing but a short-yardage, slot-type receiver, but I don't believe we've seen what Johnson can truly do because of his quarterback play. The late version of Ben Roethlisberger couldn't push the ball downfield and Kenny Pickett has some limitations of his own. Still, last year Johnson had just about a career-worst all the way across the board.

Like Wilson, Johnson endured terrible quarterback play. Out of 33 qualifying quarterbacks, Kenny Pickett finished 32nd in yards per attempt and 32nd in quarterback rating with 76.7. Fantasy managers shouldn't be expecting Pickett to light the world on fire. They shouldn't even be expecting Pickett to be league average, but is it too much to ask to just not be in the conversation for worst in the league? Any kind of quarterback improvement, which is reasonable to expect in Pickett's second season, will go a long way to Johnson improving on his 2022 season.

He had catch rates of 61.1% in 2020, 63.3% in 2021, and just 58.5% this past season. Interestingly, his catchable target rate in 2022 was the highest it's been in the last three seasons. He had an 85.0% catchable target rate according to PlayerProfiler. In 2021, that number was 77.5%, and in 2020 it was 75.0%. That shows that Johnson is a good candidate for some regression in 2023.

He's averaged 153 targets over the past three seasons and has not had a season below 140 since his rookie season. With that kind of volume, he's a great back to return to the century club. Johnson is one of my favorite fantasy football values right now.

Brandin Cooks, Dallas Cowboys

This one might seem like a bit of a cop-out since Brandin Cooks missed four games last season, but even if he hadn't and just maintained his per-game average from last year over the full 17 games, he'd still be an excellent candidate for this article. Eliminating his rookie season, there had been only one season since 2015 that he averaged fewer than 65 yards per game. That was in 2019 when he missed multiple games with concussions and left several other contests early. For the record, he averaged just 53.8 yards per game last year. So, what happened?

To put it plainly, Davis Mills happened. He was passable in 2021, but the wheels completely came off this past season. In Cooks’ right prior seasons, he had six years with a catch rate higher than 65.0%. One of the years he failed to reach this number was his concussion-filled 2019 season. Last year, his catch rate was at 61.3%, slightly over four percentage points lower than his career average.

The difference between Dak Prescott and Mills is considerable as is the difference in the Dallas and Houston passing attack. Dallas had 392 more passing yards and 8 more passing touchdowns in 2022 and that was with Prescott missing five games.

If you look at Dallas, 2021 vs Houston, 2022 the difference becomes almost unbelievable. Now we’re talking about a difference of 1,456 passing yards and 20 (!!!) passing touchdowns. There’s more passing volume in Dallas and the efficiency difference is off the charts.

Don’t be alarmed about Cooks’ being the No. 2 to CeeDee Lamb either. With Dalton Schultz moving onto Houston, the Dallas offense desperately needs a secondary weapon in the passing game and that’ll be Cooks.

The extra attention Lamb will command should help give Cooks plenty of single coverage looks. He’s a great bet to not only finish with more yards in 2023, but his per-game average will certainly climb as well. If you’d like to read a more in-depth outlook about what to expect from Cooks in Dallas, you can find that here.

Chris Olave, New Orleans Saints

Chris Olave missed two games last year and played in another two games where his snap share was below 60%. A full 17-game season is going to result in a lot more than 119 targets and that’s not even factoring in the year-two growth he’ll make as a player. However, arguing a player who will rack up more yards just because they’ll be healthy is, well, sort of weak. Luckily, there are a lot more reasons than the obvious ones I already touched on above.

According to Playerprofiler, Olave had 845 unrealized air yards last year, which was the fifth-most among receivers. Andy Dalton, his 2022 quarterback, had a deep ball completion percentage of just 28.2%. This ranked 30th among qualifying quarterbacks. Pretty, pretty bad, and for someone like Olave, whose average depth of target was 14.0 (ninth-highest among receivers) that left an awful lot of yards on the field.

Based on the numbers above, it shouldn’t be surprising then to find out that only 75.6% of his targets were deemed catchable. This ranked just 53rd among receivers. Don’t get me wrong, Dalton was a serviceable quarterback last year and in a lot of aspects did some good things, but he struggled mightily on throws downfield.

Over Derek Carr’s last five seasons, his deep ball completion percentage is 38.4%. Because of the volatility of these targets, I looked at his last five years to get a better idea of the kind of deep ball thrower he is. Clearly, he’s been much better than Dalton was last year.

It’s not just the efficiency either - although that is a big part - it’s the volume. Over the past five years, Carr has averaged 64 deep ball attempts per season. Dalton was at 39 in 2022.

Assuming Olave stays in a similar role to the one he had in 2022, Carr will be more willing to push the ball downfield, which will increase his targets. He’ll also receive more catchable targets, especially on his deeper targets. Put it all together and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Olave finish with 200-300 more yards in 2023. If you’re looking for a more in-depth read as to what to expect from Carr and Olave this year in New Orleans, you can read that here.

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