The goal of this regression-centric space is to tell fantasy football folks which of their borderline fantasy options are running particularly hot or particularly cold, to use a little technical language.
Every week during the regular season I’ll highlight players whose usage and opportunity doesn’t quite match their production. That might look like a running back scoring touchdowns at an unsustainable clip or a pass catcher putting up big stat lines while working as a rotational player in his offense. It could also look like a pass catcher seeing gobs of air yards and targets without much to show for it. Things of that nature.
👉 Some stats I’ll focus on weekly in the Regression Files: Rush yards over expected, targets per route, air yards, air yards per target, red zone targets, green zone targets, quarterback touchdown rate, and expected touchdowns. A lot of this regression stuff, as you probably know, comes down to touchdowns — specifically, predicting touchdowns (or lack thereof).
I’ll (mostly) ignore every-week fantasy options who you’re going to play whether they’re running hot or cold, or somewhere in between. My goal is to make this column as actionable as possible for all fantasy formats. Telling you to keep playing Jahmyr Gibbs during a cold streak doesn’t strike me as particularly actionable.
It’s once again to take a look at one of my favorite predictive metrics, targets per route run (TPRR), to find wide receivers who are quietly commanding targets in their respective offenses and could be more than a little useful if their roles are to grow in the season’s second half. Identifying wideouts with higher TPRRs can point us toward worthwhile bench stashes at worst, and potential weekly fantasy starters at best.
Below are some wideouts with surprisingly high rates of targets per route since Week 5.
Keenan Allen (LAC)
TPRR since Week 5: 30%
It’s a lot less fun to roster and play Allen today than it was about six weeks ago. The aged slot man has six catches for 85 scoreless yards over his past two games, and only one truly Big Game since Week 3. Allen is being targeted at a high rate though — on 30 percent of his routes over the past month, in fact. His route rate is down to 63 percent over that stretch, however. But wait, there’s more! Allen’s first-read target rate is in line with Ladd McConkey’s since Week 5. The underlying stuff for Allen is not nearly as bad as his one-field production has been. Allen still has some appeal in a Chargers offense with the league’s third highest pass rate over expected this season. More injuries to the LA offensive line could mean more quick drop backs and short-area throws for Justin Herbert. That’s Allen’s music.
Rashid Shaheed (SEA)
TPRR since Week 5: 28%
I was going to write up Shaheed before he was dealt to Seattle on Tuesday. I decided to stick with him here because he’s been a fairly consistent target commander over the past couple seasons considering he has mostly operated as a downfield specialist. He now joins a Seahawks offense among the three run heaviest on the season, but quarterbacked by the NFL’s best deep ball passer. Sam Darnold leads the league in both downfield accuracy and adjusted yards per attempt. I’m not discounting this as strictly a JSN stat. Only 12 guys have more air yards this season than Shaheed, who — I think — will have weekly blow-up potential in the hyper-efficient Seahawks offense. It won’t hurt that he’s already familiar with Klint Kubiak’s offense after playing under Kubiak in New Orleans last season.
Demario Douglas (NE)
TPRR since Week 5: 28%
That Douglas has a route participation rate south of 35 percent over the past five games makes me a lot less excited than I would be if he was even running half the routes in the New England offense. His team-leading TPRR and an aDOT of almost 14 means he can still hit for big numbers thanks to Drake Maye’s willingness to push the ball downfield (Douglas had 100 yards and a touchdown on four catches in Week 9 against the Falcons). This is just a note that an increased role for Douglas could be (somewhat) fun for fantasy if he’s able to keep up his target-commanding ways. Kayshon Boutte, Rotoworld readers know, suffered a hamstring injury in Week 9. Kyle Williams and Mack Hollins — not Douglas — saw a route bump, though it was Douglas who had a team-high 46 percent TPRR. You never know.
Khalil Shakir (BUF)
TPRR since Week 5: 32%
The good news: Shakir is seeing a target from Josh Allen on every third pass route. The less-than-good news: He’s only running 70 percent of the team’s routes and his average depth of target is a scammy 3.8. His aDOT has somehow dropped to 2.5 over the Bills’ past four games. It’s the sort of profile that leads to outings like Shakir’s Week 7, when he caught seven of eight targets for 43 boring yards against KC. But I suppose it’s good that Shakir is getting looks at a high rate. It would be cooler if the Bills were not bottom-six in pass rate over expected and bottom-ten in early down neutral pass rate.
Alec Pierce (IND)
TPRR since Week 5: 23%
Pierce’s per-route target rate is notable only because he’s so thoroughly dominating air yards in the Colts offense. He’s taken in 51 percent of the team’s air yards over their past five games, in fact, and those unconverted, empty air yards of the early part of the season are quickly turning into edible yards with which you can feed your family. Any guy with averaging 20 air yards per target is going to be inherently high variance for fantasy purposes, but Pierce is seeing enough looks from Daniel Jones — in a Colts offense that can be forced into pass-heavy scripts — that he should be in 12-team league lineups every single week. A mere 12 wideouts have more receiving yards since Week 5 than Pierce. That’s something. It’s certainly not nothing.
📈 Positive Regression Candidates
Troy Franklin (DEN)
The face of the Regression Files is back at it again, going ice cold after running red hot. So it goes for high-variance air yards eaters like Franklin.
Going into Week 10, only four receivers — really good receivers, elite receivers — have more air yards than Franklin, who has commanded 35 percent of the Broncos’ air yards and leads the team in targets somehow. It’s a potentially productive role for Franklin, being the guy seeing constant downfield shots in an offense with the second most total team air yards per game since Week 5.
Franklin turned ten Week 9 targets into a grand whopping total of 27 yards. What the media doesn’t want you to know: Franklin led all pass catchers with 202 air yards last week against Houston. He also happened to be targeted on 26 percent of his pass routes.
On Thursday Franklin faces a Vegas defense that has been, at best, middling against the deep ball. Whatever Franklin is, he’s definitely an elite air yards commander. That counts for something. He’ll be a positive regression candidate until he’s not.
Travis Etienne (JAC)
Etienne was awfully close to having a not-so-depressing fantasy outing last week against the Raiders. He finished 11 points below his expected fantasy output because, well, he stinks near the goal line.
After being stuffed thrice inside the five yard line in Week 9, Etienne is 0-for-6 on inside-the-five rushes. He’s turned 10 inside-the-ten attempts into one touchdown. Byhashul Tuten, meanwhile, has two touchdowns on his three inside-the-five tries. The Jaguars should look powerfully into using Tuten as more than just a battering ram near the end zone.
Etienne doesn’t necessarily have to be uber efficient to see some (good) regression come his way in Week 10 and beyond. Jacksonville’s offense, missing Travis Hunter (knee, IR) and Brian Thomas (ankle), is coming off its run heaviest game of the 2025 season. They had the league’s sixth lowest neutral pass rate on early downs after being top-eight going into Week 9. The Jags were 6 percent below their expected pass rate against the Raiders last Sunday; before that, they were 6 percent over. A lean toward the run game should fuel volume for Etienne (and Tuten, to an extent).
Michael Mayer (LV)
Am I entirely comfortable with a team’s No. 2 tight end in the positive regression part of this column? I am not.
But if I’m ever going to tout a TE2 as the good kind of regression candidate, it’s now. Mayer in Week 9 against the Jaguars ran a route on nearly 70 percent of the Raiders’ drop backs as OC Chip Kelly went heavy on two tight end sets. Mayer was second on the team — behind fellow Raiders TE Brock Bowers, a man possessed — in targets, seeing a look from Geno Smith on 23 percent of his routes.
The Raiders, as I mentioned on Tuesday’s Rotoworld Football Show, had by far their pass-heaviest showing of 2025 in Week 9. They were 16 percent above their expected pass rate, the highest in the league last week. Mayer’s meager Week 9 box score — three catches, 26 yards — belies a potentially larger role in an offense that could pass more with Bowers back in the lineup and taking no prisoners.
📉 Negative Regression Candidates
Dalton Kincaid (BUF)
Kincaid has tormented me since I looked into his target profile way back in February and found he is quite elite when it comes to commanding looks from Josh Allen. But even a target commander can run hot enough to summon the Regression Reaper.
Kincaid all the way down inside the 10!
— NFL (@NFL) November 2, 2025
KCvsBUF on CBS/Paramount+https://t.co/HkKw7uXVnt pic.twitter.com/8ypXOeu7wY
Kincaid in Week 9 against the Chiefs caught all six of his targets for 101 yards. He was targeted on an astoundingly high 43 percent of his routes against KC. He averaged six yards per route. We like all that. We like it a lot. We also like our tight ends to run a good number of routes, which, as usual, Kincaid did not in Week 9. He logged a route on just 45 percent of the Bills’ drop backs, in fact. That’s not far off from Kincaid’s season-long route rate of 51 percent.
It’s always going to be tough to get there for fantasy purposes when you’re running only half the routes on a weekly basis. When things go slightly awry -- maybe game script doesn’t break in your favor -- you’re left with precious little in the way of opportunity and production. It is my legal obligation to tell you to be careful with how you deploy Kincaid in Week 10 and beyond. You should also know that Brock Bowers is the only tight end in the NFL with a higher rate of per-route targets in 2025.
DJ Moore (CHI)
Moore in the Bears’ heaven-sent shootout with the hapless Bengals racked up 23 PPR points while catching four balls for 72 scoreless yards. Moore was targeted on 16 percent of his routes. His Week 9 yards per route run was outside the top-30 among wideouts.
How could this come to pass, you may wonder if you didn’t grind the Bears-Bengals film. Moore got away with it by throwing a touchdown to Caleb Williams and scoring on a short rushing attempt in a game filled with Ben Johnson trick plays. Moore’s target profile still stinks: His 17 percent TPRR ranks 78th among receivers this season. He’s just not a priority in Chicago’s offense.
Moore is still playable in 12-team leagues, I suppose. Be aware that nothing really changed for him in Week 9 despite the juicy fantasy output.
