Fantasy Football draft prep: Aaron Rodgers tops list of quarterbacks most likely to regress in 2021
These quarterbacks will not repeat what they did in 2020 -- for better or worse
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1 min read
Every year I write this article I struggle to decide how I'm going to describe what I mean by regression. Do I use the words 'positive regression' just to avoid the arguments? Do I explain that regression can mean regressing towards league norms or a player's norms? Thankfully, at quarterback this year, I didn't have to have any of those internal debates. Because the poster boy for 2021 regression has a lengthy career that illustrates it quite well.
Aaron Rodgers is one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time. He's amongst the active leaders in yards per pass attempt, touchdown percentage, passer rating, and just about any other metric you want to use to measure a quarterback's performance. With that being said, his 2020 production is wholly unsustainable.
Rodgers posted a 9.1% touchdown rate last year, the highest of his career and nearly three points higher than his career mark. Some of that certainly could have been aided by the league circumstances, 2020 was a great year for passers, but we have plenty of history with Rodgers and touchdown rate.
Four times in his career, Rodgers has posted a touchdown rate over seven percent. Every following year his rate has fallen by at least 1.2%, twice it has fallen by nearly two percent. To illustrate the flipside of regression, Rodgers has also posted a touchdown rate below 5.5% four times. HIs rate has gone up each following year. The point? When a player posts an outlier season like Rodgers did last year we should expect their production to normalize the following year.
The question is always how much it will matter for Fantasy purposes. For Rodgers, it could be enormous. If he had posted a 6.3% rate last year he would have thrown 15 fewer touchdowns. That's 90 Fantasy points in a standard CBS league. That would have dropped him to 24.3 Fantasy points per game, or QB10 right between Ryan Tannehill and Kirk Cousins.
Of course there's no guarantee exactly how Rodgers' rate will look. In two of his past three seasons it has been below five percent. But unless he throws a lot more passes or has another historically anomalous seasons, you shouldn't draft Rodgers as a top-five quarterback.
Here are seven more regression candidates at quarterback for 2021:
Regression Candidates
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The optimist in me wants to point to Kyler Murray's career 4.2% touchdown rate and say that he'll regression in that way, producing more passing touchdowns for Fantasy managers. After all, he improved from 3.7% to 4.7% last year and young quarterbacks often have low rates. But the realist knows Murray will have to improve in that regard because his rushing touchdowns are almost certain to regress from last year's 11. Murray nearly doubled his rushing TD rate in 2020 and scored four more touchdowns on the ground than Lamar Jackson ever has in a single season. Add in that Murray is talking about running less and there's serious bust potential if he doesn't improve as a passer.
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Like Murray, you don't expect Herbert to score once every 11 rushes, like he did last year. But the bigger area for concern has to do with the Chargers play volume. They ran 70 plays per game in 2020, more than 10% of the league norm. With an entirely new coaching staff coming in there really no reason to expect they'll come close to that. If he loses half of those rushing touchdowns and 10% of his total production, Herbert will be more of a low-end No. 1 quarterback than a true difference maker at the position.
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This gets kind of old because Kirk Cousins often finds ways to produce as a borderline No. 1 quarterback and just as often we find reasons he won't repeat it. Last year he did it with a 6.8% touchdown rate and 8.5 yards per attempt. His career averages in those metrics are 5.2% and 7.7 yards per attempt. The problem is that the Vikings want to be a very run-heavy team, so Cousins must have that type of efficiency to be a Fantasy starter. With the regression that's coming, Cousins is best left for leagues where you can start two quarterbacks.
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Wentz is a good example of where regression doesn't always have to do with good or bad luck the year before. He played very poorly behind an awful offensive line with extremely limited weapons. In 2021 we don't know for sure how he'll play but we have good reason to believe his line will be amongst the best in the league and his receivers are at least competent. That gives me hope Wentz will regress back towards his career norms, maybe even towards the numbers he put up the last time he was with Frank Reich. While I don't want to draft him as a starter, I will be watching close early in the season and ready to add him off the waiver wire.
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There are two directions you can go with Roethlisberger. Either you believe he's old, "cooked", and done as a Fantasy starter, or you expect him to bounce back, or regress, from last year's 6.3 yards per attempt. It could very well be that he just wasn't fully healthy last year, but he is now. Whatever the reason, we've seen both Rodgers and Tom Brady struggle late in their career only to bounce back and perform like an MVP again. If Roethlisberger is healthy and has anything left in the tank, he could do the same. His 2020 volume at his career efficiency would have produced 4,600 yards through the air.
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Cam Newton is both one of the most likely regression candidates and one of the most difficult quarterbacks to forecast. For now, let's forget about Mac Jones and just focus on Newton. His 2.2% passing touchdown rate was half of his career average and a full point and a half lower than any other season in his career. His 8.7% rushing touchdown rate was well above his career average, but had he been his old self in both regards it would have resulted in five more total touchdowns over the course of the season. Considering the additions the Patriots made to the passing game, there is significant potential for Newton, assuming he can hold onto his job of course.
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Like Cam Newton, I would expect Daniel Jones to have massive passing touchdown regression. He had a 5.2% rate as a rookie and that cratered to 2.5% last year. The addition of Kenny Golladay and the return of Saquon Barkley should only help. He's also only scored three rushing touchdowns on 110 career attempts, so I think it's possible he has a career year in that regard as well. But it's the other things, the turnovers and the poor passing yards, that will have to improve for Jones' regression to matter in a one quarterback league.
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