Is This Real? is a weekly article focused on whether player performance is real and sustainable or should be expected to change going forward.  Through the use of stats and analytics, the article will help decipher difficult situations around the league.

Justin Jefferson’s Recent Downturn

Justin Jefferson has been relatively disappointing in the past four weeks.  Between weeks 9 and 12, Jefferson has only 12.3 points per game. 

His expectation is 14.6 points per game.  His 20 receptions have outproduced his expected receptions (18.3), while his yards (293) also outproduced his expected receiving yards (242.3). 

Jefferson has experienced two problems.  First, Jefferson has 0 touchdowns with an expectation of 2.7.  This indicates some bad variance from which a player with Jefferson’s history of production should rebound. 

Second, Jefferson’s target volume is down.  Over the past four weeks, Jefferson has 7.5 targets per game.  Jefferson’s target rate has fallen to 19% after maintaining a target rate of 29%, which aligns with his career numbers.  This has come at a time when Minnesota has fallen from 2% over dropback expectation in the first eight weeks to 3% under dropback expectation in the last four weeks. 

Verdict: These factors have combined to create a steep, but what should be a temporary, downturn in Jefferson’s production.  Jefferson should be able to rebound in his volume and return to high-level fantasy production during the fantasy football playoffs. 

 Anthony Richardson's Rebound

Anthony Richardson has seen a big jump in production since he has returned to the lineup after being benched.  Richardson came into this season with high expectations.  Fantasy managers expected a “Konami Code” high rushing output when drafting him with a top 8 ADP in the offseason. 

That was never realistic.  Richardson had 84 attempts as a rookie after 393 attempts in college.  Expecting a quarterback with only 477 attempts after high school to produce elite results is always a mistake.  Richardson should be a reminder of that for future offseasons.   

Given the slow start, Richardson has been better since he returned.  In two games back, Richardson has averaged 21.5 points per game, which ranks fourth among quarterbacks since week 10. 

During that span, Richardson averaged 7.7 yards per attempt passing, and his overall performance improved.  For example, in the past month, he has been the top quarterback in PFF grade among first and second-year quarterbacks.  This grade measures the quality of the quarterback's play which can vary from his statistical production.

For example, people will frequently cite Richardson’s low completion percentage as a reason for his poor quarterback play.  There is some signal in this as a measure of accuracy, but it misses key context.  For example, the stat does not account for drops, where Richardson leads the quarterback position for the season (11.8%). 

The completion percentage also does not account for the average depth of the quarterback’s passing attempt (aDOT). Naturally, longer passes have a lower completion percentage because they are more difficult to complete. 

On the season, Richardson has been the worst adjusted completion percentage, at 61.1%, but has done so with a season-high aDOT (12.9).  Richardson has been better in the past two starts with a 73.5 adjusted completion percentage while maintaining a high aDOT of 11.7.  While a small sample size, this is an encouraging sign for Richardson, who has a small career sample size.

Richardson is also elite at sack avoidance.  On dropbacks where Richardson is pressured, he has been sacked 13.4% of the time, which ranks sixth-best in the league.   This is very much in line with Richardson’s college profile, and is one of the few traits of a quarterback that correlates from college to the NFL. 

Verdict: It is difficult to say what the expectation for Richardson is after he was benched.  Likewise, it is difficult to know how the Colts view Richardson.  The most reasonable strategy would have been to play Richarson early in his career by relying on his rushing ability and sack avoidance, while understanding his passing ability creates big plays but inconsistently.  This is a workable strategy for the Colts to remain competitive in the AFC as Richardson develops as a thrower and is the formula for QB1-type production for the rest of the fantasy season.