The Biggest Regression Candidates For 2025: Running Backs

From a data-based standpoint, who are the players that could experience the biggest setback in their fantasy production this year?

Jun 14, 2025

One of my most favorite exercises every single offseason is to parse through the data and identify the players that outperformed expectations the previous year.

Betting on outliers season after season is never the way to win your fantasy football league, so before you head into your drafts in 2025, let’s talk about the running backs that could come back down to earth.

What is Regression in Fantasy Football?

The easiest way that I’ve come to identify regression candidates is based on their touchdown production. If we know a role that a RB has in a NFL offense, rush attempts and yardage is actually fairly easy to project.

However, touchdowns fluctuate wildly year after year for some players and we can see their fantasy football value be dramatically overpriced based on what they did the previous season. Even when the data tells us that what they did was not the most likely outcome.

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Projections are all about trying to determine what the most likely outcome will be for a player heading into the season. That doesn’t mean that some players won’t reach the unlikely outcome or the 10% probability occurrence…but exercises like these help us to take an objective look at fantasy football production.

How I reach these conclusions for regression candidates is based on a simple formula.

At the RB position, I add the yardage for every single player at the position in the league last season. Additionally, I add the total touchdowns for the same qualifiers.

And then I divide the two.

This gives me the Touchdown Rate for all RBs in 2024. Another way of explaining it is saying - on average - a RB scored a touchdown every x yards.

For 2024, that number was 134.85.

This gives us an average now to work off of to determine the individuals who exceeded expectations…and whether or not we should buy into that performance repeating in 2025.

Running Back Regression Candidates

Jahmyr Gibbs, Detroit Lions

Jahmyr Gibbs is one of the most exciting players to watch in the NFL. I’ve been able to watch him live in person when I worked in the press box for the Detroit Lions’ home playoff games two years ago and he quite simply moves at a different speed than anyone else on the field.

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Looking at the data, based on his 1,412 rushing yards in 2024, the explosive RB was expected to have 10 rushing touchdowns. He finished with 16!

The high-powered Lions offense, with their ridiculous red zone trip rate, certainly played a part in Gibbs over-performing expectations. Additionally, the fact that Gibbs can break off a touchdown run from anywhere on the field also certainly was a factor.

Heading into 2025, will Gibbs and the Lions offense take a step back without Ben Johnson calling plays? Does that make Gibbs a bit of a risky pick at his current ADP?

Josh Jacobs, Green Bay Packers

As Josh Jacobs left Las Vegas to head to Green Bay, the optimism that he would return to top-tier production for fantasy wasn’t exactly all that high.

However, Jacobs ended up being an incredibly solid value last season as he ended the year as a top-five RB for fantasy football and put up an impressive 15 rushing touchdowns.

Based on his yardage though - 1,329 rushing yards - Jacobs was expected to only have 10.

This can be explained though by the fact that Jacobs finished the season with the fourth-most rush attempts inside the red zone last year and actually tied for the most attempts inside the five-yard line with 19!

While regression shows that it’s likely coming for Jacobs, if he’s going to get that level of opportunity inside the key scoring areas for a high-powered offense, he’s still a screaming value at his current ADP as RB9 off the board.

Kyren Williams, Los Angeles Rams

We’ve been talking about regression likely coming for Kyren Williams for several years now, but all he does is continue to produce at an insanely high level and score touchdown after touchdown.

Over the last two years as the starter for the Los Angeles Rams, Williams has 31 total touchdowns!

Despite all the talk about Williams being replaced by Blake Corum heading into the 2024 NFL season, he delivered yet again for fantasy managers.

On his 1,299 rushing yards, Williams found the end zone an impressive 14 times. However, based on the Expected TD Rate, Williams was expected to have only 10.

Just like Jacobs though, this over-performance is largely driven by the fact that he was tied for the league lead in rush attempts inside the five-yard line with 19. Additionally, he led the entire league with 65 rush attempts inside the 20-yard line this past year with Bijan Robinson being the next closest with 59.

Is Williams a safe bet in fantasy this season? Likely, no. The Rams continue to add to this backfield via the NFL Draft and Williams does not provide much in the sense of big-play ability.

Yet, he’s one of the most solid running backs in the NFL of taking what’s given to him, keeping the offense on track, and converting red zone trips to touchdowns.

That goes a long way with NFL coaches and Williams is a safe bet to make at his current ADP if he retains the red zone work.

James Cook, Buffalo Bills

Perhaps one of the biggest surprises last season was the emergence of James Cook into a top-tier fantasy football RB.

While he’s always had the talent to shine, his size and projected role always were working against him moving into the upper echelon of fantasy producers.

That didn’t matter much though in 2024 as Cook found the end zone 16 times on just 207 rush attempts!

For context, Saquon Barkley found the end zone 13 times on 345 rush attempts…

The offense that Cook operates in is the big reason why he was able to overproduce as drastically as he did. The Buffalo Bills found themselves in the red zone repeatedly each and every week and the explosive RB was able to convert those into touchdowns more often than not.