NFL Team Offense and Touchdown Regression

The NFL is an interesting game. Sometimes, things stay the same. Josh Allen dominates multiple years in a row as a Top-2 fantasy QB. Justin Jefferson and Ja’Marr Chase are incredibly good at their jobs. Saquon Barkley, Derrick Henry, and Miles Sanders are dominant forces in the run game. 💪 

Ok, maybe not Sanders, but either way, we as NFL and fantasy fans have a good idea of who will be a good player in an upcoming season. There’s a sense of predictability, especially among stars, but also among the solid players, like Golden Tate several years ago. Never had a super high ceiling, but was always a solid player.

But every year, there are some players who regress and others who break out. And the same goes for NFL offenses. We are generally good at identifying who will be the powerhouse teams. This year, it’s likely that Buffalo, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Detroit, and Cincinnati are all powerhouse offenses. But even so, that doesn’t mean they will all finish where they were last year. And just because an offense was bad one year, doesn’t mean they will stay bad.

How much do top offenses regress? How much do bottom-scoring offenses progress? That’s what we’re here to find out.

The Process and Parameters

I went to Stathead and pulled every NFL team’s season to determine their offensive output each year from 2019 to 2024. Because most fantasy production in most leagues comes from offense, I limited the scope of this study to just offensive points rather than total points scored. For example, the Dallas Cowboys scored the most points in the NFL in 2023, but they had a LOT of special teams and defensive touchdown scoring. Their offensive output was still strong, but based on offense alone, they dropped from first to sixth.

I wanted to see exactly how much teams regressed (both positively and negatively) in touchdowns per game depending on whether they were a Top-6 or a Bottom-6 offense in a given year. Because we begin in 2019 and go to present day, we have 5 years of next season data, thus 30 teams in each group of 6.

So, how did those teams improve or decline the following season, and what can we learn from that?

The Point Factories and Basement Dwellers

On average, top-6 offenses see a drop in TD/Game of -0.4 TD/Gm year over year. In a 17-game season, that is 6.8 touchdowns over the whole year. Meanwhile, the bottom 6 teams per season see an increase of +0.38 TD/Game in the next year. As you might have guessed, that’s around 6.5 TD a season. Neither of those numbers sounds like a lot, but I’d like to do a thought experiment. 💭 

Using data once again from Stathead, the average length of a drive ending in an offensive touchdown was 65.7 yards; we’ll round up to 66 yards. Let’s go further and use regular PPR scoring with 4 points per passing touchdown. If the entire drive is rushing, then you’re getting 12.6 total points. If it’s a long bomb touchdown, that drive is worth 20.24 points. Add in multiple receptions, that drive could be worth more than 25 fantasy points! But let’s say it’s a mix of rushing and receiving, and the drive is worth 20 points (a reasonable number in my opinion). Now multiply that by the 6.5-6.8 touchdowns you lose or gain throughout the season based on simple regression, and you’re looking at a 130-136 fantasy point swing during the season!

Of course, no single player will feel the brunt of that. It’s spread out. But let’s use the 2024 Lions as an example of negative regression. Take away 20 points from Jared Goff, and he drops from QB6 to QB10. Take 20 from Jahmyr Gibbs, and he goes from RB1 to RB2 (using full-season stats here, still a fantastic season by Gibbs). Do the same for David Montgomery and Jameson Williams, and they go from RB18 to RB20 and WR22 to WR32, respectively. Amon-Ra St.Brown stays at WR3 because he’s a beast. That’s just five players, I didn’t even mention Sam LaPorta, and I’ve still got 30 points to take away from people!

You could do the opposite for a team like the Cowboys, who ranked 30th in offensive TD/Gm in 2024, and see how their season might have gone if you give them the extra points.

But let’s take things a step further. This has been a general overview analysis. How many teams see a positive or negative regression in our two study buckets?

Let’s break this down, because there’s a lot to see here. The red line shows no change in offensive production. The left of the line means a decrease, to the right, an increase. The green bars represent the number of teams hitting regression in a given area. The green line is a trendline. As shown in the chart, only 23% of Top-6 teams managed a reasonable increase in offensive production, none more than 0.5 TD/Gm. Meanwhile, another 23% saw a decrease of at least a whole touchdown per game! Forget the whole 6.5 touchdowns, that's 17 touchdowns over a season!

Now let’s look at the bottom 6 teams:

What is interesting is that while 77% of the top-6 teams decreased offensive output year-over-year, the inverse is true for the bottom-6 teams. 23 of 30 bottom-6 teams, or 77%, saw an increase, and only 16% had a decrease; the remaining 7% saw no change at all. Oh, and 70% of those 23 teams that improved saw their average scoring go up between 0.5-1.3 TD/Gm.

Lessons for 2025

What can we take from this? Well, let’s list off the top and bottom six scoring offenses in 2024 for starters:

🏆️ Top 6: Detroit, Baltimore, Buffalo, Tampa, Cincinnati, and Washington.

😢 Bottom 6: Cleveland, New York Giants, Dallas, Las Vegas, New England, Jacksonville

I’ve kept you here long enough, so I’ll keep my takes brief. Detroit lost a lot of its coaching staff, and Jared Goff had a career-high 6.9% TD rate. They’ll still be good, but regression could hit hard. The same goes for Baker Mayfield in Tampa, who just put up a 7.1% TD rate and just lost his OC for the nth year running. I just wrote up an article last week on how Jayden Daniels may have some regression himself, so Washington as a whole suffers a bit as well. 🎖️ 

Forgive me that that turned into a quarterback regression paragraph, coaching and personnel changes are involved as well, but high QB TD rates are one of the easiest ways to spot possible offensive regression.

Meanwhile, New York just improved by adding Russell Wilson, Jaxson Dart, and Cam Skattebo. Dak Prescott will return for Dallas after only playing in 8 games last year, and WR George Pickens is now in town. New England now has Stefon Diggs, Kyle Williams, and TreVeyon Henderson at their disposal.

☠️ Las Vegas improved its coaching staff and added Geno Smith, Ashton Jeanty, and Jack Bech. Jacksonville managed to snag Travis Hunter and potentially improved their coaching staff and front office, so improvements may be coming there, too. So there’s a lot to be optimistic about these offenses and their potential offensive output. 📈 

🟠 As a Cleveland fan, I love our selection of Quinshon Judkins. I’m not as optimistic about the quarterbacks we chose in the draft, though. There’s an average of one team per year in the bottom six that doesn’t improve year over year, and sadly, they might be the one. For my sake, I hope not, but I believe they are playing for 2026.

That’s going to do it for me. Thank you all for reading! I will see you next week, take care, everyone!