Lamar Jackson: From Stud to Dud?

A moment of silence is requested for those that demanded and defended that you take a QB in the first two rounds, especially if they were championing Lamar Jackson.

Let me start off by saying that Lamar Jackson is still going to be a solid fantasy football QB, that the recent results that you are seeing are going to be considered his floor, and that he still has value. My message and my “in this essay I will…” moment is that Lamar Jackson is not returning his draft value and, therefore, he is no longer a “set it and forget it” QB.

Lamar Jackson is going to be matchup dependent start for the rest of the season and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s going to be a rough stretch in the next month because Jackson is going to face three of the top four defenses against QBs in fantasy football. This week he draws the #1 ranked Colts defense, next week the #2 ranked Patriots defense, and in Week 12 he faces the same Pittsburgh defense that just limited him to 16.8 fantasy points in FanDuel scoring. After that stretch though, towards the end of the fantasy football season, he faces the #18, 22, 29, 13, and 16 ranked defenses against the QB with his final three games being against the Jaguars, the Giants, and the Bengals.

So what’s going wrong for Lamar so far?

Through 7 games in 2019 during his MVP season, Lamar had totaled 180.6 fantasy points averaging 25.8 points per game and only having 1 game under 21 points. In 2020? He has 144.8 fantasy points, averaging 20.6 points per game, and only has 3 games over 21 points so far this season. Again, I’m not saying that he is someone that you need to drop, but with Jackson being drafted as a top two or three QB, he isn’t consistently returning that value to be considered must start every week.

Jackson being a dual-threat QB, his main appeal is that he is able to use his legs and gain rush yards to drive up his fantasy points and offset his typically lower passing numbers. Let’s analyze the passing for Jackson. Not known as a pocket presence, Jackson ranks 27^th in passing attempts and passing yards and 26^th in first downs attained by passing. He is tied for 5^th in sacks taken. When the defense starts to get pressure he is known to scramble, but while Jackson is tied for 7^th in the number of scrambles, he is only 21^st in yards gained per scramble attempt. The concerning stat for Jackson based on his passing is his accuracy. He is currently sitting as the 4^th worst QB when it comes to on-target pass accuracy only beating out Drew Lock, Dwayne Haskins, and Carson Wentz. This ranking has him falling in right behind Cam Newton and Sam Darnold, neither of which are in your fantasy lineups on a per week basis.

We always talk about regression to the mean in fantasy sports, and it seems like Jackson is regressing in his dominant rushing stats as well. Through 7 games last year, Jackson ran the ball 83 times for 576 yards and 3 TDs with 4 fumbles (0 lost). Through 7 games this year, he has 66 rushing attempts for 411 yards and 2 TDs with 6 fumbles (3 lost). The reason for the fall back could very well be the play calling. The Ravens offense thrived last year under a Run, Pass, Option (RPO) playstyle that would essentially mean that Jackson or the main RB (usually Mark Ingram) would run the ball, or Jackson would fire a quick pass usually on a screen or a slant to gain quick yards. Jackson orchestrated 173 RPO plays last year, which averaged out to 11 RPOs a game. So far this season the Ravens have run 62 RPOs, roughly 8 a game, and are projected to come in at 140ish for the 2020 season. Whether this is due to not leading in as many games this year as compared to last or if this is the result of not having the ball as long, either way, it is taking away play-calling where Jackson has excelled.

So what should you do moving forward?

Obviously, this depends on your roster situation and your waiver wire, but I think that 3 out of the next 4 weeks, you can be looking to sit Jackson if you have another viable option. The lack of passing success behind his numbers, and the game plan moving away from his breaking long rushes, are adding up to equal his dip in fantasy value on a week-week basis.