Fantasy Football: Why Aaron Jones won’t be an elite pick in 2020

Aaron Jones, Packers, Fantasy Football
Tim Heitman-USA TODAY Sports

1. Natural Touchdown Regression

Even leaving aside Dillon’s presence as a potential vulture, Jones is ripe and a practical lock for touchdown regression in 2020. He had multiple rushing scores in five games last year, including games with three and four. 13 of his 16 touchdowns on the ground came in those five games, and all three of his receiving touchdowns came in back-to-back games in Week 7 and 8 (two in Week 8).

In games he didn’t score a touchdown, via ground or air, here are Jones’ stat lines.

Week 1: 13 carries for 39 yards, one catch for zero yards
Week 6: 11 carries for 47 yards, four catches for 13 yards, one lost fumble
Week 9: eight carries for 30 yards, one catch for -1 yard
Week 12: 13 carries for 38 yards
Week 13: 11 carries for 18 yards, four catches for 13 yards
Week 17: 25 carries for 100 yards; two catches for 43 yards

Let’s toss Week 17, against a Lions’ defense that was bad and packing it in on its way to 3-12-1. It’s also not a week used by a lot fantasy leagues, which takes away relevancy. Game scripts were a factor, but without touchdowns Jones was functionally useless to his fantasy owners. Yes it was rare and yes touchdowns are a differentiating factor, but Week 12 and 13 are likely to have been poorly timed for a lot of Jones’ fantasy owners in 2019.

Jones’ ADP has some expected regression baked into it (RB11 in 12-team full PPR). But that’s still a second-round pick in full PPR, and he’s up at RB8 (pick 1.11) in 12-team standard right now. No thank you.

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