By Matt Okada, 4for4.com
For the last couple of years, I’ve used this outlier touchdowns column to spotlight fantasy players due for regression — positive or negative — in the upcoming season. Not to toot my own horn, but the 2025 running back edition was a rousing success. All three of the RBs due to score more in 2025 — D’Andre Swift, Travis Etienne Jr. and Jaylen Warren — improved their touchdown totals … and they combined for an increase of 22 scores year-over-year. Zach Charbonnet was the only real miss of the RBs due to score less, but James Cook saw a slight dip as predicted, and David Montgomery was a major fantasy bust after logging four fewer TDs.
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First, a quick crash course on the data. There is a consistent historical rate at which an average NFL player finds the end zone, relative to their opportunity. That rate can be more specifically dissected by field position to offer a more granular look at the data — unsurprisingly, a goal-to-go target has a much higher chance of producing a touchdown than a carry from midfield.
While these historical rates aren’t necessarily the same thing as predictive probabilities, they are usually quite close over a decent sample. The following table lists a bird’s-eye view of the touchdown rates for all running back opportunities (carries and targets) over the last 10 seasons, with field positions aggregated for simplicity.
RB TD Rates by Field Position (Last 10 Seasons):
Line of Scrimmage
TD Rate, Carries
TD Rate, Targets
Goal Line (Opponent 1-5)
40.10%
47.80%
Scoring Position (Opponent 6-19)
6.40%
14.20%
Total Red Zone (Opponent 1-19)
17.20%
19.30%
Long Distance (Opponent 20+)
0.50%
0.86%
Total
3.10%
3.00%
So, if these numbers mark the “norm,” what constitutes an “outlier season” for an RB? Let’s take a look at Jonathan Taylor as an example. All the way back in his 2021 overall RB1 campaign, Taylor scored on an elite 5.2% of his opportunities, resulting in 20 total scores and heavily inflating his fantasy output. The next year, he scored on just 1.7% of his opportunities, ultimately averaging 8.7 fewer fantasy points per game. His efficiency was much more reasonable in 2023 and 2024, but it spiked again in 2025. Taylor scored on 5.3% of his 378 opportunities, which converts to nearly nine touchdowns above expectation, and finished as the RB2 as a result.
Even as one of the best running backs in the league, we can forecast statistical regression for Taylor in 2026 (more on him later), and that understanding should impact our evaluations for fantasy. Obviously, the same thinking works in reverse for players who score well below expectation.
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With all this math in mind, here are three names to note coming off last season’s results and heading into 2026 fantasy drafts.
Which Running Backs Should Score More in 2026?
Breece Hall, New York Jets
- 2025 Expected Total TDs – 8.7
2025 Actual Total TDs – 5
Total TDs Below Expectation – 3.7
It never feels particularly superb hyping up a player from the Jets offense. But we highlighted Garrett Wilson in the wide receiver version two years ago (heading into 2024), and he ended up more than doubling his touchdown total. So we’ll try to have faith in the math. In 2025, Breece Hall saw a whopping 291 opportunities but scored just five times. Part of the problem, admittedly, comes from the fact that just 10% of his opportunities came from inside the red zone … because the Jets were rarely there. Compare that to someone like Javonte Williams (20.8% of opportunities came in the red zone) or Zach Charbonnet (25.5%), and you’ll get a sense for the problem. But the greater issue was Hall’s unsustainable inefficiency in that range: he scored on just 6.9% of his red-zone looks, including zero of his eight red-zone targets, and on just 1.7% of his total opportunities (almost half the league-average).
Will New York get into the red zone more frequently with Geno Smith at QB and the addition of Kenyon Sadiq (16th overall) and Omar Cooper Jr. (30th) in the first round of the draft? Yes, probably. Their 38 red-zone trips were the third-fewest in the league and likely to come up a bit in 2026. But either way, Hall is due for a bounce-back in scoring efficiency to right around the 3% mark that marks the league average and his own career average entering 2025. Assuming he nears 300 opportunities again in 2026, that would translate to an extra four touchdowns and a much better fantasy finish.
Bucky Irving, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
- 2025 Expected Total TDs – 6.2
2025 Actual Total TDs – 4
Total TDs Below Expectation – 2.2
Bucky Irving was a popular RB1 candidate in last year’s drafts, ultimately logging an ADP around RB10 somewhere in the second round. Unfortunately, he missed seven games, saw a major drop in yardage efficiency and scored just four touchdowns on 208 opportunities. Projecting his per-game production to a full season, Irving was on track for just seven total touchdowns on a whopping 354 looks. That’s not great. For reference, since targets were first officially tracked in 2009, only four of the 55 running backs to see 350+ opportunities in a season ever scored fewer than seven touchdowns (and two of those instances were Steven Jackson). According to expectation, Irving’s 17-game touchdown total would have been somewhere in the low double digits, completely crushing his actual total of four.
It will be very interesting to see how Tampa Bay’s offense shifts in 2026 with the departure of Mike Evans and the swap from Rachaad White to Kenneth Gainwell. It would not be surprising to see Baker Mayfield’s touchdown production dip a bit, but that might actually play into Irving’s favor if he’s the guy picking up the slack. And while Gainwell booked an impressive eight TDs last year, he did so on unusually high volume and inflated efficiency. As long as Irving is healthy — he’s currently recovering from shoulder surgery — I’d expect him to claim a legitimate RB1 workload again in Tampa Bay. His current Yahoo ADP is down at RB19, which feels like an overreaction to last year’s troubles. With a full season and positively regressive efficiency, Irving should comfortably double his 2025 touchdown total … and could triple it if things go well.
Which Running Back Should Score Less in 2025?
Jonathan Taylor, Buffalo Bills
- 2025 Expected Total TDs – 11.3
2025 Actual Total TDs – 20
Total TDs Above Expectation – 8.7
We covered Jonathan Taylor in the intro, but in case you skipped it or need a fuller explanation, let me break it down. Yes, Taylor is one of the league’s best backs … though at 27 years old and with 1,551 career carries under his belt, he might be entering the downturn of his career. Regardless, scoring 20 touchdowns on 378 opportunities is almost certainly unsustainable. There have only ever been five instances of a player logging 20+ scores in consecutive seasons, and all of them came at least two decades ago — the last was LaDainian Tomlinson in 2005-2006.
It’s also very rare to see a player post 350+ opportunities back-to-back, and it’s actually far more common to see a major dip in volume the ensuing season. It probably won’t help that the Colts offense faces a bit of an uphill climb, with Daniel Jones recovering from an Achilles tear and Michael Pittman Jr. departing for Pittsburgh.
The last time Taylor was coming off of 350+ opportunities and 20+ touchdowns (in 2021), he played just 11 games and totaled just four scores on 232 opportunities (in 2022). I’m not projecting that much of a dip in 2026, but he could realistically see a 10% drop in volume, and his touchdown rate will almost certainly decline from 5.3% to somewhere around his career mark, just under 4%. Translation? Taylor is more likely to score somewhere around 13 times this upcoming season, and that’s assuming he plays the full year after racking up heavy wear-and-tear in 2025. He’s a riskier pick at RB4 (currently top six overall) than he might initially appear, and you’ll want to adjust expectations accordingly.
This story was originally published in its complete form on 4for4.com
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