Mike Williams: A Fantasy Football WR1 Contender with WR2 ADP
Mike Williams has an enticing profile before you even see what he can do on the field. At 6’ 4”, 220 lbs, and a 4.51 40-yard time, it’s easy to see why any NFL team would be happy to have him. Williams got off to a slow start to his NFL career with a laundry list of injuries that kept him off the field. That has led to a reputation of him being “injury prone”. While he has missed games here and there over the past four years, Williams has played in 59 games during that span. Since the start of 2019, he’s one of 23 receivers in the NFL that have scored at least 600 half-PPR points. Let's take a look at his fantasy value heading into 2023.
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Williams’ Production Profile
Over the last two years, Williams has averaged the following stat line.
He’s accounted for 20% of the targets in games that he’s been active and averages about a touchdown every other game. Last year, he trailed Keenan Allen by just under two points per game.
The two top receivers in Los Angeles have been able to co-exist so well because of their complementary skill sets. It’s an unfair assessment in my opinion, but Williams has the reputation of primarily being a deep threat. He does excel in that area, but he’s no one-trick pony. Of NFL receivers who saw 90+ targets last year, Williams ranked 12th in average depth of target but he is a versatile receiver who can make plays from anywhere on the field.
With Justin Herbert under center, 43% of Williams’ targets have been between 5 and 15 air yards while just over 8% of his targets have been 30 yards or more. Comparatively, Keenan Allen stands at 51% and 3%, respectively. Williams does get his fair share of deep shots, obviously, but he has shown the ability to do damage on intermediate routes as well.
There’s Only One Ball
Even with a bonafide WR1 in Allen on the roster, Williams still finds ways to be productive on the offense. Zooming out to the entire team, there were five other wide receivers that saw snaps last season.
Those receivers accounted for a combined 14 targets per game. Even with Austin Ekeler earning 7.5 targets per game, Herbert was still able to spread the ball around to the rest of the wide receiver room. That room got stronger with first-round pick Quentin Johnson from TCU. It remains to be seen how rookie Johnson gets incorporated into the fold. He’s a raw prospect but his straight-line speed and deep-threat abilities are promising for the future.
There’s some sentiment across the fantasy industry that Johnson could eat into Williams' target share given their similar skill sets. Anything is possible, but Herbert has shown the ability to get multiple receivers involved even with the trio of Allen-Williams-Ekeler soaking up over 23 targets per game. With defenses having to pay attention to another talented pass catcher, it will lift the tide of all the boats in the passing game for the Chargers.
Williams’ ADP Analysis
His current ADP sits right around his healthy floor. He’s going in the fourth round as WR25 on Underdog. Obviously, drafts on Underdog skew WR-heavy and he’s going much later on other sites like Yahoo where he is going in the fifth or sixth rounds. When healthy, it’s hard to imagine a scenario where Williams finishes lower than WR25. Wide receivers that finish between 20th-30th for the season have fallen somewhere between 143-189 half-PPR points, or 8-14 points per game, since 2015. Williams has been over 9 half-PPR points per game in each of the last five seasons.
Herbert has targeted only four players over 100 times in his career. Williams, Allen, Austin Ekeler, and Josh Palmer. Herbert has the highest adjusted yards per attempt when targeting Williams out of that group. That mark is all the way up at 9.69 while the next highest, Ekeler, is down at 6.86. The rapport is undeniable and the potential for the offense makes Williams a desirable target at his cost.
From both a skill and an opportunity perspective, is Williams really that far off from a Jaylen Waddle or a DK Metcalf? Those guys are Top-15 wide receivers in most drafts right now. Waddle is the clear WR2 on his team and Metcalf is being joined by an exciting rookie, as well. Similar concerns, but vastly different prices. The discount that you're getting on Williams compared to some other receivers going ahead of him is a bit puzzling.
| Player | Current ADP | Games | Receptions | Yards | Touchdowns |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mike Williams | WR29 | 13 | 4.8 | 68.8 | 0.31 |
| Jaylen Waddle | WR12 | 17 | 4.4 | 79 | 0.47 |
| DK Metcalf | WR13 | 17 | 5.3 | 61 | 0.35 |
| Jerry Jeudy | WR24 | 15 | 4.4 | 64.8 | 0.4 |
| Christian Kirk | WR25 | 17 | 4.9 | 65.1 | 0.47 |
When you look at their per-game totals, Waddle is really the only receiver that's head and shoulders above Williams from a season ago. This is a discount that we should be taking advantage of in drafts all off-season.
It’s possible that Williams overtakes Allen this year as the Chargers’ WR1. If Williams is healthy for all 17 games and can maintain, or even slightly increase, his target share, he could outscore Allen this season reasonably easily and he's going as WR21 in most drafts.
Conclusions
Outside of injury history, Williams doesn’t come with the same types of questions that other receivers come with. He checks many of the boxes we're looking for:
- Competent quarterback
- Division matchups with potential shootouts
- Established history
- Proven upside
In redraft, I’m actively targeting him at his current multi-site ADP of 7.04. There are about five receivers ahead of him that have no business being there and another 5-10 that he could potentially outscore. Williams has WR1 upside and it would be silly to pass on him at his price in drafts right now.
