Javonte Williams

2022 Fantasy Upside
Javonte Williams is coming off an impressive rookie season where he racked up 246 total touches (203 carries and 43 receptions), 1,216 total yards, and seven total touchdowns while splitting the workload with veteran Melvin Gordon. Gordon is back in 2022, but there is reason to believe Williams will seize control of the Denver backfield in time. To start, Williams is a natural tackle-breaker. He recorded 75 broken tackles as a college senior, and that skill translated to the NFL immediately as Williams led the league in broken tackles per carry as a rookie and finished ninth in yards after contact per carry. Perhaps most important to his fantasy projections, Williams is a competent pass catcher and should maintain most of that work even with Gordon back to split carries again this season. This aspect of Williams' game will be of great interest to fantasy managers with Russell Wilson in town, who should bring a substantial boost to the Broncos' passing game and overall efficiency as an offense. Williams is an intriguing RB2 as things currently stand, but a Gordon injury would instantly vault him into elite RB1 territory given his elusiveness and offensive environment.

2022 Fantasy Downside
Williams' downside stems from the split workload he is set to receive again in 2022 with Gordon re-signing in Denver. The Broncos' rushing attack was effective last season splitting work between the two backs, and it would appear unlikely they will want to tamper with that approach this year. As exciting as Williams is, Gordon received 231 touches out of this backfield last year and managed 10 total touchdowns with solid efficiency metrics, meaning he should still be a big part of the offensive picture this season barring injury. With the backfield being split two ways, Williams will have a difficult time returning RB1 value simply due to a lack of workhorse-level volume.

2022 Bottom Line
Williams is an exciting player to draft because he's already shown himself to be productive and is at an age where he very likely still has untapped upside. If Gordon wasn't in the picture, we would be talking about Williams as an elite RB1 and first-round fantasy pick. With the split workload, Williams still makes for an intriguing RB2 with league-winning upside in the event Gordon misses time due to injury.

Week 16 at Raiders

Javonte Williams comes into Week 16 with 453 total yards over the past month, which is about 114 yards a game. The Las Vegas Raiders come into this game allowing the 13th most rushing yards to running backs while also giving up the second most catches (42) to running backs since Week 10, which is significant since Williams has a 19 to 3 target lead over Melvin Gordon in the past month. At 4for4 we have Javonte Williams as a top-14 play this week.

Week 14 vs Lions

What will Javonte Williams do for his encore this week? A week after we saw Melvin Gordon not play due to a hip injury, he saw 78% of the snaps, 85% of the rushing yards, and 86% of the receiving yards, which all coincided with his best fantasy week of the season with a final line of 29.8 PPR fantasy points. Melvin Gordon is tentatively expected back this week, but even so, you can't bottle up a talent like Williams once unleashed. Going against a Detroit Lions team who has been abysmal against the run, Williams is a must-start this week, especially since the Denver Broncos are 7.5-point favorites this week.