Mike Williams: Beware the Hype

The Truth About 2018

In his second season, Williams finished 2018 with 43 receptions on 66 targets for 664 yards and 10 touchdowns. He also added a touchdown on the ground. This was good enough for him to finish as a top 20 wide receiver on the year. He had an incredibly efficient season. He scored a touchdown on one out of every four receptions. It was a solid finish for Williams. This caused his ADP to steadily rise this off-season, currently settling in the early sixth round as the 26^th wide receiver, per Fantasy Football Calculator.

Though his ADP is reasonable at this point, Williams still brings some risk as a sixth round pick. His solid stats from last season are misleading. Of his 11 touchdowns, he scored seven of those in three weeks. Two of his other scores came from Williams sole reception of the game. He recorded six games with 30 yards or less. He was also targeted more than four times in a game just six times last season. Mike Williams 2018 season shows a player that is hard to rely on as your second starting wide receiver.  

Some believe after a solid 2018 season, Williams is primed to see an increase in targets this year. The Los Angeles Chargers do have 64 vacated targets from last season after wide receiver Tyrell Williams left the team in free agency. If he could use some of those targets to push himself to 80 plus targets, he could easily outperform his ADP.

The issue there is that Mike Williams and Tyrell Williams didn’t compete for the same targets. Williams may not see any additional targets at all with Chargers tight end Hunter Henry returning to the team after missing the 2018 season with an ACL tear. The targets are a big problem for Williams, which doesn’t look to get better this season if you take a deeper look at this offense and Philip Rivers tendencies.  

The Bigger Problem

I took a close look at Philip Rivers target distributions over the last four seasons, and things don’t look promising for Williams. On average Rivers sends 22.8% of his targets to his top target each season. The top target in the four seasons I reviewed saw between 16% and 27% of Rivers targets. This is indisputably Keenen Allen territory. Barring injury Keenen Allen will be Rivers top target.

Williams along with Melvin Gordon tied for the second-most targets on the team last season. If he can repeat that production, he should earn about 14% of Rivers targets. He still has nearly equal competition from the third, fourth, and fifth most targeted players as those each received 13.5%, 11.7% and 11% of the targets respectively. Without some more reference, it doesn’t quite have the same impact. To help with that I pulled the same numbers from Drew Brees and Aaron Rodgers: two veteran QBs with high powered offenses.  

To give a brief idea for these numbers we will start with Rodgers. Rodgers top 5 targets received 23.6%, 16.9%, 14.3%, 10.1% and 7.7% respectively. Notice the second and third leaders receive nearly double the targets of the fifth most targeted player. As for Brees, his top five targets received 23.8%, 18.5%, 13.3%, 11.4% and 7.66% of the team’s targets.

The difference between target distribution between these two and Rivers is that last player. The dip of 4% in target share directly affects the second target leader. Because Rivers consistently targets the 5th player, it affects Williams upside as the second target. That’s if he even secures that role. If Williams could secure that additional 4% it could be another 13 receptions and 200 yards. That’s a big “if” though as Rivers has not thrown to a second receiver more than 15% of the time over the last two seasons.  

Conclusion

Mike Williams will have a rough route to consistently score as a WR 2 in fantasy football. His past performances show his inconsistency on the field. The tendencies of the offense limit his upside. I don’t expect Williams to be a massive bust for this season, but he may not return on the hype he is receiving. You need to temper your expectations for him and do not over pay. As he sits currently in the sixth round the price is fair for now, but if his price rises much further, consider passing on Mike Williams.  

For more football discussion please join us over at our sports forums.