RADIO
Los Angeles Chargers wide receiver Mike Williams tends to elicit some pretty strong feelings in the fantasy football community. He’s been tagged for being injury-prone. He's viewed by many as a boom-or-bust player who is more likely to leave early due to injury or drop a dud than actually help you in the box score. Now, with the Chargers drafting Quentin Johnston out of TCU in the first round of the 2023 NFL Draft, fantasy managers appear to have soured on Williams even more.
Williams is currently being drafted as the WR27 by Yahoo! fantasy managers in half-PPR scoring, making him a possible WR3 for willing investors. Fantasy managers need to weigh the risks mentioned above with the expected boost from new offensive coordinator Kellen Moore along with Williams’ week-winning potential. Given all these variables, we’ll discuss whether fantasy managers should be in or out on Mike Williams at his current price for the 2023 fantasy football season.
You can find previous editions of the "Are You In or Out?" series here:
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- J.K. Dobbins: In or Out Series Edition
- Kyle Pitts: In or Out Series Edition
- George Pickens: In or Out Series Edition
- D.J. Moore: In or Out Series Edition
- Michael Pittman Jr.: In or Out Series Edition
- Aaron Jones: In or Out Series Edition
- Nick Chubb: In or Out Series Edition
- Javonte Williams: In or Out Series Edition
- Calvin Ridley: In or Out Series Edition
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The Justin Herbert Effect
While Williams has been in the NFL since 2017, he’s only had Justin Herbert as his quarterback for the past two years. Not surprisingly, these past two seasons have led to some of the best per-game numbers of his career. Williams gets dogged for missing games and leaving other games early. However, there’s no denying his fantasy appeal when he's healthy.
| Mike Williams 2021–2022 Games With a Snap Share Greater Than 35% | ||||||
| Time | Target Share | Targets | Receptions | Receiving Yards | Touchdowns | Half-PPR PPG |
| Per Game Averages |
19.7%
|
8.15 | 5.07 | 75.65 | 0.5 |
13.18
|
| 17-Game Pace | 139 | 86 | 1,268 | 8.5 | ||
The table above shows Williams' stats from the games he’s played over the past two years with a snap share of 35% or more. This has happened in 23 out of the 26 games he’s appeared in. As you can see from the numbers, he’s been a very productive receiver, and that success has translated to fantasy as well.
Over the past two seasons, he’s averaged 13.18 half-PPR PPG. This would have ranked him as the WR11 in both 2021 and 2022. His current ranking is WR27. From the table below, we can see that Williams has been one of the most efficient receivers since Herbert came to Los Angeles.
| Year | Air Yards Per Game | Yards Per Route Run | Yards Per Target |
Yards Per Team Pass Attempt
|
| 2022 | 86.0 (31st) | 2.01 (30th) | 9.6 (12th) | 1.67 (28th) |
| 2021 | 94.0 (19th) | 2.11 (20th) | 8.9 (26th) | 1.70 (21st) |
Boom or Bust
Williams has long been tagged as a player who is just as likely to help you win a fantasy matchup as he is to cost you one. Unfortunately, this tends to carry a more negative connotation than a positive one. Sure, we’d all love those players who consistently put up 15 points per game. However, those guys don’t grow on trees. By the end of the second round, they’re all gone.
Williams is being drafted in the fifth round. There are no consistent, non-quarterback players available then. Fantasy managers often feel a level of comfort when drafting a player who routinely scores between eight and 15 points and who rarely busts. But where is the fun in that? More importantly, where is the upside?
Take my 12-team league as an example. We start one QB, two RBs, three WRs, one TE, and one flex using a half-PPR scoring format. Over the last two years and 84 regular-season games, the table below depicts the margin of victories we’ve seen. Every league is different, so I encourage you to do this same exercise for your league. I felt comfortable using mine since it’s a competitive league that uses a standard lineup format and half-PPR scoring.
| Time Frame | 1-5 Points | 6-10 Points | 11-15 Points | 15+ Points |
| Two-Year Sample Percentage | 11.9% | 16.0% | 7.7% | 64.2% |
| Outcomes Over 14 Games | 10/84 | 13/84 | 7/84 | 54/84 |
Over the past two seasons, 108 out of 168 total regular-season games have been decided by 15 points or more. This tells me that fantasy managers shouldn’t feel nearly as comfortable drafting that consistent 10-point scorer as they currently do. Fantasy football isn’t a 14-week matchup. It’s 14 one-week matchups. Players with a high weekly ceiling should be valued, even if it comes with more volatility than we’d like. This brings us back to Williams.
| Time | Top-12 Finishes | Top-24 Finishes | Top-36 Finishes | Below WR36 |
| 2021–2022 | 31.0% | 17.2% | 3.4% | 48.2% |
| 17-Game Pace | 5 | 3 | 1 | 8 |
The table above includes all the games Williams played in, as we cannot predict when he might leave early due to an injury. As you can see, he has been a bit boom-or-bust. He’s finished as a WR4 or worse in almost 50% of his games. However, he’s finished as a WR2 or better in about 50% of his games as well. His 31% rate of finishing as a top-12 receiver the past two seasons is top-10 among all receivers. That weekly upside is incredibly valuable.
Since the majority of NFL games are often blowouts, we should be embracing the volatility and the high weekly ceiling that comes with players such as Williams, especially at reasonable prices. Being able to select him as your WR3 and get five top-12 weeks should be enticing. That kind of weekly upside from your fifth-round pick could very well lead you to four or five extra victories. Those wins are extremely valuable, given that eight wins often land you in the playoffs in a 14-game season. Embrace Williams' boom-or-bust nature.
Fantasy managers also need to understand that most players around Williams' ADP are not consistent, and they all tend to have bust games. If they didn't, they wouldn't be fifth-rounders. The next few receivers to come off the board after Williams are Chris Godwin, Michael Pittman Jr., Brandon Aiyuk, Diontae Johnson, Tyler Lockett, and Mike Evans.
Last year, Pittman finished as a WR4 or lower in 50% of his games, with only one top-12 week. Aiyuk was a WR4 or lower in 47% of his matchups and finished as a top-12 receiver in 23.5% of his games. The reality is that receivers in this range will all be consistently inconsistent. However, very few come with Williams' weekly upside.
A Player's Best Ability is Availability…Or Is It?
Many believe that a player's best ability is their availability. In actuality, a player's best ability is scoring fantasy points. It does not matter if they play all 17 games. If they only average between eight and 10 points, they will not win weeks for fantasy managers. These players don’t win championships. However, given that the lack of consistent production is often pointed to as a knock on Williams, let's look at what he has done in that department over the past few seasons.
| Year | Games Under 50% Snap Count | Games Played |
| 2022 | 2 | 13/17 |
| 2021 | 1 | 16/17 |
| 2020 | 2 | 15/16 |
| 2019 | 0 | 15/16 |
| 2018 | 3 | 16/16 |
| Average | 10.6% | 75/82 (91.4%) |
From the table above, it certainly doesn't appear that Williams misses as many games as people think. Over the past five years, Williams has played in 91.4% of his team's games. During this span, he's averaged just 1.5 missed games per season over a 17-game season. That number is pretty typical.
However, fantasy managers will often point out that he regularly leaves games early. In the table above, you can see that Williams has played eight games when he's played fewer than 50% of the team's snaps. In the games he's appeared in, this has happened 10.6% of the time.
Based on his five-year averages, fantasy managers can expect Williams to miss about one game per year and start two other games where he plays fewer than 50% of the snaps. That certainly isn't ideal. However, in the other 13-14 games he's played in, he has averaged 13.18 half-PPR PPG, making him the WR11 over the past two years. The fact that his current cost is WR27 means that the "availability" risk is baked into his price.
Welcome to LA, Kellen Moore
Following the 2022 season, the Chargers felt they needed to make some changes to their offense. Offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi was let go. Luckily, the Dallas Cowboys felt like they needed to do the same thing with their club. They let their offensive coordinator Kellen Moore go around the same time. It didn't take long for Moore to wind up in Los Angeles, and the pairing has the fantasy community understandably going crazy.
Moore has been a much more aggressive play-caller than Lombardi. With Herbert's arm and the offensive weapons the Chargers possess, the combination could be lethal. Moore has already talked about his group of receivers and how he's going to use them.
Moore has talked about using his receivers' height as an advantage. That could mean big things for Williams, a 6'4", 220-pound receiver who has long been viewed as one of the NFL's leaders in contested catches. The table below looks at Williams' red zone utilization over the past two seasons and how his per-game averages equate to a 17-game schedule.
| Time | Targets Inside the 20 | Targets Inside the 10 |
| 2021–2022 | 0.81 | 0.5 |
| 17-Game Pace | 14 (21) | 8.5 (16) |
Williams had a very strong red zone presence for the Chargers. Based on his per-game averages, Williams would have had 14 targets inside the 20-yard line, placing him 21st among receivers last season. He also would have finished with 8.5 targets inside the 10-yard line, which would have ranked him 16th overall. This gives Williams plenty of touchdown upside in what should be a high-flying offense.
Looking at what Dallas has done over the past four years with Moore as their offensive coordinator, managers should have plenty of optimism regarding Williams' fantasy value. Dak Prescott played 16 games in a season twice during Moore's tenure. During those two seasons, Dallas finished 10th or higher in pass attempts, passing yards, and passing touchdowns.
| Year | Pass Attempts | Pass Yards | Pass TDs |
| 2022** | 556 (19th) | 3,736 (14th) | 28 (9th) |
| 2021 | 647 (6th) | 4,800 (2nd) | 40 (3rd) |
| 2020* | 639 (2nd) | 4,161 (8th) | 25 (19th) |
| 2019 | 597 (10th) | 4,751 (2nd) | 30 (5th) |
| * = Dak Prescott missed 11/16 games. ** = Prescott missed 5/17 games. | |||
If Moore did that with Prescott and with receivers such as Amari Cooper (2019 only), CeeDee Lamb (2021 only), and Michael Gallup (hurt most of 2021), imagine what he'll be able to accomplish with Herbert, Keenan Allen, Williams, and Johnston. The foursome he now has in Los Angeles is without a doubt more talented. This could result in an explosion of fantasy football goodness.
One of the aspects that drove fantasy managers mad was how conservative Lombardi ran the Chargers' offense despite having Herbert, one of the best arms in the NFL. Herbert's average depth of target has routinely been low relative to the rest of the league. Prescott himself had a higher aDot than Herbert in his four seasons with Moore. The Chargers offense is likely to be much more aggressive this season. This is a huge boost to Williams, who makes his living as a downfield threat.
In Herbert's first two seasons, he had a 5.2% and 5.7% touchdown rate, respectively. That cratered to just 3.6% this past season. Fantasy managers should expect that to regress to the mean and be closer to what he produced in his first two seasons, especially with an offensive coordinator likely to unleash a more aggressive version of Herbert. With Williams' role in the red zone and his downfield ability, he has the potential for a 10+ touchdown season.
So Are You In or Out?
Fantasy managers have plenty of reasons to be hesitant about Williams. However, if you're focusing on the risks, you're focusing on the wrong part of his appeal. When Williams plays in full games, which he has done 82% of the time over the past five years, he has provided fantasy managers with a 13.18 half-PPR PPG average.
He would have finished as the WR11 in each of the past two seasons with that PPG average. This, along with the high weekly upside he hits 31% of the time, is what fantasy managers should be focusing on.
The negative aspects of Williams' profile are more than accounted for in his price. Despite producing like a top-12 receiver 31% of the time, he's currently priced as a high-end WR3. Williams has the potential to win weeks for his fantasy managers, which is the most important value a fantasy player can provide.
At WR27, fantasy managers should be in on Mike Williams this season. Especially with the offensive coordinator change, which could bring a more consistent ceiling to Williams' game.
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