Los Angeles Chargers wide receiver Mike Williams is coming off the best season of his career and now looks to add more consistency to his already sky-high ceiling. What is Williams’ current ADP, and should fantasy football managers draft him at that price?
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Mike Williams ADP | Is he worth his current price in fantasy drafts?
Williams’ ADP is around 50th overall at roughly WR22. I distinctly remember doing Best Ball drafts and seeing Williams consistently go inside the top 36, sometimes ahead of Keenan Allen. However, seasonal leagues are a bit different.
I’m a bit torn on how to view Williams. His scorching start to the 2021 season is what dreams are made of. He was the overall WR2 over the first five weeks of the season, displaying a ceiling as high as anyone’s. But then Williams reminded us how low his floor is.
Williams could very well be a value at his ADP, but he could also end up being incredibly overvalued. There are a wide range of outcomes when it comes to Williams. It wouldn’t surprise me to see him establish himself as Justin Herbert’s preferred target this season. It also wouldn’t surprise me if he was just as volatile as he was last season.
At worst, Williams should be a boom/bust WR2. At best, he’s a league-winning WR1.
Mike Williams’ projected fantasy value in 2022
I was not a fan of Williams as a prospect. He reminded me of a classic contested-catch specialist who couldn’t separate. Those archetypes rarely translate at the next level. And for a while, that looked to be the case.
Despite being the seventh overall pick in the 2017 NFL Draft, Williams was a nonfactor as a rookie, catching just 11 passes for 95 yards. When a rookie WR fails to reach at least about 500 receiving yards, he’s unlikely to emerge into a productive fantasy asset.
Williams has clearly proven himself to be an outlier, but it did take him five years to get there. Williams averaged between 10.2 and 11.1 PPR fantasy points per game over his 2018-2020 seasons. It wasn’t until just last year that Williams emerged into someone you could confidently start each week (volatility notwithstanding).
After completely fading Williams for the first four years of his career, I was actually very much in on him entering the 2021 season. Herbert was coming off a fantastic rookie season and the Chargers have the exact type of offense we look for in fantasy: a consolidated touch distribution.
Williams, Allen, and Austin Ekeler completely dominate touches for Los Angeles. Those three combined to handle 53.4% of the Chargers’ 1,097 opportunities last season.
I can’t claim to have been on an island with Williams, though. Many other analysts were buying into the rare fifth-year breakout.
While the final numbers look great — 76 catches for 1,146 yards and nine touchdowns, 15.4 ppg — it wasn’t an even road to get there. After averaging 23.2 ppg over the first five weeks, Williams averaged 11.9 ppg the rest of the season.
He gave fantasy managers two 20+ point games and two 30+ point games over the first three weeks. Then, he hit double-digits just five more times, one of which did nothing for fantasy managers because it was in Week 17. In actuality, Williams has been the same guy for the past four seasons, 2021 included, except for the first six games of the season.
Impact of the Chargers’ depth chart on Williams’ fantasy value
Williams certainly won fantasy managers a handful of weeks last season. But there was more bad than good.
After being a difference-maker in four of his first five games, he rightfully earned every-week must-start status. Unfortunately, that meant fantasy managers were likely unable to bench him over any of the subsequent four weeks where he failed to reach eight fantasy points in a single game.
At that point, fantasy managers probably had enough and decided to bench him. So, of course, Williams exploded for 20.7 fantasy points in Week 11. Back into lineups he goes, just in time for another dud. As someone who rostered Williams in a league, I experienced the frustration firsthand.
With that said, I really do think this is the year Williams can put it together for a full season. It really is ironic given how down I was on him as a prospect and poor of a pick I viewed him to be in 2017. But opinions can and should change based on new information.
The Chargers’ consolidated offense
Allen will open the season as the clear WR1. However, he’s 30 years old. Williams isn’t that much younger at almost 28, but he certainly has far less tread. He could very well flip things on Allen and become the most valuable fantasy asset here. As an aside, this fear is why I struggle to draft Allen in the early part of Round 3.
Behind Allen, Williams, and Ekeler are Josh Palmer and Jalen Guyton. Palmer is a nice receiver who has legitimate upside, but he’s no threat to Allen or Williams. Guyton is just a burner. Neither is going to command much more than an 8-12% target share if they split the WR3 role when Allen and Williams are healthy.
Ekeler will be third on this team in target share, but there’s plenty of room for all three of them. The Chargers proved as much last season.
With an improved offensive line and Herbert continuing to improve each year, this could be the season the Chargers finally stop doing “Chargers things” (which is finding new and innovative ways to lose games) and just put up monstrous offensive numbers. If that happens, Williams has legitimate WR1 upside. I’m fine selecting him in the fourth round of fantasy drafts. He is currently ranked as our consensus WR20 in our 2022 fantasy football rankings.
