5 Fantasy Running Backs Ready to Break Out

Whether its with players or coaches, there are always plenty of roster moves each offseason. Those moves tend to open up opportunities for other players. Here are 5 running backs ready for a break out season. 1. Dalvin Cook (RB - ) If Cook can stay healthy for 16 games, he could have a career season in 2019. His injury risk is real so we don't want to sugarcoat it. He tore his ACL in Week 4 of his rookie season in 2017 and battled a hamstring injury last year. In his two seasons in the N...

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5 Fantasy Wide Receivers Ready to Break Out

Whether its with players or coaches, there are always plenty of roster moves each offseason. Those moves along with other developments tend to open up opportunities for other players. Here are 5 wide receivers ready for a break out season. 1. Chris Godwin (WR - ) While Godwin was good last year, he's set to be even better in 2019 for two big reasons. The first is the departure of DeSean Jackson giving him an opportunity to move up the depth chart opposite starting stud Mike Evans. The se...

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Can you wait to draft QBs in a Superflex startup draft?

Superflex leagues are becoming more and more common. If you have not played in this type of league you have the option to start 2 QBs. One flex spot or “super flex” is where a quarterback can be started. If you have played in this format you know how important starting that second quarterback can […]

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Fantasy Football: 5 Breakout Wide Receivers for 2019

Fantasy Football – 5 Breakout Wide Receivers for 2019: Robby Anderson, NYJ First, a quick DISCLAIMER: These picks are made base on PPR Fantasy Football  scoring formats and are players who I believe are ready to take a big leap in their new offensive situations in 2019. As the term “breakout” would imply, players who have […]

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Fantasy Football: This Year’s Best Robin Receivers

The start of the NFL season is still two months away, but we already have a decent idea of who the top receivers will be in 2019. Names like DeAndre Hopkins, Davante Adams, and Julio Jones are expected to be at the top of Fantasy Football rankings year after year. You’d be happy to have […]

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Corey Davis Is The Vegetable Water Of Wide Receivers

Corey Davis Is The Vegetable Water Of Wide Receivers

To this point in his career, Corey Davis has been the cucumber water of wide receiver prospects. You bought him because he looked fancy and, dammit, you deserve to treat yourself to a quality wide receiver now and again. But a couple of sips in, you realize you just paid a bunch of money to drink regular tap water with vegetables floating in it. That's what Corey Davis has been so far in his career: Tepid vegetable water.

The question is whether Corey Davis will ever become more than that. Can he even rise up to the level of, say, sparkling pomegranate water? Or, to abandon this poorly-constructed water metaphor, can he rise up to the WR1-level of production so many thought possible back in 2017?

2018 Finish: WR28

In his sophomore season, Corey Davis put up some very respectable stats: 112 targets, 65 receptions, 891 yards, and 4 touchdowns. On a per game basis, he fell to WR38, but his overall finish is perfectly fine for a player that was generally drafted in or around the 6th round. But the fantasy community never expected Davis to be just "fine" for their teams. They wanted him to be a superstar.

We're still waiting to see the Western Michigan 1st round draft pick truly breakout. But is that even on the table at this point?

The Corey Davis Rollercoaster Ride

When a player can see 13 targets in a game and only come away with 6 catches for 62 yards and no touchdowns (against a bottom 5 Miami defense) as Corey Davis did in Week 1, that signals some very bright and very loud warning alarms.

Then again, he was also able to put together 9 receptions for 161 yards and a TD on 15 targets just a few weeks later (against a somewhat respectable Philly defense), so who knows what the true Corey Davis looks like.

Davis finished outside the Top 40 wide receivers 10 out of 16 weeks, or 63% of the time. In 9 of those weeks he had fewer than 50 yards and 5 catches. Only one of those weeks was "saved" by a touchdown.

He also finished as a Top 5 receiver 3 times. In those 3 games, he put up over 95 yards and a touchdown. You were obviously very happy if you decided to slot him into your flex in those weeks, though it's unlikely you put him in against Houston, considering they were a Top 5 defense.

This basically made him Amari Cooper-lite in 2018. He never outright disappeared on his fantasy investors like Cooper, though he came close on far too many occasions. It made him incredibly tough to trust on a weekly basis.

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What Davis Has Working In His Favor

• Draft capital: 5th overall pick in 2017
• Breakout age: 18 (96th percentile)
• College Dominator score: 51.6% (96th percentile)

All the usual analytical measures paint Corey Davis as an ascending talent. Fantasy football investors who believe in him certainly have some compelling arguments to back up that affection.

The success rate for players that have all of these things working in their favor is staggeringly high. Since 2010, we've seen a fair portion of 1st round wide receivers bust. But players like DeVante Parker, Michael Floyd, Kendall Wright, and Josh Doctson all scored significantly lower than Davis in either breakout age or college dominator. None had such high marks across the board.

What this suggests is that eventually, on a long enough timeline, Corey Davis should become a top fantasy asset. The question is whether you can bank on Davis' talent and measurables to transcend the questionable offense around him and allow him to breakout in 2019.

What Davis Had Working Against Him

• Injuries
• Bad quarterback play
• Drops

Davis has had some tough luck with his hamstrings in his brief NFL career. Through his first two seasons, he's been hampered by hamstring injuries, missing a chunk of time in 2017 and struggling through it in 2018. Soft tissue injuries like that can be a real pain to come back from, so props to Davis for being able to play through it.

Unfortunately, there's always a risk of re-injury, especially in the short term. As ESPN's injury analyst Stephania Bell put it, "The No. 1 risk factor for a hamstring injury is a previous hamstring injury." So until Davis proves he can get through a season without being hamstrung, it has to remain a question mark.

Speaking of injures, his quarterback hasn't been right for the last couple of years, either. That may sound like an easy excuse to make, but it's also a fair one. Marcus Mariota has accumulated injuries like the alien from Predator collected skulls. And that turned Mariota into a liability for Davis, with only three-fourths of his throws being catchable. His target quality was ranked all the way down at #60.

You might hope such a dominant college receiver could manage big numbers even a subpar quarterback, but that expectation is a bit unfair. (Remember DeAndre Hopkins' mediocre season with Brock Osweiler? Anyone?) Davis could only do so much with the poor passes he was given.

Davis' most glaring problem last season, however, can't be placed entirely on his quarterback. And that's the substantial amount of drops he had. According to Player Profiler, Davis registered the 2nd-most drops in the league and the 11th-highest drop percentage. That's not so good.

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Two Sides Of The Same Coin

Here's where things get a little tricky, because there's so much gray area to navigate with Davis. Using a few prominent stats, you could make the case for or against Davis' immediate future.

Total Targets

It may not have felt like it to his fantasy owners, but Corey Davis was hyper-targeted in the Tennessee offense last year. He owned a 26% market share of the team's targets, the 8th-highest in the league among wide receivers. The next closest player in Tennessee received just 15%, and that was Dion Lewis. The next two receivers on the depth chart -- Taywan Taylor and Tajae Sharpe -- didn't match Davis' target totals combined. So it's not as if Davis didn't have opportunities. In fact, he was the 20th-most targeted wide receiver in 2018.

Unfortunately, of his 86 catchable passes, Davis had a 75.5% catch rate. That number may sound good until you realize no Top 12 fantasy receiver put up less than 82%.

Red Zone Targets

He also saw 15 of the team's 59 passing attempts from inside the red zone, which is roughly a 25% market share. That's not too shabby. For reference, Kenny Golladay saw the same number of red zone targets, but that only accounted for 20% market share.

But Golladay came down with twice as many red zone touchdowns. So yes, hooray for opportunity! It bodes well that he's the go-to guy on his team, but that will only get you so far.

Snap Percentage

Davis didn't play less than 81% of offensive snaps in a week until the last game of the season. Compare that to Chris Godwin, who was on the field for just 64.2% of snaps over the season. Davis and Godwin finished back to back in PPR formats.

Once again, tremendous opportunity, which remain about the same heading into 2019. But it's a shame his production and his opportunity didn't match up.

Offensive Question Marks

We have no idea what Mike Vrabel is capable of doing with a healthy team, because in his only year as a head coach, his quarterback was beyond dinged up. And now he has a new offensive coordinator in So analyzing the numbers of Vrabel's one year as a head coach doesn't really do us much good. What we do know is that his defensive background suggests 2018's emphasis on the run wasn't a fluke.

The bigger question is what can a healthy Marcus Mariota do for this team and, specifically, Corey Davis? We know it's unlikely the Titans throw less than they did in 2018, when they ranked 28th in passing touchdowns and 29th in passing yards. Hypothetically, there's nowhere to go but up. But what's the ceiling with Mariota under center?

Mariota's best season to date -- by far -- was his sophomore outing in 2016, when he threw for 3,426 yards and 26 TDs. Those numbers had him finishing tied for 10th in passing TDs and 23rd in passing yards. That's...fine. Mariota's never been one to rack up yards with his arm, but so long as the team can get into the red zone, he's proven he can deliver. (Hell, he put up those TD numbers with Rishard Matthews as his primary weapon.)

An Impending Quarterback Switch?

This is the final year of Mariota's rookie contract, and the team recently brought over some insurance at the backup QB position. Ryan Tannehill's 1-year, $2 million contract is hardly more than a drop in the bucket, but Tennessee bringing on a starting quarterback to play behind Mariota gives him more real competition for the job than he's ever had.

If Mariota can't stay healthy, or if the coaches decide Tannehill gives them a better chance at winning, a QB change could end up being the best thing for Corey Davis. Maybe.

Over the course of his career, Mariota has only had one receiver finish in the Top 25 (Rishard Matthews in 2016). Meanwhile, Tannehill has had 3 different receivers do so (Brian Hartline in 2013, Mike Wallace in 2014, Jarvis Landry in 2015 and 2016). Does that mean much? After all, that could easily be a difference in offensive scheme.

Looking at the raw numbers tells a different story, in that it tells the exact same story. Let me explain. Mariota and Tannehill have near-identical career averages in completion percentage (63.2, 62.8), TD percentage (4.3, 4.2), and INT percentage (2.6, 2.6). Tannehill tends to put up more yards in a season (3,400 to Mariota's 3,000), but aside from that, they're practically the same person. Well, except that Tannehill has a lower Y/A and a lower overall passer rating.

Who knows, maybe subbing in Tannehill will exorcise some mental block that allows Davis to thrive. Or maybe Tannehill and Davis would have a natural rapport. But from a statistical perspective, there's not much to get excited about with the current QB depth chart.

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No Longer The Only Game In Town

Does 2nd round pick A.J. Brown help or hurt Davis' value in 2019? Does free agent pickup Adam Humphries change the equation? How about the return of Delanie Walker? Last year, Davis' main competition for targets was Dion Lewis. This year, there's a whole flock of competent pass-catchers to contend with.

Hypothetically, having other solid options for Mariota to throw to should open things up for the whole offense to get moving. And that could increase the quality of Davis' targets by taking some coverage away. But in order for Davis to climb up the fantasy ladder, he either has to be hyper-efficient with those targets, or hope the offense sees a significant uptick in overall plays and passes per game.

Now, again, we don't know how Vrabel will operate this offense. But let's just say for argument's sake that the Titans hit 528 passing attempts, which was Mariota's average in his first two healthy years. Who gets the ball?

The last time Delanie Walker was on the field, he saw 22% of the team's targets. In fact, he's seen at least 100 targets in each of his last 4 healthy seasons. Adam Humphries saw 17% of Tampa Bay's passing targets in 2018. We can be fairly sure Dion Lewis will still see close to his 50 target average. Tennessee didn't draft A.J. Brown in the 2nd round to "learn" his first year, so pencil him in for Davis' 13% rookie target share, at least. And the team won't just forget about Taywan Taylor, either. Very quickly, we're eating our way through that target pie.

Maybe Davis eats all the leftovers. Which would be a massive fantasy meal. But nothing about Vrabel's football history -- or the way the offense was run last year -- suggests the Titans will even crack 500 passing attempts. Or come close.

Corey Davis' 2019 Projection

Let's assume the Titans are able to add another 63 passes onto last year's total to crack 500. Using a career high catch percentage of 60%, his career average 12.8 YPC, and assuming a regression in target share down to a more reasonable 20%, Davis would have the following stats: 100 targets, 60 receptions, for 768 yards. We can suppose he'll add a couple of extra touchdowns onto last year's total due to the attention taken away by Walker in the end zone, so give him 6 TDs.

Those 172.8 fantasy points would have put him at WR33 in 2018, just behind Mike Williams. Luckily, he's currently being drafted much lower than that, at WR42 according to Fantasy Football Calculator. So unless the hype train starts rolling again, Davis could provide surprisingly nice value in the 9th round.

Just don't expect him to be elite. And don't expect him to be consistent. Realize that you're taking him as a boom or bust option and be comfortable riding the waves of Corey Davis.

Fantasy Knuckleheads

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Fantasy Football – The Top 5 Quarterbacks To Avoid

Fantasy Football – The Top 5 Quarterbacks To Avoid What’s up ladies and gentlemen! We’re back with another early NFL article but this time we’ll be discussing the top five quarterbacks to avoid this upcoming season. We can’t have the good without the bad, right? When it comes to season long fantasy football there are […]

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Fantasy Football – The Top 5 Quarterbacks To Watch For

Fantasy Football – Top 5 Quarterbacks To Watch For Welcome ladies and gentlemen! It’s your NFL addict , Freshie, and I’m gearing up for an exciting 2019 season! Football is almost back with about 80 days before week 1. So lets gear up and be ready for week 1 by covering some of the top players […]

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2019 Fantasy Football Dynasty League Rookie Draft Results

Fantasy Football Dynasty League Rookie Draft Preparing for your upcoming Fantasy Football Dynasty league rookie draft and mocks are not cutting it? I think it might be beneficial for readers to see the results of an actual dynasty league rookie draft. I will share with you the results of the first 2 rounds of my […]

2019 Fantasy Football Dynasty League Rookie Draft Results - Fantasy CPR - Fantasy CPR - A Fantasy Sports blog for news, rumors, and updates on all Fantasy Sports

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Can James Conner repeat last years production?

The 2018 season was a breakout year for James Conner. When Le’Veon Bell sat out the beginning of the season, the expectation was that Conner would be an admirable fill in until Bell came back. This was not the case as he blew away these projections. In his first year, James Conner ran for 135 […]

Can James Conner repeat last years production? - Fantasy CPR - Fantasy CPR - A Fantasy Sports blog for news, rumors, and updates on all Fantasy Sports

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Fantasy Football: Beware the Trendy First-Rounder

The Fantasy Football breakout star, the rookie sensation, the free-agent acquisition… Year after year there’s always one or two players who climb to the top of fantasy football draft boards after being relatively unknown in previous years. For some, the time among the “fantasy elite” was short-lived. Although others would become perennial league-winners. Let’s take […]

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DraftKings PGA: 2019 US Open Picks and Analysis

DraftKings PGA: 2019 US Open Picks and Analysis Rory McIlroy showcased his superb iron-play at the RBC Canadian Open. He ran away with the tournament, firing a 61 in the final round to win by 7 strokes. Others have said that Hamilton Golf and Country Club is a corollary course to Pebble Beach, the site […]

DraftKings PGA: 2019 US Open Picks and Analysis - Fantasy CPR - Fantasy CPR - A Fantasy Sports blog for news, rumors, and updates on all Fantasy Sports

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NASCAR DFS Pit Stop: FireKeepers Casino 400 – Cup Series From Michigan

Welcome to NASCAR DFS Pit Stop for Sunday’s FireKeepers Casino 400 from Michigan International Speedway (MIS). This week the #22 Ford of Joey Logano has the pole with Aric Almirola joining him on the front row. Sunday’s FireKeepers Casino 400 is the 15th race this season and is also the first of two races here at […]

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Stop Expecting Every Patriots Tight End To Be The Next Gronk

NASCAR DFS Pit Stop: LTi Printing 250 – Xfinity Series From Michigan

Welcome to NASCAR DFS Pit Stop for Saturday afternoons NASCAR Xfinity Series race from Michigan International Speedway (MIS). On Saturday the NASCAR Xfinity Series competes in the 28th running of the LTi Printing 250. Tyler Reddick, Christopher Bell and Cole Custer have distanced themselves from the field in the win column with 3 wins each for […]

NASCAR DFS Pit Stop: LTi Printing 250 – Xfinity Series From Michigan - Fantasy CPR - Fantasy CPR - A Fantasy Sports blog for news, rumors, and updates on all Fantasy Sports

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MLB DFS Pitching Primer: Friday 6/7 – Roll With The “Hean-Dog”

MLB DFS Pitching: Friday, 6/7 Welcome back to the Friday edition of the MLB DFS Pitching Primer! I’m Thunder Dan and I’ll be covering pitching for MLB DFS on all season long at FantasyCPR. I’m including both FanDuel and DraftKings pricing and will be covering my favorite pitching options for both sites. The goal of […]

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NASCAR DFS Pit Stop: SpeedyCash.com 400 – NTS from Texas

Welcome to NASCAR DFS Pit Stop for Friday’s NASCAR Gander Outdoor Truck Series race. This week the Truck Series visits Texas Motor Speedway for the second time this season in Friday night’s SpeedyCash.com 400. It’s the first race of the new “Triple Truck Challenge,” which is similar to the Xfinity Series “Dash 4 Cash” they […]

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NBA DFS: Finals Game 4 Showdown Picks

NBA DFS: Game 4 Showdown Picks Hello there, NBA fans, and welcome to my Finals showdown article. I covered the NBA for five months this season and since then I’ve been on the MLB beat now for two months straight. I wanted to take an opportunity to put some NBA DFS content out there today […]

NBA DFS: Finals Game 4 Showdown Picks - Fantasy CPR - Fantasy CPR - A Fantasy Sports blog for news, rumors, and updates on all Fantasy Sports

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Fantasy Football: Where Should You Draft Gurley in 2019?

Fantasy Football: Where Should You Draft Gurley in 2019? It seems like just last year when Rams running back Todd Gurley was the consensus first overall pick in fantasy football drafts (note the sarcasm). Even after a 2018 finish as fantasy’s overall RB3 whilst scoring 21 total TDs, he’s off many owners’ re-draft radars this […]

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Fantasy Football Widget

We're happy to announce a new feature for website owners. You can now add custom fantasy football widgets to display content from Fantasy Football Nerd within your website. Creating a fantasy football widget is easy. Simply select from one of the available widgets, customize it to match your site's colors, and we'll automatically create the code that you can copy and paste into your website. That's it. We're starting out with 5 widgets that you can pick from. Draft Rankings Display a ...

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Why You Should Back Away From Mike Williams In 2019

Why You Should Back Away From Mike Williams In 2019

Fantasy football darlings. They often exist outside of logic. They aren't always propped up with stats or projections or even logic-based arguments. Unwarranted hype can be a powerful fantasy football aphrodisiac. We see players we like, and because they have talent, and they performed well in small sample sizes, we say "That's our guy! That's a player I need to target!"

That unfiltered affection can compromise our ability to make sound judgments about a player, though. We get those big cartoon hearts in our eyes and we refuse to see the warning signs swirling overhead. We swat away all the rational counterarguments and we proclaim "Mike Williams will be a league winner in 2019!"

And that way, my friends, lies danger.

2018 Finish: WR32

In his first full season, Mike Williams' per game averages were as follows: 4.1 targets, 2.7 receptions, 41.5 yards, and 0.6 touchdowns. On a weekly basis, Williams looked good but not great, finishing as the WR42 in points per game. But a few choice injuries to other wide receivers gave him a nicer end-of-year fantasy finish than those numbers suggest.

Those numbers, by the way, are awfully meek for a player currently being drafted in the 5th round. It's the touchdown stat that's really got him shooting up fantasy draft boards. But when you look at his efficiency numbers, that's where trouble starts to brew.

Williams scored a touchdown on 15% of his targets, and on 23% of his receptions. Those numbers are better than Tyler Lockett, who gets equal amounts of praise and skepticism for "breaking football" last year with his outrageous level of efficiency.

Williams' yards per reception was good for 11th at the position with 15.4, another remarkable feat of efficiency. Both of these stats look absolutely ripe for regression. So the question for 2019 is whether Williams can make up for a dip in efficiency by gaining an increased role in the offense. He does, after all, possess all the physical tools to make himself an attractive target for Philip Rivers. Supposedly.

An Unfortunate Player Comp

Williams is a beastly man who can easily outmuscle defenders, like they're infants wearing shoulder pads. His frame helps him make catches even when he fails to get separation, which happens quite frequently. He's a prototypical jump ball receiver who can contort his body in any way he needs to in order to come down with the catch.

That's an exciting type of player to watch, but it's a dangerous type to fall in love with for fantasy football. After all, even Kelvin Benjamin looked great for a brief time in his career...

Yep. That's right. I just compared Mike Williams, fantasy darling, to Kelvin Benjamin, fantasy pariah. Before you try to reach through the screen and strangle me (that's not how the internet works, by the way), let's just do some quick player comparisons.

Both were 1st round picks, both ran a similar 40-yard dash, and both have an identical vertical. But here's the tougher pill to swallow: Benjamin actually has better agility metrics, a bigger catch radius, and (gulp) a better height adjusted speed score.

And look, I know these measurements aren't the be-all and end-all for evaluating a player's potential. And to be fair to Williams, he had a much earlier breakout age and a higher College Dominator score than Benjamin. BUT you can't completely ignore these red flags in his profile, either.

Especially when they're introduced alongside some other situational problems...

A Brief History of Chargers Playcalling

Ken Whisenhunt has been the offensive coordinator for the Chargers since 2016, which is a big enough sample size to pull some relevant stats for how this offense might look in 2019.

In that 3 years, the team has averaged 558 passes each season, good for 56% of their total plays. The league average over that span is 557 passes, so Rivers is sitting right on the NFL mean. He's not an exceptionally high volume quarterback.

Just for fun, let's include Whisenhunt's tenure as the Titans head coach from 2015-2016. In that span, his team averaged 532 pass plays per season, also good for 56% of the Titans' total play calls. So you could say he's pretty consistent like that.

But despite being mostly average in how often they're throwing the ball, the Chargers have had tremendous success getting into the end zone. Under Whisenhunt, Rivers has averaged 31 touchdowns per season, better than the league average of 25. And he's done so while spreading the ball around to everyone with a pulse.

In fact, Mike Williams is the only player in that span to notch double digit receiving touchdowns. Even crazier? Williams is the first player in a Whisenhunt-led offense to see more than 8 TDs since 2009. (That other player was Larry Fitzgerald by the way.) Maybe you view that as a positive for the young wide receiver. I view as another area of regression.

Target Share Matters

The history of the No. 2 receiver with Whisenhunt's Chargers hasn't been exactly a dream for fantasy owners, either. The team's WR2 has averaged 14% of the total target share, and one of those years was super inflated thanks to Keenan Allen's absence. Removing the Allen injury year, it dips down to just 12%. Williams saw 12.8% in 2018.

For reference, Cooper Kupp had an almost 10% share of the Rams' yearly receiving targets in 2018. And he missed 8 games. So...yeah. That's a big yikes on the target front for Williams. Fun fact alert: According to Fantasy Football Calculator, Kupp is currently going in the early 5th round, only a handful of spots before Williams.

Here are just a few other No. 2 receivers who had more than 12.8% of their team's targets: John Brown (17.4%), Donte Moncrief (16.6%), Mohamed Sanu (15.2%), Jermaine Kearse (14.5%), and Antonio Callway (13.7%). Are they better players than Mike Williams? Probably not. But their situations are much better for fantasy purposes.

If you really want to get depressed, you can take a trip back to Whisenhunt's Tennessee days, where the WR2 in those offenses averaged a paltry 7% of the market share. Now, I don't expect Williams' role to shrink to that size, but again, it shows a clear pattern in how Whisenhunt operates his offense.

From a pure playcalling perspective (alliteration for the win!), the Chargers 2019 season looks to shake out like this: 560-ish passing plays, with Williams getting somewhere between 67 and 78 targets. Which is...not great. Even the high end of that target prediction is comparable to 2018 Josh Doctson numbers. Are you drafting 2018 Josh Doctson numbers in the 5th round? I'm not.

Red Zone Stats

Here it is. Where Mike Williams really buttered his bread in 2018. In his sophomore year, Williams red zone numbers looked like this: 14 targets, 8 receptions, 7 TDs, 57.14% catch rate, and a 19.4% target share. Now those are numbers to get behind.

Unfortunately, last year Hunter Henry was sidelined, and the Chargers were relying on a 38-year-old tight end as a desperate fill-in. Antonio Gates did not dominate in the red zone. That left a sizable hold for Williams to work within.

Now, here are Henry's 2016-17 averages in the red zone: 14.5 targets, 8 receptions, 5.5 TDs, 53.19% catch rate, and a 16.7% target share. And folks, Henry is fully rested and recovered from that ACL injury. It's safe to say he picks up pretty much where he left off.

Here's another rough stat for Whisenhunt's No. 2 receivers: They've averaged just 6 TDs over the last 3 seasons, and that includes Williams' double digit scores from 2018. Now, I think we can all agree Mike Williams is a bigger red zone threat than Dontrelle Inman or Tyrell Williams. So maybe that average doesn't represent what we should expect going forward.

Still, can Williams and Henry find a way to co-exist as red zone threats? That's the question that will probably decide whether Williams is considered a bust at the end of the 2019 season.

The Arguments In Favor Of A Big Year

I've been pretty negative so far. If you've gotten this far, you deserve to hear something positive about Mike Williams' situation. So here we go.

The common argument in favor of Mike Williams seems to boil down to two things, 1) "If he did that much with so few opportunities, imagine what he can with Tyrell Williams out of the way!" And 2) "This is going to be his third-year breakout!"

But those assuming Mike simply absorbs the departed Williams' vacated target share need to re-evaluate how the Chargers spread the ball around. It's much more likely Travis Benjamin slides into the hole left by Tyrell and scoops up his targets (and touchdowns) in the process. That's just the way the Chargers like to do things.

Okay...that wasn't very positive, either. So let me try again.

The third-year breakout is one of fantasy football's most beautiful tropes. It hinges on the fact that transitioning from college to the the pros is often difficult, and it takes receivers a little while to catch up to the speed of the NFL. And it's entirely possible Williams takes that step forward in his third year and becomes an even better player than he was in 2018. That could mean he defies regression and somehow becomes more efficient.

But there has to be an opportunity for them to do so. Can he eat into Keenan Allen's workload a little because he's just that talented? Absolutely. He could. But unless he actually surpasses Allen as the Chargers' WR1, you still may not like how his season ends up.

...Dammit. I did it again.

Mike Williams' 2019 Projection

Attention all anti-math, people. You may want to brace yourselves, because we're about to dig deeper into some numbers.

Using the team's average passing volume (558), historical target share for WR2s (13%, just to be nice), Williams' 2018 catch percentage (65.2%), he would see around 72 targets for 47 receptions.

Keeping him at 15.4 YPR would be incredibly generous, considering the league average hasn't gone above 12.0 YPR since 1998. But just to be fair to Williams' talent, we can leave that number at his ultra-respectable career average of 14.1. On 47 receptions, that's 663 yards.

Now the tough part: the touchdowns. That number, as I suggested before, is bound to come down. But again, in deference to his raw talent, we'll have him leading the team with 8 TDs, the previous high for Whisenhunt's offense over the last decade.

If you're keeping score, that tracks out to 72 targets, 47 receptions, 663 yards, and 8 TDs. In PPR formats, that's 161.3 fantasy points, which would have made him WR36 last year. That's an 11 spot drop from his current ADP of WR25. And that's hoping a lot of things go right.

Do you really want to roll the dice on a player in such a rough situation? If you do, you hold onto those cartoon hearts. Otherwise, heed these warning signs.

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NASCAR DFS Pit Stop: Pocono Green 250 – Xfinity Series From Pocono - Fantasy CPR - Fantasy CPR - A Fantasy Sports blog for news, rumors, and updates on all Fantasy Sports

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