Fantasy Football Today - Keenan Allen or Mike Williams? (08/13 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: August 14, 2022

Who will be the best Chargers WR this season? Jacob makes the case for Mike Williams while Adam defends Keenan Allen. You can also follow the full-length Fantasy Football Today podcast here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fantasy-football-today-podcast/id261735167 Get 20% off Fantasy Football Today merch: https://store.cbssports.com/collections/fantasy-football-today%20?utm_source=podcast-apple-com&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=buy-our-merch&utm_content=fantasy-football-collection Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @ctowerscbs, You can listen to Fantasy Football Today in 5 on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today in 5 podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today in 5 podcast." Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/fantasyfootballtoday Join our Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/FantasyFootballToday/ Sign up for the FFT newsletter https://www.cbssports.com/newsletter To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What does possible sound like for your business? It's having the spend to power your scale with no preset spending limit. Redefine possible with Business Platinum. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms and conditions apply. Visit amex.ca slash business platinum. Keenan Allen led the Chargers in receiving for four straight seasons until 2021. Then it was Mike Williams by a nose

who will be better this year. Find out right now on fantasy football today in five. Jacob Gibbs is here. I am Adam Azer. Let's profile these two chargers wide receivers. All right. Where do we start? Jacob Keenan Allen versus Mike Williams. Uh, yeah, like you said, uh, Mike Williams, I produced them last year. I think these two have kind of been turning in opposite directions for a few years now. And a lot of the metrics that I look at do show that Mike Williams has maybe surpassed them at this point in their careers. I think Mike Williams is sort of at the peak of his career, whereas Keenan Allen is, you

know, he's hit the 30 mark and he's kind of on the way down. The first metric that I want to talk about is one that I just made up, actually. It's called volume hog rate. That's an advanced stat, one that you make up. That's as advanced as it gets. Yep. You're not going to find this anywhere. We say that a lot, but you truly won't find this one anywhere else. So yeah, I just published an article on Sportsline this Monday about volume hog rate or VHR. It's derived from two other stats that I created. We're really getting in the weeds here and they are target hog rate and air yardage hog rate. And those two just represent the percentage of targets or air yards that a player accounts for while on the field, which I think offers a more accurate representation of

players' ability to demand volume than, you know, traditional target share or area ordered share, which doesn't account for missed games or a game where a player leaves with an injury or even just, you know, games where young players haven't quite earned a full time role yet. So I prefer this. I think it is a truer look at, you know, what a player would do if they do fill a full time role. So definitely go check that article out. I go into more detail about how VHR is calculated, why I think it's important. And one of the things that really stood out to me from the VHR data was that Mike Williams had a higher rate than Keenan Allen in 2021.

And really, like I said, 2021 just, you know, kind of marked a new high for Williams across the board. VHR isn't the only rate that has just been steadily climbing year over year for Williams. And then we saw peak in 2021. So past four years, his VHR by season, I need to, it's a new stat.

I'm not quite used to the same VHR of and over. 2018 was at 46%, then 48% the next year, then 49% in 2020. And then last year, all the way up to 54%. Meanwhile, Keenan Allen, past four years, 57%, down to 51%. Then back up to 56% in 2020.

And then all the way down to 49% his first season, under 50% in over six years. So it's just, you know, when the two were on the field, Mike Williams was the one who was getting higher volume, and we did see him outproduce him. This is just another metric that points towards that. Okay. So how about, this is a great stat that I like that you're talking about more, the first down target rate. This is something you like to see. Who gets targeted a lot on first down and what have you noticed there? Right. So first down targets have been worth

20% more fantasy points than targets coming on all other downs. And Keenan Allen typically has just dominated the first down targets for the chargers, but it's another one where we've seen that rate slowly declining year over year. And then last year was all the way down to 22%, which was the lowest we've seen from Allen in quite some time. Meanwhile, Mike Williams has not had a rate above 14% in any of his four seasons prior to 2021. Last year was all the way up to 24%. So higher than Keenan Allen. And this is important because it just indicates the team is, you know, being intentional about getting the ball into Mike Williams hands on first downs. You know, he's someone that they're looking to more often than Keenan Allen, actually, which I thought was really, really interesting. It's not just that, you know, his, his rising

now is falling. He did, you know, surpass him in this rate as well. All right. Finally, one more case I'm guessing you're going to make for Mike Williams here. What can you tell us? Yeah. So there are some interesting in-season splits when you break it down. Mike Williams was really, he was banged up mid-season. And so if you just, this is, you know, obviously selective sample sizing, but if you exclude week six through 11, where a lot of his metrics fell off. Oh boy. Yeah. Yeah. If you do, if you take a look at his worst games. Okay. If you exclude those weeks, his target per hour run rate on first downs goes all the way up to 29%.

Keenan Allen's drops to 20% and then just straight up out targeting as well. 25% target per hour rate on all routes. Whereas Allen's drops to 20% and then just straight up out targeted him as well. 25% target per hour rate on all routes. Um, whereas Allen's is down to 24%. And then the other thing I would bring up is that with Josh Palmer on the field, Keenan Allen's target per hour rate fell dramatically. Um, whereas Mike Williams did not. And I think that that does make some sense intuitively because the guy he's replacing is Jalen Guyton was more of a downfield route runner runs routes more similar to Mike Williams. And there's also someone who doesn't draw targets at a high rate, whereas Josh Palmer actually has drawn targets

at a somewhat decent rate. Guyton's been one of the lowest in the entire league. So I think replacing him with Palmer is not insignificant. And when they did that, at least last year, it did affect Allen, did not affect Mike Williams. So you're taking Mike Williams over Keenan Allen? I have. I am taking Mike Williams.

I think he's probably through 13 and Allen is 15 right now. I like them both. High-powered offense, but I think there's a. I am taking Mike Williams in these parties. He was 13 and Allen is 15 right now. I like them both. High-powered offense, but I think there's a lot more upside with Mike Williams. Yeah, I compare Keenan Allen at this point a little bit to Julian Edelman, who at ages 30, 32, and 33 had very similar seasons. Year after year after year, he averaged right around 70 yards per game, and that's a 1,200-yard pace, just about a 1,200- yard pace over 17 games, but with a ton of targets and a ton of catches. Julian Edelman averaged 105 catches, 1187 yards, six touchdowns on 162 targets. And that was at

ages 30, 32, and 33. He missed a year with a torn ACL in there. So if Edelman can do that, Keenan Allen's basically become a just a catch monster I could see the case for Mike Williams in a non-PPR for sure in half PPR but not in full PPR for me and the split for Mike Williams for me is the first five games of the season he was the number two wide receiver in fantasy the last 11 games of the season he was not even a top 40 wide receiver I was sorry he was 39th so uh that's per game. If the injuries are the reason why, maybe. I think the 8-out was the reason why. He was running shorter routes at the

beginning of the year. That was when, or he was being targeted on shorter routes anyway. That was when his production was at its best. After that, he went back to being the Mike Williams that we know and love or know and can't stand. Extremely inconsistent. So I think, I love him in round 5. I see a lot of our guys take him around for that.

That's feels a little early for me, maybe late round four. I'm still on Keenan Allen, especially in PPR. All right. I guess I got the last word there. Ha ha ha. We'll talk to you about Jalen Tolbert on our next episode of fantasy football

today.