It’s been a tough year for fantasy football owners who have a piece of the Chargers passing game. After Keenan Allen and Danny Woodhead went down, it’s been a difficult-to-determine mishmash of Tyrell Williams, Dontrelle Inman, Hunter Henry and Travis Benjamin. It’s been tough to figure out this year which weeks are going to be the week to start a Chargers’ receiving option. This week, however, the signals are becoming abundantly clear that there is only one receiver to start this weekend for San Diego.[embedit snippet=”jeff-ads”]
Williams will become the beneficiary of Travis Benjamin’s misfortune, as Benjamin has been sidelined this week after aggravating his PCL injury last weekend against the Titans. So far this season, it’s been mostly Benjamin and Williams cannibalizing targets from each other, and with Benjamin doubtful to play this weekend, Williams will be the main beneficiary of the lost 6.5 targets per game that would normally go Benjamin’s way. While Inman will get some of these targets, I would get at least three of them going towards Williams.
On the surface, Williams has had an iffy last five games, going for 117, 28, 140, 4 and 65 (with a score) in his last five games. However, let’s remove the two games where he played the NFL’s best pass defense in the Denver Broncos from that equation, and you get 117 and a TD, 140, and 65 and a TD. That’s a three-game stretch you’ll take from literally any wide receiver in the league. He’s been playing great lately, but he needs to go up against not the league’s best defense to show it.
He not only gets not the league’s best pass defense this week, but he also gets one of the worst at stopping opposing wide receivers from racking up fantasy points. The Dolphins give up the seventh-most to the position this season and has given up fantasy relevant weeks to Jalin Marshall, Marquise Goodwin and Cobi Hamilton in the last three weeks (exactly). They aren’t just giving up big games to top-flight receivers (because they are doing that, too), but they’re also giving up big games to marginal receivers as well. All you need against the Dolphins is an opportunity, it seems, and Williams is going to get that.
Tyrell Williams has been playing well in his non-Broncos matchups lately, and with Travis Benjamin going down with an injury, he is going to get the target volume to sustain that success this weekend. He takes on a Dolphins squad that isn’t horrendous, but they aren’t doing much to stop the opposing wide receivers they go up against on a weekly basis. This week, it’s going to be Williams’ turn. He will be a backend WR2 with touchdown upside, and is a player you should slot into your lineup, but not at the expense of any studly weekly no-brainers.