The Case For Javonte Williams Beating Expectations In 2022

Going into draft season, a large section of the fantasy football community is at war over whether or not Denver Broncos running back Javonte Williams is a value at his current average draft position (ADP). One side of the community argues that he will beat expectations – after all he had a great rookie season and the team just improved the offense by acquiring Russell Wilson. The other side argues that he is going to be a fantasy football disappointment, primarily because Melvin Gordon III is still around.

In today's article, we look more closely at his profile – where the average person is drafting him, the positives of his fantasy profile, and the concerns of his fantasy profile to show why he is a great candidate to beat expectations in 2022.

Without further ado, let's dive in and figure out how we should be looking at Javonte Williams in 2022!

The Standard

Before making predictions about whether Javonte Williams will be a value or not in 2022, we need to figure out where he's starting from by looking at his 2021 fantasy finishes and his current 2022 average draft position (ADP).

2021 Fantasy Finishes 

• Standard Scoring: RB18 (161.9 total points, 9.5 fantasy PPG)
• 0.5 PPR Scoring: RB17 (183.4 total points, 10.8 fantasy PPG)
• PPR Scoring: RB17 (204.9 total points, 12.1 fantasy PPG)

2022 ADP (as of June 15th, 2022)

• ESPN: RB13 (25.5 overall)
• Yahoo: RB9 (16.3 overall)

What Javonte Williams Truthers Are Arguing

"The guy breaks tackles as if his life depended on it."

One of the things that have stood out about Javonte Williams during his football career is his ability to break tackles. During the 2020 college football season, Javonte Williams led the NCAA in missed tackles, posted the 4th most yards after contact (831), and broke the most tackles (75) in college football. He has continued his dominance in this area at the NFL level. During the 2021 NFL season, Javonte Williams had 460 yards after contact (2.3 per rushing attempt) which ranked as the 9th best in the league. He also led the NFL in broken tackles in 2021 with 31 and posted one of the highest broken tackle percentages in the league at 21.7%. He’s clearly got a lot of talent and it’s very encouraging to see that he’s already among the best in the league in the broken tackle and yards after contact department.

"He isn't just a one-trick pony...he showed he is also a capable pass-catcher."

During the 2021 NFL season, Javonte Williams showed that he’s capable both on the ground and through the air. On the ground, he put up 203 carries, 903 rushing yards, and four rushing touchdowns. Through the air, he put up 43 receptions on 53 targets for 316 receiving yards and 3 receiving touchdowns. Being a threat on both the ground and through the air makes Javonte Williams a little less reliant on game script compared to some other running backs and raises his floor and ceiling for fantasy purposes.

"Have you seen how many touches Nathaniel Hackett has generally given his running back room?"

Last year’s offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur had a pretty good track record with fantasy running backs, so when we initially heard that the Broncos were going to shake up their coaching staff it was easy to think that Javonte Williams’s fantasy value could drop. However, when the team hired former Green Bay Packers offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett to be their new head coach, these fears were alleviated.

Throughout his career as an offensive coordinator, Nathaniel Hackett has done a great job providing opportunities to his running backs on the ground as well as through the air. Some people may worry about some of his past tendencies to go with more of a running back by committee approach on the ground, but it’s important to remember that despite this his offense still has produced multiple top 10 fantasy RB seasons from guys like Aaron Jones and Leonard Fournette in the past, and he does this because his team runs the ball a lot in general.

Hackett will be able to get the most out of Javonte Williams's talent and help lead him to a strong fantasy finish in 2022.

"They got Russell Wilson this offseason. That offense is going to be fire and I want the lead back."

The Denver Broncos made a big trade this offseason to acquire former Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson. Wilson has been one of the best quarterbacks in the league over the last decade and will be a major upgrade over the quarterback room of Teddy Bridgewater and Drew Lock in 2021. With this move, we should expect the Denver Broncos offense to improve from the 19.7 points per game (23rd best in the NFL) they averaged in 2021 and have more scoring opportunities for the team's skill position players in 2022.

What Javonte Williams Non-Believers Are Arguing

"Melvin Gordon was pretty much as good as him in 2021."

The Denver Broncos decided to bring back the 29-year-old Melvin Gordon this offseason on a one-year deal. Melvin Gordon has seen 160+ carries and caught 28+ passes in every season he’s been in the league and in 2021 he finished with 203 carries, 918 rushing yards, eight rushing touchdowns, 28 receptions, 38 targets, 213 receiving yards, and two receiving touchdowns on the season. Nobody can deny that Gordon was a good running back in 2021, but what they can argue is that he's already reached the age 28 cliff and is soon approaching the 1800 carry cliff (1761 touches - 1477 carries). There's a very real chance that Gordon loses a step this year based on past running back data and overall this concern may be a little overblown as there is not enough consideration of the career trajectories of the two players – with Williams in the prime part of his career whereas Gordon is in the decline stage of his.

How Big A Concern Should This Be: This is a reasonable thing to be slightly worried about with Javonte Williams's fantasy profile as projecting how much of a role Melvin Gordon will have this season is the x-factor in figuring out Javonte Williams's fantasy value for the 2022 season. The concern may be a little overblown as there is not enough consideration of the situational changes from last year.

"He was pretty inconsistent in fantasy leagues during the 2021 season...who's to say that doesn't happen again?

In 0.5 PPR, Javonte Williams had two out of 17 games where he scored 0-5 fantasy points, seven out of 17 games where he scored 5-10 fantasy points, five out of 17 games where he scored 10-15 fantasy points, one out of 17 games where he scored 15-20 fantasy points, and two out of 17 games where he scored 20+ fantasy points. These aren't the most impressive weekly totals, but it's important to remember that he was a rookie last year in a subpar offense. With another year of experience and some changes to his situation, he should be a lot more consistent in his sophomore season.

How Big A Concern Should This Be: Not much of a concern. He was a rookie getting acclimated to the NFL level last year that was playing in a subpar offense. This shouldn't be as much of an issue in year two with more experience under his belt.

"His Red Zone Usage Leaves Something To Be Desired."

Last year Javonte Williams had 29 carries inside the twenty-yard line (T-24th), 21 carries inside the ten-yard line (T-13th), and nine carries inside the five-yard line (T-19th). These numbers were okay, so it makes sense to be a little worried about what his role in the red zone will be. The bottom line is that this is something that should improve a bit in 2022 given the improvements to the offense – leading to more red zone opportunities in general.

How Big A Concern Should This Be: Slight to mild concern. This usage should improve a bit with the Broncos' offensive improvements, but it is likely that there still are some other fantasy running backs that end up with higher red-zone usage in Javonte's draft range.

Personal Thoughts

Javonte Williams is going off the board as RB13 (25.4 overall) on ESPN and RB9 (16.2 overall) on Yahoo right now (early June). He’s a good value at this spot because he had a lot of things improve in his situation and he has the type of fantasy profile that generally projects well – he's young (22), proven himself a capable dual-threat back, and has impressive yards after contact numbers. His biggest concern is probably Melvin Gordon and while Gordon has been reliable in the past, the consensus seems to overestimate his likely role for the 2022 NFL season given the RB age cliff. Outside of possibly Jonathan Taylor, every running back has at least one major concern in their fantasy profile this year – whether it's their injury history, career trajectory (age), competition for touches, offensive line, quarterback play, coaching staff, or something else. You have to pick and choose the risks you are willing to take, and Javonte's only major risk is his competition with the 29-year-old Gordon – who may end up being washed anyway. With the talent and situation that Javonte Williams will have in 2022, he seems like a good bet to beat fantasy expectations. 

Make sure to follow Eli on Twitter (@3li_handles)

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