Is Mike Williams Playing This Week? Should I Start Mike Williams In Week 17 If He Plays?

Week 17 has arrived, and with that comes all sorts of injuries to deal with on top of plenty of COVID chaos, all of which has made setting fantasy football lineups really tricky. This is the fantasy championship week for most fantasy football leagues, so it's crunch time, and making the correct start/sit decisions can be the difference between winning or seeing your season come to a close.

Let's check in on the injuries for the Los Angeles Chargers wide receivers and their Week 17 Sunday afternoon game against the Denver Broncos.

Is Mike Williams playing this week on Sunday against the Broncos? Should I start Mike Williams if he does play? Can I still start Josh Palmer? Below we take a quick look at the updated COVID status for Mike Williams and attempt to answer these questions.

Is Mike Williams Playing This Week Against the Broncos?

After being put on the COVID-19 list and missing last week's game, Mike Williams has been activated this week and is expected to play in Week 17 against the Denver Broncos. Because the NFL changed its COVID protocols, Mike Williams was able to return for Week 17 even though he is unvaccinated, which would have kept him out of this game under the old protocols.

Should I Start Mike Williams in Week 17 Against the Broncos?

There are a few levels to this question. For starters, Mike Williams tested positive for the virus and his unvaccinated, which leaves open the possibility that his experience with COVID would have an impact on his cardiovascular health. We have seen multiple players come back from a COVID absence and be honest about their struggles.

We also saw this update about Tyreek Hill after he was activated from the COVID-19 list:

With that said, Mike Williams' skillset is more about physical strength than speed and cardiovascular stamina. However, Williams simply hasn't been good of late. In half-PPR settings, Mike Williams has only scored double-digits twice since Week 6.

He also is returning to face a Broncos secondary that has been the 7th-best defense in terms of fantasy points allowed to WRs over the last four weeks. Over those last four games, the Broncos have allowed a combined 488 yards to wide receivers and only three total touchdowns. Considering Mike Williams also has to share receiving targets with Keenan Allen, Austin Ekeler, and Jared Cook, this is not a great matchup for him, making him a low-end WR3 or FLEX option.

Lastly, with Ekeler, Williams, and Jalen Guyton all back for this Sunday's game, Josh Palmer should go back to playing about 40% of the Chargers' snaps and seeing about a 5% target share. As such, he can't be started with confidence in any format.

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