Yesterday, Broncos beat reporter Zac Stevens shared that according to offensive coordinator Justin Outten, Denver's RBs will be on a "pitch count" this season. The reaction on social media was swift. Lots of worried faces (if we could see tweeters' faces) and, presumably, many shifting rankings.
I want to take a minute to step back and analyze what this means, and I'm not just talking about coach speak. Because the regular season is 30 days away, which is a mini-season when it comes to unsettled depth charts. So for starters, even if we take Outten's words at face value, there's nothing preventing this team from abandoning whatever pitch count they envision today and giving Williams bell-cow touches.
But let's assume for a moment that Denver is playing it incredibly smart with their up-and-coming franchise RB. He wasn't heavily used in college. Maybe they've run the numbers and determined that Williams' power-running style and 300+ yearly touches won't mix. Perhaps they want to minimize injury risks and maximize utility throughout the length of his rookie contract.
Williams is my RB6. He started the summer at around 11 or 12 and has gradually worked his way up, most recently leapfrogging Najee Harris. So I need to assess if this pitch count aligns with an RB6 projection. Is he a safe first-round pick, or should he drop to round 2?
Here's the reality: Williams was the overall RB17 last season. He averaged 14.5 touches per game to Melvin Gordon's 14.4, though that edge was due to starting one game while Gordon sat. Williams tied Gordon for 15th in the league in carries and 12th in touches. Gordon out-scored him 10-7, in part because he held a slight usage edge over Williams inside the 5- and 10-yard lines.
I interpret Outten's "pitch count" words as (a) being malleable enough to mean just about anything, and (b) no less than what Williams earned last year. These are reasonable assumptions, I think. 14.5 touches per game are not considered "a lot," even by today's NFL standards. Clearly they were near the upper tier last season. But there's also plenty of room to grow. 15.5 touches per game would still qualify as a pitch count relative to last year, and it also would invite the possibility of a 5%-10% fantasy-point bump, depending on how many of those additional touches are coming through the air. For context, a 12% point bump last season would have pushed Williams into the top 10.
And we should also factor in touchdowns in an offense that frequently stalled in 2021 thanks to sub-par quarterbacking. It would seem reasonable to expect Williams' TD total to jump from seven to at least nine or 10, and that doesn't even consider how much more goal-line work he'll get as he (gradually?) assumes the 1A role.
So if we're concerned only with floors instead of ceilings, and we begin with an RB17 floor (Williams' 2021 production), consider how close he can get to RB10-12 with only a slight increase in usage and scoring. The jump, then, from RB10-12 to RB6 comes down to the intangibles, like a tangible uptick in goal-line work, or enough 18+ touch performances to put him on track for 300+.
We should also remember Leonard Fournette was the RB6 last year on only three more touches. James Conner was the RB5 on five fewer touches. Both were in timeshares last summer before breaking through--Fournette with Ronald Jones and Conner with (or really, behind) Chase Edmonds. These breakouts are not often identifiable. And in fact, Williams' RB25 ADP last September was seven spots ahead of Fournette (RB32) and 10 ahead of Conner (RB35). It's not like we woke up during the season and realized Fournette and Conner are good at football. They simply seized their respective opportunities and racked up buckets of points.
From where I'm sitting, RB6 seems very realistic for Williams. The Broncos were tied for 14th in rushing attempts last year. It's not as if they topped out with the Williams/Gordon combo and are now headed for a regression. I frequently bet on ascending talents, because their value frequently is based more on what they've done than what they could reasonably do. Williams is the prototypical fantasy riser: an outstanding talent whose numbers should increase across the board. The question is simply "How much?" The answer, I believe, is "more than a pitch count suggests."
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I want to take a minute to step back and analyze what this means, and I'm not just talking about coach speak. Because the regular season is 30 days away, which is a mini-season when it comes to unsettled depth charts. So for starters, even if we take Outten's words at face value, there's nothing preventing this team from abandoning whatever pitch count they envision today and giving Williams bell-cow touches.
But let's assume for a moment that Denver is playing it incredibly smart with their up-and-coming franchise RB. He wasn't heavily used in college. Maybe they've run the numbers and determined that Williams' power-running style and 300+ yearly touches won't mix. Perhaps they want to minimize injury risks and maximize utility throughout the length of his rookie contract.
Williams is my RB6. He started the summer at around 11 or 12 and has gradually worked his way up, most recently leapfrogging Najee Harris. So I need to assess if this pitch count aligns with an RB6 projection. Is he a safe first-round pick, or should he drop to round 2?
Here's the reality: Williams was the overall RB17 last season. He averaged 14.5 touches per game to Melvin Gordon's 14.4, though that edge was due to starting one game while Gordon sat. Williams tied Gordon for 15th in the league in carries and 12th in touches. Gordon out-scored him 10-7, in part because he held a slight usage edge over Williams inside the 5- and 10-yard lines.
I interpret Outten's "pitch count" words as (a) being malleable enough to mean just about anything, and (b) no less than what Williams earned last year. These are reasonable assumptions, I think. 14.5 touches per game are not considered "a lot," even by today's NFL standards. Clearly they were near the upper tier last season. But there's also plenty of room to grow. 15.5 touches per game would still qualify as a pitch count relative to last year, and it also would invite the possibility of a 5%-10% fantasy-point bump, depending on how many of those additional touches are coming through the air. For context, a 12% point bump last season would have pushed Williams into the top 10.
And we should also factor in touchdowns in an offense that frequently stalled in 2021 thanks to sub-par quarterbacking. It would seem reasonable to expect Williams' TD total to jump from seven to at least nine or 10, and that doesn't even consider how much more goal-line work he'll get as he (gradually?) assumes the 1A role.
So if we're concerned only with floors instead of ceilings, and we begin with an RB17 floor (Williams' 2021 production), consider how close he can get to RB10-12 with only a slight increase in usage and scoring. The jump, then, from RB10-12 to RB6 comes down to the intangibles, like a tangible uptick in goal-line work, or enough 18+ touch performances to put him on track for 300+.
We should also remember Leonard Fournette was the RB6 last year on only three more touches. James Conner was the RB5 on five fewer touches. Both were in timeshares last summer before breaking through--Fournette with Ronald Jones and Conner with (or really, behind) Chase Edmonds. These breakouts are not often identifiable. And in fact, Williams' RB25 ADP last September was seven spots ahead of Fournette (RB32) and 10 ahead of Conner (RB35). It's not like we woke up during the season and realized Fournette and Conner are good at football. They simply seized their respective opportunities and racked up buckets of points.
From where I'm sitting, RB6 seems very realistic for Williams. The Broncos were tied for 14th in rushing attempts last year. It's not as if they topped out with the Williams/Gordon combo and are now headed for a regression. I frequently bet on ascending talents, because their value frequently is based more on what they've done than what they could reasonably do. Williams is the prototypical fantasy riser: an outstanding talent whose numbers should increase across the board. The question is simply "How much?" The answer, I believe, is "more than a pitch count suggests."
---
Sign up for my 2022 Fantasy Draft Rankings ("PFN Pass") or 1:1 Advisory Services ("Touchdown Pass"):
https://pass.profootballnetwork.com/