Don’t forget about Tyrell Williams in your fantasy football drafts

He doesn’t garner attention like a fellow new wide receiver on his team, and Tyrell Williams‘ current ADP in fantasy football drafts shows it.

As the Oakland Raiders reshaped their wide receiver group this offseason, the headliner was the trade for Antonio Brown. But they also signed Tyrell Williams in free agency, after he spent the first four seasons of his career with the Chargers.

Williams is leaving one target hog No. 1 wide receiver (Keenan Allen) for another, better one in Brown. But in 2016, when Allen suffered a torn ACL in the season opener, Williams showed what he could with a bigger role, finishing with 69 receptions (on 119 targets) for 1,069 yards and seven touchdowns on his way to finishing as WR13 in standard leagues.

Brown will obviously take over a big chunk, but as ESPN’s Field Yates cited the Raiders have the most vacated targets in the league from last year with 356. Second place is the Baltimore Ravens with 298, and third place (the Jacksonville Jaguars) is an even 100 behind Oakland.

Behind Brown and Williams on the depth chart, the Raiders have a group that includes Hunter Renfrow, J.J. Nelson, Ryan Grant, Dwayne Harris, Keelan Doss and Marcell Ateman. So it’s safe to say there’ll be two primary targets for Derek Carr, with tight end Darren Waller also worth mentioning as everyone else divides up what remains.

Williams is a top-end downfield threat, with a career average of 16.3 yards per catch, and Carr has stood out as a deep passer.

A look at current average draft position (as of Thursday morning) on Fantasy Football Calculator shows Williams as WR53 (12-team standard leagues, pick 12.05). On Fantasy Pros he’s a little higher, at WR48 and at pick 124 overall (pick 10.04 in a 12-team league).

So Williams is being drafted as if his outlook is worse than the last two years, when he finished as WR46 (2018) and WR39 (2017) in standard scoring leagues when he dropped below 70 targets in both seasons.

It’s safe to say Williams will never repeat his 2016 finish as a top-15 fantasy wide receiver. But in terms of draft day value there’s no better one out there right now, since he’s going off the board as a WR5 with a WR3/WR4 floor and the potential to push into low-end WR2 territory.