Mike Williams is calling it a career. He’s informed the Chargers that he’s retiring after eight seasons.
Signed to a one-year deal worth $3 million, Williams was an outsider for much of a role. Ladd McConkey had a big rookie season, and Quentin Johnston and Tre Harris look more likely to be LA’s 2nd- and 3rd-best receivers.
But Williams is a former top-10 pick who’s had a pair of 1,000-yard seasons. He also caught 10 and 9 touchdowns in 2018 and 2021.
In the 2023 season, Williams looked like he might be on his way to his best season, catching 15 passes for 204 yards and a touchdown at Tennessee and Minnesota. But he tore his ACL in the Vikings game. He was not the same player last year, getting released by the Jets and seeing scant playing time with the Steelers. Now he’s throwing in the towel.
At his best, Williams was good at pulling down high throws on deep passes. In 2019, he went for 1,001 yards while averaging 20.4 yards per catch. Only five other receivers in the 32-team era have gone over 1,000 yards while averaging over 20 yards per catch.
| 1,000 YARDS AT 20-PLUS PER CATCH (since 2002) | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Player | No | Yards | Avg | TD |
| 2010 | DeSean Jackson, Phil. | 47 | 1056 | 22.5 | 6 |
| 2010 | Mike Wallace, Pitt. | 60 | 1257 | 21.0 | 10 |
| 2014 | DeSean Jackson, Was. | 56 | 1169 | 20.9 | 6 |
| 2019 | Mike Williams, LAC | 49 | 1001 | 20.4 | 2 |
| 2019 | A.J. Brown, Ten. | 52 | 1051 | 20.2 | 8 |
| 2004 | Ashley Lelie, Den. | 54 | 1084 | 20.1 | 7 |
At 6-foot-4, Williams was better than most receivers at pulling down high throws. That translated into some extra usage on fade routes around the goal line. But those kind of plays are tough to execute. Williams in his career saw 40 targets inside the 10-yard line but caught only 13 of them, with 11 touchdowns.
For fantasy purposes, Williams goes down as a disappointment, relative to where he was picked. He was the 7th of the 2017 draft. In PPR formats, he peaked as the 13th-best receiver in 2021, with four other seasons between 33rd and 48th. (He was outside the top 100 in his other three seasons.)
Three wide receivers were selected in the top 10 of the 2017 draft, and the other two both had lesser careers than Williams – Corey Davis and John Ross.
—Ian Allan