Chargers Pass Game Breakdown

[FiremanEd]

Interested to hear people's thoughts and opinions on this offense and its pass game. So many mouths, lots of talent, but only so many balls to go around. What is the thought both short term (2017) and beyond?

Keenan Allen: Does he come back healthy and can he maintain his impressive volume with the other mouths?
Mike Williams: Does he sit behind Allen and Williams all season, barring injury? What are your expectations?
Tyrell Williams: How much is he impacted by the return of Allen and arrival of Mike Williams? Where do you value him today?
Travis Benjamin: Can he maintain his job as the #3 WR, and does he have any value left?
Antonio Gates: TE15 in PPG and Total Points, how far does he tumble?
Hunter Henry: Does he take over the lead role and does he maintain his status as a highly coveted prospect? Can he maintain his TD rate with that many other big WR's on the roster?
Rivers: Is he a shoe in as a QB1?

As a whole, I have a hard time seeing anyone's stock going up this year, except potentially Tyrell Williams as he approaches RFA status late in the season. Henry is already valued at a near ceiling status. Allen is an injury or slow start away from seeing concerns raise and value decline. Mike Williams likely won't see enough balls to move up too much from his 1.06 status, but maybe he is Michael Thomas...The whole thing intrigues me and i'm excited to watch them this year.

What do others think?

[StableOfRBs]

Interested to hear people's thoughts and opinions on this offense and its pass game. So many mouths, lots of talent, but only so many balls to go around. What is the thought both short term (2017) and beyond?

Keenan Allen: Does he come back healthy and can he maintain his impressive volume with the other mouths?
Mike Williams: Does he sit behind Allen and Williams all season, barring injury? What are your expectations?
Tyrell Williams: How much is he impacted by the return of Allen and arrival of Mike Williams? Where do you value him today?
Travis Benjamin: Can he maintain his job as the #3 WR, and does he have any value left?
Antonio Gates: TE15 in PPG and Total Points, how far does he tumble?
Hunter Henry: Does he take over the lead role and does he maintain his status as a highly coveted prospect? Can he maintain his TD rate with that many other big WR's on the roster?
Rivers: Is he a shoe in as a QB1?

As a whole, I have a hard time seeing anyone's stock going up this year, except potentially Tyrell Williams as he approaches RFA status late in the season. Henry is already valued at a near ceiling status. Allen is an injury or slow start away from seeing concerns raise and value decline. Mike Williams likely won't see enough balls to move up too much from his 1.06 status, but maybe he is Michael Thomas...The whole thing intrigues me and i'm excited to watch them this year.

What do others think?

As for the TE situation, I'm thinking they get Gates the TE record (I think he needs like 1 more) and then they move him to a supplemental, chain-moving role and let HH have some more freedom

[Goddard]

I think Keenan will still be the #1 option, as long as he stays healthy. I have no idea how the rest of the distribution will go.

[onetwothree]

The WRs all offer something different so they will all have a role depending on where the team is on the field.

Keenan at minimum is a move the sticks guy from the 20 to the 20.
Mike can be a situational guy for red zone and 3rd down fades and jump balls.
Tyrell is the deep route, big play guy.
Gates will get his TD record and get phased out.
Henry will have a better season but less TDs.

[skip]

The only thing we can say for certain is that Keenan will not "maintain his impressive volume". He did that for a half season with nearly everyone around him hurt. Now there is Mike Williams, Tyrell, and Henry not to mention their running backs. His role will remain short yardage with low TD totals.

What happens with the rest, who knows? As of right now there isn't any agreement on the role Mike Williams is expected to play.

[Mjvb5]

The only thing we can say for certain is that Keenan will not "maintain his impressive volume". He did that for a half season with nearly everyone around him hurt. Now there is Mike Williams, Tyrell, and Henry not to mention their running backs. His role will remain short yardage with low TD totals.

What happens with the rest, who knows? As of right now there isn't any agreement on the role Mike Williams is expected to play.

x2 it's really hard to project anyones production currently. The only guys I think on this team that are in line for a value bump are MG3 and Rivers actually, as long as everyone doesn't get hurt.... again, I could see hi, having a huge year. Other than that, Gates probably gets phased out Henry is already viewed by many as TE 5 so I don't see him going up much. And the wrs could all see there value fall throughout the year.

[Cowboysfan33]

The only thing we can say for certain is that Keenan will not "maintain his impressive volume". He did that for a half season with nearly everyone around him hurt. Now there is Mike Williams, Tyrell, and Henry not to mention their running backs. His role will remain short yardage with low TD totals.

What happens with the rest, who knows? As of right now there isn't any agreement on the role Mike Williams is expected to play.

X3. So many mouths to feed that it will probably be hard for any of the receiving options to stand out. I think Gordon is the big winner of this offseason due to having Allen back, the drafting of the two solid lineman & Mike Williams and basically no one stealing carries from him, he should have a bunch of volume and scoring chances this season.

[dawgs4life]

I might be in the minority here but I have always saw Allen as a volume based player, and when he was healthy he had a lot of volume. I think even thought Williams was an UDFA he has way more athletic ability then Allen. Mike Williams presents a bigger and faster version of Allen. So imo Keenan will be reduced to a rich man Kamar Aiken on this team as I always seen him as a similar talent. Benjamin to me was a FA bust signing waiting to happen as he is a 1 trick pony and is so tiny he will always be hurt. HH will be the man by seasons end, and I absolutely think Rivers is a QB 1 and I still value him in the top 8. With a better o-line thinking he will return there.

[cweds]

The Chargers invested the #7 pick in a receiver when they were already loaded with pass catchers. They must have a plan to use Mike Williams. How much of Keenan's value was tied to his extreme volume?

[BuckeyeNation]

I think Williams is going to come along slowly this year. I don't think he gets more than 65-70 targets in 2017, just a hunch.

There are a lot of mouths to feed in this offense, but I don't things are as grim as people think because of something nobody is really mentioning; Last year Inman received 97 targets and Benjamin received 75. That's a 172 targets between those two receivers, and I expect their targets to almost disappear this season. So yes you're bringing Allen back into the fold and Mike Williams will be a part of the offense, but in theory, freeing up most of those targets is going to make it much easier to to keep all the real receiving options in SD relevant this year. I still don't think Allen gets peppered with 150-160 targets or anything like that, but I'm not too worried about these guys cannibalizing each other. It does lower their ceilings though.

[ArrylT]

I thnk Jarvis Landry 2016 is a likely idea of what Keenan Allen can do in 2017 (assuming a full season), or Golden Tate / Stefon Diggs to a slightly lesser extent.

Landry was 10th in yardage & 7th in receptions on 130 targets. I think is quite feasible that Allen gets 125-130 targets, and Tyrell Williams & Mike Williams end up being Devante Parker & Kenny Stills in production (700-900 yards each with 50-65 receptions).

The interesting question for me will be 2018. If both Hunter Henry & Mike Williams progress favorably ...

[_yeti]

The WRs all offer something different so they will all have a role depending on where the team is on the field.

Keenan at minimum is a move the sticks guy from the 20 to the 20.
Mike can be a situational guy for red zone and 3rd down fades and jump balls.
Tyrell is the deep route, big play guy.
Gates will get his TD record and get phased out.
Henry will have a better season but less TDs.

This is a very reasonable prediction to me. I'd second it with adding Keenan will still get in the end zone and produce until hurt midseason at which point the others will have to step it up. Benjamin becomes a sporadic deep threat again. Never believed in Benjamin for fantasy, he has been greatly benefitted by situation imo.

I am a firm believer that dynamic offenses with more weapons benefit everyone's production. I'd rather invest in an offense that is dynamic that can force defenses to not try to take away one player than try to have a player like Evans in '17 with a target monopoly. While the latter can be huge it can also backfire much more easily. Give me the safer offense. I expect to see fireworks coming out of the Chargers as long as Rivers stays healthy

[kamihamster]

Keenan will be Rivers' favorite target, a first down machine.
Occasionally Rivers will take shots down field with Tyrell or Travis.
Hunter will be the starting TE, Gates will come in for red zone packages.
Mike will be sprinkled in rotating with Tyrell/Travis depending on situation, I see him being involved more in more red zone situations.

[Valhalla]

Keenan is trusty, and Rivers will target him plenty enough for him to be valuable. Yet if anyone thinks he will even approach his target volume from his half season of glory, they are fooling themselves. I'd expect around 1050 and 5 from Keenan.
Tyrell had big gains, yes, but it seemed his most successful/commonly used route that Rivers targeted was him on a cross route, hitting him at about 8-12 yards over the middle of the field and letting him turn the corner on the safeties. Simply because he had big gains does not mean he's relegated to being a deep threat...That said, I don't know how often they'll employ him in this area now with Keenan back and a big bodied rookie that is supposed to be good in the same range. Outside of Keenan, I have a hard time projecting what this group will do. I think each is talented and we can project what they COULD do, but they can't all be as good as their potential unless Rivers throws for 6500 yards...

[JoshGordonsDealer]

I've followed Keenan's career closely and I think the reason he gets so many targets is because of his route running.

He's not one to regularly win contested catches downfield, but he consistently shreds opposing defenses with his technique. When Rivers wants a safe option, Keenan is the guy to throw to. Unless he stops getting open, he'll get his targets.