5 Wide Receivers With Major Touchdown Upside for 2018

Mike Williams, Los Angeles Chargers

Sitting in a more favorable position than Parker, Mike Williams stands to benefit from playing in the Los Angeles Chargers offense.

The over/under for passing touchdowns for Philip Rivers this season sits at 26.5 on 5Dimes, which is tied for the fifth-highest among quarterbacks. Our models are also pretty high on the scoring upside that Rivers will provide, putting him seventh among quarterbacks, with a projected 29.7 passing touchdowns. The Chargers offense is also our seventh-highest ranked unit as a whole. It's less of a question of whether the Chargers will put up big touchdown numbers and more about who will be doing the scoring.

Williams' rookie season had a late start, with his debut coming in Week 6 after he missed some time with a back injury. The first-round pick didn't end up playing much of a role when he did play, tallying only 23 targets in 10 games.

Of those 23 targets, though, 4 came in the red zone, and while that number may seem low enough to be worth ignoring, there's some reason to find it intriguing. Four targets was still enough to rank second among the team's wideouts. Travis Benjamin and Tyrell Williams, who combined for 131 targets overall, combined for only 3 in the red zone last year.

Those low target numbers come in part because of the Chargers' reliance on tight ends in the red zone, with Hunter Henry and Antonio Gates combining for 23 targets -- 32.4% of the team total. They're both gone for this season (Henry with an injury and Gates retired), and with so much of his competition out of the way, Williams has (unsurprisingly) been playing a big role in the red zone during training camp.

He's another low-floor player, because his overall role in the offense is still very much in question, but we've also seen some signs that his role could expand. Furthermore, the only game in which he played at least 50% of the team's snaps last year saw him notch 8 targets.

Of course, with the importance of touchdowns, even if he doesn't step up into a bigger every-down role, seeing a significant role in the red zone in an offense likely to put up big passing numbers leaves him as a high-upside target in the latter stages (Williams is going as pick 9.12 in PPR formats) of your draft.