Should Fantasy Managers Panic About Kyren Williams Returning Punts? | Yahoo Fantasy Forecast

I wanted to talk through headlines that are percolating on fantasy Twitter right now starting with Shawn McVey says that Kiren Williams is gonna be the Rams punt returner and fantasy Twitter fully freaked the hell out last night after the headlines got out let's hear what sea McVey had to say in a recent presser you know Ken Williams is gonna be our punt returner and it's another opportunity for him to get touches an impact the game and you feel comfortable with that because of the confidence in Blake korm and Ronnie Rivers um you know being able to spell him if need be all right so S I really want to dig into this with you so take me through your reaction when you saw that Kiren Williams is going to be the Rams punt return of this season yeah this this is a funny story it wasn't just fantasy Twitter I was inperson dis golfing with my girlfriend's brother he gets a sleeper notification reads it and goes so is Kyon Williams now the backup like 100% seriously so this is this is everywhere he's asking me right there for my spot analysis on this so uh I had a couple I hope you told him those were billable hours by the way yeah yeah for real I told him to give me an extra Mulligan out there so basically my after a couple more minutes uh of getting to think about it I came to the conclusion that I think it just makes me want to trade for kyen Williams more from player or from people like my girlfriend's brother there so here's the situation he's still the rb1 on this team the entire offseason we've gotten plenty of clips of Shawn McVey speaking glowingly of Kym Williams basically gushing about all the different things that they can use him in the offense for and then anytime he's asked about Blake corm it's kind of like this guy was good in college I'll see if he could prove it in the NFL he went on the athletic football show this offseason and he said that yeah we have to keep Kiren healthy so this is kind of the expectation that you're going to see a little bit less touches from Kym Williams this year that's why he's going as like the rb8 to rb10 in fantasy drafts this headline pops up and everybody goes crazy but I don't really think it's meaning too much here I think there's a chance that it's probably just a situation where they want to get an extra roster spot you say he's going to play both positions as a punt returner Maybe by week two or week three somebody else takes over and even if they don't last year the Rams only had 28 punt returns if your number one running back is back there this year maybe a fair catch a couple more times it's 15 to 20 punt returns this season so if he's returning one punt the game I don't think we have to get all crazy about that yeah Blake km's probably going to see 30 plus per of the snaps in this offense but we already knew that coming in after they drafted him so I'm not getting too crazy if anything I'm trying to trade like a fifth round pick and a Joe Mixon for Kym Williams if I can right now I I like that analysis because I was kind of stunned that people really lost their mind about this headline um and the full context of him talking about this is he was asked about two players that didn't make the Rams roster Shan MC Bay was asked about these two players didn't make the Rams roster and basically those guys were kind of competing for the return job and I think like you said saving a roster spot allows you to just like hey Kiren Williams can return punts let's do that uh actually Kiren Williams handled 100% this from from ESPN's Mike Kay K Williams handled 100% of the Rams punt returns from weeks 1 to three last season and he played 86% of the offensive snaps had 39 carries and 19 targets during that span so we already knew this was kind of something in his bag in terms of the ability to play special teams and you know nobody's drafting s nobody's drafting Karen Williams to to play the role that he had last year if if we all expected he was going to have that workload that he did last year he'd be a you know a top five pick in fantasy drafts this year he's not he's like a you know mid back half of the second rounder maybe early third rounder in some drafts that are very wide receiver heavy so you're already sort of baking in that he's not going to be the player he was last year at least you should have been from your preseason expectations I think what's interesting too and this is a really uh fascinating post by Davis Maddock uh who noted that there is has been just one running back since 2010 to have over 150 rushes and 10 punt returns Alvin chimra who actually from a role perspective is a little bit similar with what Kiren Williams did last year but if you and then Davis noted this if you expand this to quote very important offensive players which basically he said had 100 targets and 10 punt returns it's actually like a ton of elite wide receivers I mean Antonio Brown in 2015 Antonio Brown in 2014 uh had over 100 targets and 10 punt returns like Peak AB obviously the Alvin chimra season I just mentioned but like Tyreek Hill has done this before so I don't know if the headline of this guy's gonna return punts didn't sway you off of like the best seasons of Antonio Brown or some Tyreek Hill's best season shoot even Dez Bryant Noto Beckham fall into this cohort so I thought that was a fascinating point that we've seen Big Time Players just at the wide receiver position not necessarily running back but we've seen big-time players hold the punt return job and still be high-end difference makers I think that makes me feel a little bit better about um at least about a kyen Williams and fantasy this year yeah I think it's just I mean jir Gibbs to start the year last year was a kickoff for Turner for like week one and week two for the Lions you have Jaden Reed returning punt at times last year for the Packers arguably their number one asset on offense season so I think it's just kind of the timing of when this released there's a bunch of cuts going on there's a bunch of people going on IR all that information seems extremely important and in some cases it is especially for Fantasy so when something like that drops it's like okay what are the stipulations that are coming from this it's like where the brain jumps to when really there might not be much yeah that that's where I'm at is it if anything it does make me feel two two things I feel concretely one I am still nervous about Ken Williams getting dinged up and this is just more it's more opport unities for him to touch the ball those are more opportunities for him to get injured so I guess that would be the one thing I'd say is maybe gives me gives me pause about this role but the second thing is I I don't know how you feel about Blake corm s but I do feel like this indicates that he's going to have a real role on in this backfield like a true I don't know if it's it's going to be enough to be Standalone fantasy value uh like every single week running back two or running back three but I think he'll get into that what the heck Flex range and meanwhile obviously we know he does have huge contingent upside if anything was to happen with kyen Williams so I'm still drafting kyen Williams at his ADP but that also doesn't necessarily stop me from drafting Blake corm maybe just not on necessarily on the same team yeah if if you're going to return 15 to 20 punts this year if that's what it ends up being there's a percentage increase in risk for an injury whatever that is 5% probably still less than 10% increase but it's out there which means Shawn McVey knows that of all people you have probably have to have some more confidence in your backup this year compared to Ronnie Rivers last year and Zack Evans so yeah I would say that Blake corm if anything I'm not jumping and jumping off of the boat of Kyon Williams this year in terms of confidence but yeah Blake for Rises a little bit