Sometimes, you really get a sense of how valuable a player is to a team when he’s not on the field for a while. That’s been the case for Los Angeles Chargers receiver Mike Williams, who has missed four full games this season with injuries, and has played 675 snaps to 460 off the field. When Williams is in the game, the Chargers’ passing EPA rises from -0.08 to +0.04, their average depth of target jumps from 5.8 to 6.7, the team’s catch rate goes from 68.5% to 72.1%, and Justin Herbert’s EPA per play goes from 0.02 to 0.12.
So, when your passing game is both more efficient and explosive with a particular receiver on the field, that receiver must be pretty good. Williams can catch the ball deep when he’s given the opportunity, but he’s also an after-the-catch threat, and he has an excellent understanding of where and how to break open in any kind of coverage. The Indianapolis Colts discovered how well Williams can do all these things on this 26-yard play in Week 16 in which 13 yards came after the catch.
Sadly, it was announced on Friday that Williams will be out of the Chargers’ Saturday wild-card playoff game with a back injury he suffered in the team’s 31-28 Week 18 loss to the Denver Broncos. Despite Williams’ injury history this season, head coach Brandon Staley had Williams on the field for 25 snaps. This also despite the fact that the game had no bearing on the Chargers’ postseason seeding — they were going to be the AFC’s five-seed on a no-matter-what basis.
After the game, Staley tried to explain these plans for his starters — this was a game in which star pass-rusher Joey Bosa may have aggravated a previous groin injury, and Staley risked Justin Herbert on the field until the fourth quarter.
“We were trying to compete in the game, and we only have 48 guys on the team that are active for the game, so we wanted to make sure that they went a good way in this football game and competed at a high level,” Staley said. “Then when we felt like it was right for them to get out of the game, and that’s what we’re going to do slowly phased them out so we’re getting ready for next week.
“We only get two practice squad elevations for the game, and you have to put a team out there. You can’t decide when you’re having to play a football game who isn’t going to play and who is going to play and how you’re going to subtract this. You’ve got to go out there and play the football game because this isn’t the preseason where you have 90 guys to choose from. You only have 48 players to choose from so you have to go out there, you have to feel the football team. So we did it the best we could. We wanted to play well in the game and then we wanted to be safe for next week and that’s what we did.”
Except that they didn’t. Staley also said that the decision to play the impact starters was entirely his, so the responsibility will have to be his as well.
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