Fantasy: Seattle Wide Receivers
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The Seahawks WR situation is one of the more intriguing in fantasy football. By the end of 2010, Seattle was starting two surprising players in Mike Williams and Ben Obomanu. Born months apart, Williams was drafted as the #10 pick of the 2005 draft, while Obomanu was taken in the 7th round of the 2006 draft. Neither made an impact in the league for a long time.
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Despite their inauspicious beginnings, both had strong seasons according to Pro Football Focus metrics, ranking inside the top 20 WRs. Mike Williams, perhaps due to his college resume and former high draft slot, is a trendy fantasy pick this year. Ben Obomanu finds himself completely off the radar. Do the PFF advanced stats confirm this early perception?
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Here’s an in-depth look at their fantasy relevant PFF numbers.
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| PFF WR Rank | Snaps | TA | TA/Snap | Yds/TA | FP | FP/Snap | FP/TA | |
| Ben Obomanu | 18 | 467 | 47 | 0.101 | 10.5 | 105.1 | 0.23 | 2.24 |
| Mike Williams | 19 | 610 | 106 | 0.174 | 7.1 | 152.1 | 0.25 | 1.43 |
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Williams should hope Matt Hasselbeck returns, as his free agent quarterback thought BMW was a supersized version of Wes Welker. Williams was the fourth most targeted WR in the NFL on a per snap basis. Only Larry Fitzgerald, Roddy White, and Davone Bess inspired greater target lock from their respective passers.
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On the other hand, he wasn’t particularly efficient with those targets and is receiving a lot of hype for a player who finished as WR41 last year. He’s currently being drafted as the 34th WR off the board in Draftmaster leagues.
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A couple of peripheral factors are currently bolstering BMW’s ADP. He scored only two touchdowns last season on 106 targets. Savvy drafters know that number should jump in 2011. More importantly, if the Seahawks try to upgrade their WR corps in free agency, it’s unlikely Williams starting position will be affected.
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Compared to the mild furor surrounding Williams’ renaissance, Ben Obomanu is not receiving any credit whatsoever. At an average ADP outside of the top 192, Obomanu is going undrafted in the Draftmaster 12-team, 16-round format.
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A vertical threat with an impressive 63% catch rate, Obomanu was one of only ten players to average more than 10 yards per target in 2010. Bryan Fontaine recently wrote a great article on breakout WRs that focused on finding the next Brandon Lloyd. The only metric Obomanu fails to reach in Fontaine’s study is the targets per snap barrier (greater than 11.7%). Obomanu was targeted on only 10% of his snaps last year.
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Fortunately for Obomanu fans, the numbers were trending positively during the course of the season. As Obomanu’s playing time increased, he saw a corresponding jump in targets per snap. Obomanu didn’t see 40% of the team snaps a single time until he began starting in Week 10. From that point on, he saw fewer than 70% of the snaps only once (due to a gruesome hand laceration suffered against Carolina). As a role player, Obomanu was targeted infrequently. Through Week 10 he’d received only 13 targets (7.6% of snaps). From Week 11 through the Divisional Round, he was targeted on 12.7% of his snaps.
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Even though he wasn’t involved in the game plan through the first ten weeks, Obomanu averaged a nearly identical number of fantasy points per snap to Williams (.25 to .23). When looking at the upside of the two players, their divergent numbers in fantasy points per target is shocking. Obomanu averaged 2.24, Williams only 1.43.
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The Lloyd Factor also mentioned another potentially draftable Seahawk receiver. Seattle intends to employ Golden Tate much more heavily in 2011. Tate’s presence will almost certainly affect Obomanu and Williams. Pete Carroll has suggested they expect him to take over the slot position. Mike Clay’s impressive breakdown of slot receiver usage both denies and confirms the conventional wisdom. Receivers who line up in the slot are not necessarily prototypical possession receivers, but the routes run from that position are. Since Williams gets a large chunk of his targets within nine yards of the line of scrimmage (61%), he could see his looks significantly impacted by a Tate breakout.
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The three Seahawks receivers are being drafted at WR34 (Williams), WR70 (Tate), and WR92 (Obomanu) respectively. Mike Clay’s projections more closely reflect the snap data in this article. He has them at WR38 (Williams), WR56 (Obomanu), and WR97 (Tate). Keep track of how Seattle uses free agency to address the starting position opposite Williams. If they stand pat, Obomanu is easily the most valuable Seahawk receiver relative to ADP. Unless you are strongly sold on Williams from a scouting perspective, pass on him and draft Obomanu late.
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