Rookie Profile – D’haquille Williams, WR Auburn
A couple of years ago, I joined my first devy dynasty league. New to the format, I started paying attention to more football on Saturday and scouting college players I had never heard of before.
One of the first players who caught my eye was Auburn wide receiver D’haquille Williams. A junior college transfer from Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College where he caught 118 balls for 2,028 yards and 26 touchdowns over two seasons, Williams raised a lot of eyebrows (including mine), by catching 31 balls for 493 yards and five touchdowns in his first six games while at Auburn. Things slowly unraveled from there however.
After a sprained ligament in Williams’ knee limited his production towards the end of his junior year in 2014, he was suspended for the Outback Bowl. After a rough off-season, Williams reportedly punched four people, including a teammate, in a bar following a Tigers victory back in October. He was dismissed from the team days later having posted just 12 receptions for 147 yards and one touchdown in five games as a senior.
The next time we saw Williams performing football activities was at the scouting combine in February.
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As you can see from the Mock Draftable Chart above, Williams didn’t fare well when compared to the other 2016 wide receiver prospects at the combine. With the exception of his size (6’-2”, 229 pounds and 32 ½” arms) and 121 inch broad jump, his performance in Indianapolis was downright awful.
With a pitiful 40-time (4.72 seconds) and a pathetic vertical jump (30 inches,) Williams ranked worse than all but one of the wide outs at the combine in both categories. For reference, 38 wide outs ran the 40-yard dash and 42 wide outs performed the vertical jump. Although he ranked in the 55th percentile in the broad jump and 37th percentile in the bench press, he was among the worst in 20-yard shuttle and three cone drill on top of vertical and 40-yard dash.
Another way to analyze combine performance is by checking out www.PlayerProfiler.com. Without getting into too much detail about how their formulas work (and I highly recommend you check it out), the percentile score of their custom combine metrics are in parenthesis. Williams was among the worst in Burst, Agility and Catch Radius. Even his Height-adjusted Speed Score was below average.
No matter how you look at it, Williams’ showing at the combine was less than attractive to NFL decision makers and dynasty owners alike. He didn’t help his draft stock in the slightest.
Even with all the gloom-and-doom stories of off the field incidents and poor performances in shorts in Indy there is still one thing we haven’t covered, his performance on the field.
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If you’re looking for eye-popping highlights of Williams’ size, power and playmaking ability, look no further than the Draft Breakdown video of his first game on the campus of Auburn back in 2014. With the exception of a fumble that went out of bounds towards the end of the first half, he was brilliant. Dominating the slot with his big frame, he made catches on poorly thrown balls (0:30 of the video), sharp cuts at the top of his route (0:50) and powerful run after the catch abilities along with a desire to find pay dirt (1:30.)
That highlight reel was the reason I became a fan of Williams back in 2014. On that day, he hauled in nine passes for 154 yards and a touchdown and looked like the next big SEC receiver to make the leap to the NFL.
Williams continued posting the same type of production for much of his 2014 season. He had four 100-yard games and despite his suspension from the bowl game, entered his senior season at Auburn as a very highly ranked NFL prospect. In fact, he was ranked as the top 2016 senior wide receiver by Mel Kiper just nine months ago.
Oh, how things change.
Most of the strengths that Williams showed as a junior such his ability to gain separation through subtle jab steps and head fakes as well as his knack for making big catches down the field, were gone when the 2015 season kicked off.
Williams’ flaws were overbearing when watching him play in his five games as a senior. Despite his size and strength, he struggled to get off the line of scrimmage in press coverage due to below average explosion. Also struggling with dropped passes, he regularly had the ball jarred loose when in traffic which is a major problem for a receiver having as much trouble gaining open space as he was.
Summary
For a guy with such high upside just a year ago, Williams’ fall from grace has been of epic proportions. With a rookie ADP of nine back in September, he was considered by most as a first round rookie pick as the sixth receiver off the board. Fast forward to the present and Williams has an ADP of 42, which makes him a mid-fourth round pick in 12-team leagues.
Despite his transgressions off the field as well as his halfhearted play while he was on campus back in the fall, I still have trouble forgetting about the playmaker I saw in 2014 and want to believe the former Junior College All-American, who took full ownership of his puzzling behavior while speaking to reporters at the scouting combine.
All things told, Williams looks the part of a big, field stretching slot receiver with good size and the knowhow to use it to “box-out” defensive backs.
Perhaps I’m looking at Williams through rose colored glasses because he’s one of the first devy players I ever invested in, but I still have hope for his upside. If he happened to be drafted into a quality situation with a good quarterback and more importantly, a top-notch coaching staff that can tutor him both on and off the field, the potential still exists for Williams to be a fantasy contributor. With an extremely low price tag and very few dynasty owners looking to roster him, he just may be worth a flier in the fourth round of rookie drafts (or moving to your active roster in devy leagues.)
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