Prospect Profile: Dexter Williams

DEXTER WILLIAMS -- RB, NOTRE DAME

Tribune Photo/Michael Caterina

Physical Measurables & Athletic Profile

At 5'11 and 212 pounds, Notre Dame's Dexter Williams is a bit on the slim side for a high-volume NFL rusher, but there are examples of players with his body type who've shouldered large workloads as pros. Kevin Smith, Kerryon Johnson, Darren McFadden, Joe Mixon, LeSean McCoy, Matt Forte, Melvin Gordon, and Adrian Peterson are all guys who came into the league weighing at least 210 pounds and carrying fewer than 3.00 pounds per inch on their frames that then went on to average at least 10 carries per game for their careers. Williams isn't built like a prototypical, 20-carries-a-game thumper, but his size shouldn't be a concern for his potential role in the NFL. 

Athletically, Williams is a good match to some quality professional backs. He boasts a strong athletic profile made up of 85th-percentile burst and 76th-percentile agility (per playerprofiler.com) to go with adequate long speed, and while his thinner frame holds him back a bit, the lower body strength especially that he displayed in the Combine jump drills helps to produce a Power Score that is exactly the 10-year average of 50.7. He's not an elite natural talent, but he offers a full toolbox of quality traits, and is at least a 91.1% Athletic match to RB2-level fantasy producers like Aaron Jones and Jay Ajayi. 

Production Profile

After playing behind current Philadelphia Eagle Josh Adams and getting into some legal trouble during his first two seasons at South Bend, an early-season suspension in 2018 meant Dexter Williams just missed age-adjusted rushing yards market share thresholds for success (based on RBs with at least one RB2-quality fantasy season on their resumé) while in college: 

Tool from @theDude_Z with data courtesy of @pahowdy

Adjusting for games missed makes Williams' production look a bit more palatable, as his final season Dominator Rating of 33.0% checks in at the 75th percentile. It's important that he was a good player when he finally earned an opportunity, but it's also important that (even if some of it was due to maturity issues) he couldn't wrench playing time away from a guy like Josh Adams who is probably just that: a guy.

Dexter Williams' production as a college receiver doesn't speak well to his potential for having a strong role in an NFL passing game. He did record 16 receptions during his final season, but his workload-adjusted receiving involvement never produced a Satellite Score above the 47th percentile, and that high-water mark came in the 2016 campaign in which Williams garnered just a 1.7% share of Fighting Irish passing targets. He enters the NFL after posting a 23.0 Satellite Score in 2018, and while RBs with Scores in the 20.0-25.0 range can go on to be solid passing-game contributors (Le'Veon Bell, Ezekiel Elliott, and Frank Gore are among those who have), guys in that area as a whole have targets make up just 13.9% of their total opportunities (carries + targets), a mark well below the database average of 23.2%. Given Williams' history as receiving game non-factor, it's unlikely that he is ever more than average in that area as a pro. 

note: target data from 2016 is not available (as far as I know -- I'd love to see it if it is), so target share is estimated using 2016 reception total and 2017-18 catch rates

Rushing Efficiency

Dexter Williams improved as a runner over his time at Notre Dame, and ended his career there as a top-5 back in this class in both Chunk Rate Over Team (measuring a player's rate of 10+ yard runs against the rest of his team's rate) and Breakaway Rate Over Team (like CROT, but using 20+ yard runs) during what was his highest volume rushing season in 2018. His True YPC rate (which limits long runs to a maximum of 10 yards) of 3.96 was right at the class average.

Williams was not an upper-percentile tackle-breaker at South Bend. According to Pro Football Focus, just over 50% of Williams' 2018 rushing yards came after contact, and his rate of Missed Tackles Forced per Attempt ranked outside the top-60 RBs in the class. While he's a solid runner with a penchant for big plays, he did run just a 4.57 40-yard dash, and the explosiveness and lateral agility he displayed in athletic testing didn't manifest in elusive running on the field. If he's unable to replicate his breakaway ability against faster NFL defenders, I think it's warranted to wonder how he'll win at the next level.

Similarity Scores & Overall Outlook

Quality NFL backs are littered throughout Dexter Williams' various closest comps lists: 

The players on his 3-Down Profile list illuminate what kind of role Williams might have as a pro. While overall talent level has much to do with Cameron Artis-Payne, Dan Herron, and Brian Hill averaging less than 5 carries per game for their careers, the guys on this list have had targets make up an average of 18.9% of their total opportunities, less than the 10-year average of 23.2%. It's unlikely that the requisite draft capital is spent on Williams for him to be the next Kerryon Johnson, but Kenneth Dixon is a good play-style comparison in addition to boasting a similar talent profile. 

Athletically, Williams is a pretty close match to several successful runners, as the previously mentioned Ajayi, Jones, and Dixon in addition to Ty Montgomery have all been useful players with solid roles for their respective teams. The strong overall matches to no-name guys like Ryan Williams and Brian Hill are a good reminder that it's a tough bet for any given player to be a productive NFL contributor, but given his quality production profile and athleticism, Williams has better odds than most. 

Overall, I think Dexter Williams is a decent prospect. His lack of measured tackle-breaking ability and his dependance on long runs in college are a concern, and while he is a fairly one-dimensional player, he does meet minimum thresholds for size, production, and athleticism. If you at least fit into an NFL role physically and then offer positive athletic traits on top of that, I'm interested. Williams can be a decent committee runner in the mold of a Kenneth Dixon, and has RB2-quality production in the right situation in his range of outcomes as a broke man's Melvin Gordon. In this class, he's the first runner I'd take after the backs with three-down potential are off the board, ahead of the James Williams/Travis Homer/Darwin Thompson tier of satellite backs. He's a top 10-15 runner in 2019 and a good taxi squad stash in the late rounds of a dynasty rookie draft.

Thanks so much for reading! If you enjoy the content, please consider subscribing at the top of the page, and find me on Twitter @noahmoreparties.