Lets talk Sammy Watkins

[svtballa 8]

From week 9 on he averaged 5.4 receptions a game and 100 yards. In that span he was the #3 WR. Some drafts hes being had int the 4th round. Thoughts on Watkins?

[weepaws 2,460]

Have him ranked 24 th.

 

Nagging injuries are a concern for me , and so is the Bills coaching staff .

[BufordT 371]

WR1 talent but wouldn't want him as WR1 with that run first offense. Would fit nicely as a WR2/3 depending on your draft goes.

[cousinal111 57]

Inconsistent and injury prone. Talented as hell but he has red flags.

[$epphori$ 118]

Inconsistent and injury prone. Talented as hell but he has red flags.

I agree. Very high upside but always losing game time cuz of injuries.If he stayed healthy and had an elite QB lets say in top 5, Watkins could be top 5 WR in league. But as it stands, I would say he barely makes the top 20.

[IGotWorms 3,315]

Not a good enough offense

[oldtimer 84]

In the 4th round, I have no issues drafting Watkins. None. I've drafted, and been burned, in the 4th round by players. It's not a make or break round for me, and his upside is tremendous. He is injury prone, and in an offense that will be facing some tough defenses, but he can beat just about anyone when healthy. For me, he's a buy low guy, if you can get him in a trade. I've tried in my dynasty league, but it seems Watkins owners think he's Calvin in his prime.....

[tanatastic 2,061]

5th round ill take a look, any earlier nah I like wrs on passing teams.

[BobSanders_33 127]

There is all this talk about the run first offense. He was the #3 WR post week 9 in the same type of offense and it should get better as Tyrod gains experience. He was abusing people at the end of last season and Tyrod trusted to throw the ball up and let him go get it.

 

There are two concerns with him. The biggest one being his health and a foot issue that can be a long term problem/ reinjury risk. Second, can he remain as efficient as he was last year?

[Matt Mueller 146]

There is all this talk about the run first offense. He was the #3 WR post week 9 in the same type of offense and it should get better as Tyrod gains experience. He was abusing people at the end of last season and Tyrod trusted to throw the ball up and let him go get it.

 

There are two concerns with him. The biggest one being his health and a foot issue that can be a long term problem/ reinjury risk. Second, can he remain as efficient as he was last year?

 

Don't disagree overall but if I remember correctly the Bills defense seemed like it was getting shredded late in the year.

 

I typically expect a Rex Ryan team to rebound on D...maybe keeping games closer fwiw.

[weepaws 2,460]

Didn't Rex just hire his brother to coach the defense ?

 

Oh no there goes the rebound .

[rholio 339]

In the 4th round, I have no issues drafting Watkins. None. I've drafted, and been burned, in the 4th round by players. It's not a make or break round for me, and his upside is tremendous. He is injury prone, and in an offense that will be facing some tough defenses, but he can beat just about anyone when healthy. For me, he's a buy low guy, if you can get him in a trade. I've tried in my dynasty league, but it seems Watkins owners think he's Calvin in his prime.....

 

Noticed the same in a dynasty league, traded for Julio for cheaper than the Watkins owner wanted.

[lesjroza 70]

Noticed the same in a dynasty league, traded for Julio for cheaper than the Watkins owner wanted.

 

 

There are dynasty rosters on which I would prefer Julio.......... and some where I would prefer Watkins. I'm not surprised SW would be more valuable to some owners. SW is 23, Julio 27. Julio probably has 3-4 elite WR1 (potentially league winning) years left, Watkins potentially has twice as many prime years left. Comes down to whether one believes that SW has talent and the situation to translate to consistent WR1 production because double the prime years is a hard discounting mechanism.

 

There shouldn't be much doubt its possible because he did it last year after he complained about usage and Rex agreed publicly. SW owners are more likely to have seen him play down the stretch last year than the average FF participant as Buffalo is a pretty small market team, but for those that didn't he was unstoppable, those were not fluky occurrences leading to the stats. This article (poorly written IMO) puts what he did in that half season into perspective using layman's words in case you don't have a subscription to PFF to click through and a degree in statistical analysis. If one was watching games, no math skills were required. It was year 2 in the league........... the future is very bright........... gotta stay on the field though.

 

http://www.buffalorumblings.com/2016/7/26/12270214/sammy-watkins-the-king-of-an-analytics-study

 

"Buffalo Bills wide receiver Sammy Watkins was an amazing downfield threat in 2015, that we know.

During the offseason, he was named “the king” of a Pro Football Focus study.

Tyler Loechner of PFF analyzed the impact of average depth of target (aDOT) on wide receiver catch rate from 2007 to 2015, and Watkins was, as Loechner put it, “the king of the study.”

As a whole, there was almost a direct correlation between aDOT and catch percentage. For you math enthusiasts, it had a r-squared of 0.975.

Why was Watkins the “king of the study?” Last year, he finished significantly above his “expected catch rate” based on his high aDOT of 18.3 yards.

Here’s what Loechner wrote: “Watkins’ expected catch rate last season was 49.1 percent. However, his QB-adjusted catch rate was 66.5 percent. This meant Watkins caught 26.2 percent more passes than expected.”

According to Loechner’s graph, Watkins’ 66.5 percent catch rate was expected if he averaged slightly less than nine yards per target, an incredibly low number for any wideout.

This is a telling, advanced figure that demonstrates how the Bills wideout truly emerged as, arguably, the most dynamic downfield threat in the NFL during his second professional season.

Watkins’ seismic explosion, most namely on deep passes, suggests he clearly transitioned faster than many expected.

After a dazzling three-year career at Clemson, the general consensus on Watkins centered around him immediately being a bubble-screen and short-passing game monster in the NFL but that the intricacies of pro routes would lengthen his learning curve at the intermediate and deep levels of the field.

When Watkins was a highly coveted prospect in 2014, Greg Peshek of Rotoworld published a comprehensive study on the top receivers in that draft class.

He found that 57.43% of Watkins catches in his final year with the Tigers were screens, more than 30% higher than the national average. That’s an insane disparity.

Also, Watkins led the 2014 wideout class with a whopping 8.48 yards-after-the-catch average, despite 70% of his receptions coming within five yards of the line of scrimmage.

Lastly, Peshak discovered Watkins ran a “go route” just 15.79% of the time, the lowest percentage in his traditional route tree.

All the film-based numbers indicated that Watkins would enter the league as a screen dynamo, and his effectiveness down the field would come later in this career.

In that amazingly bubble-screen heavy Clemson offense of 2013, he had 101 grabs for 1,464 yards with 12 touchdowns.

If anything, through two seasons and 222 NFL targets, Watkins has proven to be fully capable of executing “pro WR duties,” and we’ve seen him utilized the least in the easier-to-grasp screen game with which he’s familiar.

Now, as an established downfield weapon, Watkins will likely see more soft coverage and rolled safeties over the top in 2016.

So is this the year the Bills star pass-catcher is frequently used and ultimately thrives in the screen game?"