Benjamin Watson is coming out of retirement, and he’s headed back to where his career started. He’ll likely be the starting tight end in New England.
Expectations should be modest. Watson is 38. But he’s a smart veteran, and they don’t have much else at the position. They signed Austin Seferian-Jenkins at close to the league minimum, but he hasn’t done much in the last three years. They signed Matt LaCosse to a modest contract, but he’s been released three times in recent years by the Giants and Jets. They drafted Ryan Izzo in the seventh round last year, and he caught 3 passes for 15 yards in the preseason last year.
Enter Watson, who was a first-round pick by this franchise way back in 2004. He caught only 35 passes for 400 yards and 2 TDs last year with the Saints. He doesn’t seem to be much of a receiving threat at this point in his career.
Watson had some modest pass-catching success in other recent seasons. He caught 74 passes for the Saints in 2015. After missing the 2016 season with an Achilles injury, Watson caught 61 short-range balls for the Ravens in 2017, serving as a security blanket outlet for Joe Flacco.
Watson has played 15 NFL seasons. He has posted top-10 per-game PPR numbers in three of those seasons – with the Patriots in 2006 and 2007, and with the Saints in 2015.
If we’re drafting today, I suppose Watson would be the first Patriots tight end chosen (if any get picked at all). Maybe he’s in the top 25 at the position. Maybe. But I will be interested to see what Seferian-Jenkins looks like in August.
| WATSON'S PER-GAME RANKS | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Team | St | No | Yds | TD | PPR | Rk |
| 2004 | New England | 1 | 2.0 | 16.0 | .00 | 3.6 | -- |
| 2005 | New England | 12 | 2.3 | 34.3 | .33 | 7.7 | 16 |
| 2006 | New England | 13 | 3.8 | 49.5 | .23 | 10.1 | 8 |
| 2007 | New England | 11 | 3.1 | 34.5 | .55 | 9.8 | 9 |
| 2008 | New England | 12 | 1.8 | 16.9 | .17 | 4.4 | 30 |
| 2009 | New England | 16 | 1.8 | 25.3 | .31 | 6.2 | 24 |
| 2010 | Cleveland | 16 | 4.3 | 47.7 | .19 | 10.1 | 11 |
| 2011 | Cleveland | 13 | 2.8 | 31.5 | .15 | 6.9 | 25 |
| 2012 | Cleveland | 16 | 3.1 | 31.3 | .19 | 7.3 | 25 |
| 2013 | New Orleans | 15 | 1.3 | 15.1 | .13 | 3.6 | 39 |
| 2014 | New Orleans | 16 | 1.3 | 8.5 | .13 | 2.9 | 42 |
| 2015 | New Orleans | 16 | 4.6 | 51.6 | .38 | 12.0 | 9 |
| 2016 | Baltimore | 0 | .0 | .0 | .00 | .0 | -- |
| 2017 | Baltimore | 16 | 3.8 | 32.6 | .25 | 8.6 | 15 |
| 2018 | New Orleans | 16 | 2.2 | 25.0 | .13 | 5.4 | 23 |
| 2019 | New England | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
—Ian Allan