If coaches are to be believed, Sammy Watkins could be headed for a bounce-back season after five years of frustration. It’s early, but everyone in Baltimore says they like what they’ve seen so far.
Offensive coordinator Greg Roman says he considers Watkins to be one of the best receivers in the league. ESPN reporter Jamison Hensley says Watkins has been the “team’s best WR so far in camp”.
In an article on the team’s website, John Harbaugh says Watkins has been looking strong.
"He's a fourth pick in the draft. He's a talented guy," Harbaugh said. "He loves ball. He has lot of insight for those guys. The other thing is his competitiveness: play-to-play competitiveness and his size. He's a physical guy.”
All of this, of course, sounds good. But it’s early, and optimism tends to run high around the league at this time of year.
The larger body of work shows that Watkins hasn’t really been much of a factor recently. He hasn’t had 700 yards in a season, in fact, since 2015. In four of his last five seasons, Watkins has finished with 2-3 touchdowns.
Watkins’ best work as a pro, at least, came when he was playing in Buffalo with Greg Roman as his coordinator. In his last 16 full games with the Bills (under Roman) Watkins caught 71 passes for 1,132 yards and 9 TDs.
Injuries have contributed to Watkins’ struggles, but he also simply haven’t been very productive even when healthy. Over the last four years, he hasn’t been one of the league’s top-50 wide receivers in terms of per-game production, and he was playing in those seasons for teams that pass the ball a lot more effectively than the Ravens will this year (Rams and KC).
With KC, Watkins caught only 8 TDs in 34 games. That’s remarkably soft production, considering he had Patrick Mahomes at quarterback for most of those games.
Some will argue that Kansas City’s offense was structured to get the ball to Tyreek Hill and Travis Kelce, and there’s probably some truth in that theory. But Hill missed a bunch of games in 2019, and Watkins didn’t step up as much as you would expect.
Below see a chart showing 73 wide receivers who’ve started at least half the time over the last four years. Watkins comes in only 52nd (using PPR scoring).
I’m not biting on this one. Watkins won’t be on my fantasy teams this year. If I’m selecting a Baltimore wide receiver, it would be Hollywood Brown.
| WIDE RECEIVERS PER GAME (2017-20) | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Player | St | No | Yds | TD | PPR |
| Davante Adams | 55 | 7.0 | 84.4 | .85 | 20.5 |
| Antonio Brown | 38 | 6.7 | 88.7 | .77 | 20.2 |
| DeAndre Hopkins | 62 | 6.9 | 89.1 | .61 | 19.5 |
| Tyreek Hill | 58 | 5.3 | 82.7 | .79 | 18.9 |
| Michael Thomas | 55 | 7.6 | 87.5 | .42 | 18.8 |
| Julio Jones | 56 | 6.3 | 94.4 | .36 | 17.9 |
| Keenan Allen | 62 | 6.5 | 77.1 | .45 | 17.0 |
| Stefon Diggs | 60 | 5.9 | 75.6 | .52 | 16.9 |
| Mike Evans | 60 | 4.9 | 78.1 | .59 | 16.3 |
| Adam Thielen | 57 | 5.4 | 70.0 | .61 | 16.2 |
| Chris Godwin | 43 | 5.0 | 73.8 | .57 | 15.9 |
| Calvin Ridley | 44 | 4.9 | 69.6 | .61 | 15.7 |
| Robert Woods | 59 | 5.5 | 69.0 | .39 | 15.4 |
| Julian Edelman | 34 | 5.7 | 67.1 | .38 | 15.3 |
| Odell Beckham | 39 | 5.1 | 69.4 | .45 | 15.2 |
| Cooper Kupp | 54 | 5.3 | 66.1 | .44 | 14.7 |
| Allen Robinson | 46 | 5.6 | 68.9 | .37 | 14.7 |
| JuJu Smith-Schuster | 58 | 5.3 | 64.2 | .48 | 14.6 |
| DK Metcalf | 32 | 4.4 | 68.8 | .54 | 14.6 |
| Jarvis Landry | 63 | 5.5 | 63.1 | .40 | 14.4 |
| Tyler Boyd | 45 | 5.4 | 64.8 | .36 | 14.2 |
| Marvin Jones | 54 | 4.3 | 62.3 | .59 | 14.1 |
| Amari Cooper | 61 | 4.8 | 65.4 | .45 | 14.1 |
| DJ Moore | 40 | 4.9 | 74.1 | .23 | 14.1 |
| Will Fuller | 39 | 4.2 | 63.5 | .56 | 13.9 |
| Brandin Cooks | 61 | 4.4 | 65.9 | .35 | 13.3 |
| Tyler Lockett | 64 | 4.4 | 56.7 | .49 | 13.2 |
| Kenny Golladay | 47 | 3.9 | 65.3 | .45 | 13.1 |
| Sterling Shepard | 49 | 5.1 | 57.9 | .29 | 12.9 |
| T.Y. Hilton | 55 | 4.3 | 63.6 | .37 | 12.8 |
| Alshon Jeffery | 43 | 4.0 | 51.8 | .51 | 12.2 |
| Emmanuel Sanders | 55 | 4.5 | 54.9 | .33 | 12.1 |
| Robby Anderson | 62 | 4.2 | 57.5 | .35 | 12.1 |
| A.J. Green | 41 | 4.1 | 56.0 | .39 | 12.0 |
| Golden Tate | 54 | 4.6 | 53.0 | .33 | 12.0 |
| Larry Fitzgerald | 61 | 5.0 | 50.9 | .30 | 11.9 |
| Jamison Crowder | 52 | 4.5 | 52.1 | .34 | 11.9 |
| Michael Gallup | 41 | 3.7 | 57.9 | .33 | 11.5 |
| DeVante Parker | 53 | 4.1 | 56.1 | .28 | 11.4 |
| Christian Kirk | 39 | 4.1 | 49.2 | .32 | 11.2 |
| Nelson Agholor | 56 | 3.7 | 48.0 | .42 | 11.1 |
| Courtland Sutton | 33 | 3.5 | 57.0 | .30 | 11.1 |
| DeSean Jackson | 34 | 3.4 | 54.0 | .32 | 10.9 |
| Dede Westbrook | 37 | 4.2 | 45.4 | .29 | 10.8 |
| Mike Williams | 46 | 3.0 | 52.6 | .40 | 10.8 |
| Demaryius Thomas | 42 | 4.2 | 49.0 | .26 | 10.7 |
| John Brown | 50 | 3.4 | 50.6 | .35 | 10.6 |
| Curtis Samuel | 46 | 3.7 | 41.5 | .30 | 10.6 |
| Cole Beasley | 61 | 4.1 | 44.8 | .30 | 10.4 |
| Randall Cobb | 49 | 4.0 | 47.0 | .25 | 10.3 |
| Mohamed Sanu | 51 | 4.0 | 43.6 | .27 | 10.2 |
| Sammy Watkins | 49 | 3.4 | 45.0 | .33 | 10.1 |
| Corey Davis | 56 | 3.7 | 50.9 | .20 | 10.1 |
| Kenny Stills | 44 | 3.1 | 44.6 | .39 | 9.8 |
| Keelan Cole | 38 | 3.3 | 47.4 | .26 | 9.7 |
| Tyrell Williams | 46 | 2.7 | 44.2 | .33 | 9.1 |
| Marquise Goodwin | 32 | 2.8 | 48.1 | .22 | 9.1 |
| Adam Humphries | 51 | 3.9 | 40.2 | .20 | 9.1 |
| Danny Amendola | 59 | 3.9 | 42.6 | .08 | 8.7 |
| Marquez Valdes-Scantling | 38 | 2.4 | 44.4 | .26 | 8.6 |
| Ted Ginn | 36 | 2.8 | 39.4 | .23 | 8.3 |
| Paul Richardson | 33 | 2.8 | 36.7 | .30 | 8.3 |
| Taylor Gabriel | 40 | 3.2 | 35.5 | .18 | 8.1 |
| Chris Hogan | 32 | 2.7 | 35.0 | .25 | 7.8 |
| TreQuan Smith | 35 | 2.2 | 30.9 | .40 | 7.7 |
| Anthony Miller | 47 | 2.9 | 33.3 | .23 | 7.7 |
| Chris Conley | 50 | 2.6 | 34.9 | .25 | 7.5 |
| James Washington | 40 | 2.3 | 33.6 | .23 | 7.0 |
| Zay Jones | 43 | 2.6 | 27.3 | .22 | 6.6 |
| Demarcus Robinson | 48 | 2.3 | 27.6 | .21 | 6.3 |
| Willie Snead | 55 | 2.4 | 27.1 | .16 | 6.1 |
| Seth Roberts | 46 | 2.4 | 26.5 | .11 | 5.7 |
| Miles Boykin | 32 | 1.0 | 14.5 | .22 | 3.8 |
—Ian Allan