Sammy Watkins already a main attraction

Buffalo Bills wide receiver Sammy Watkins is one of the most exciting players in the NFL, and it’s not often that a rookie wide receiver has such a profound impact in his first season. Players like Keenan Allen, Kelvin Benjamin, Odell Beckham Jr., and Watkins are exceptions to the rule, and yet they- and several other receivers in this year’s potentially legendary draft class- have made huge splashes for their teams in the first season. In college, Watkins showed an elite understanding for the nuances of the position, as he did all the little things right, whether it was showing perfect technique on a screen pass, anticipating the angle of a tackler, contorting his body in the air perfectly, getting perfect leverage on a cornerback on the the sideline, or setting up a defender with a methodical stem before twisting off with a sudden and agile turn of the hips.

Watkins wasn’t a smashing success in the NFL when he first stepped onto the field for the Bills, so he almost didn’t get to show off his exciting skill-set. It seems weird to say this, but the Bills deserve credit for admitting they made a mistake with E.J. Manuel and benching him in favor of Kyle Orton. You’d usually like to give a former first-round pick more time to prove himself, and you’d usually like to get more time to evaluate him. But Watkins looks like the Bills true franchise player on offense, and Manuel’s complete inability to adequately lead this offense was hindering Watkins’s potential.Orton isn’t exactly a good quarterback, but he knows how to run an offense, get the ball to a No. 1 receiver, and anticipate throws. That last strength of Orton’s has helped Watkins immensely of late, and it’s not a coincidence that his strongest performances have come with the veteran at the helm.

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So far, Watkins has been everything we’d thought he would be when the scouting reports trickled out during the late winter and early spring, and he’s been everything Doug Whaley has envisioned when he made the gutsy call to trade up. A few teams reportedly had Watkins right at the top of their big board, and he has confirmed that he is indeed one of those rare talents at the wide receiver position worth building an entire offense around. You can count those kinds of receivers on just two hands, and you’d still have fingers left over. Watkins isn’t a top-ten receiver yet, but I have full confidence that he will reach that precipice shortly. As far as raw ability goes, I think he’s already up there, and he has the football intelligence to match his physical gifts.

Size can certainly help at the wide receiver position, and big receivers like Calvin Johnson and Brandon Marshall have shown that repeatedly throughout their careers. And yet, smaller receivers can provide just as much value to their offense by winning in a variety of ways. Watkins and Beckham Jr. are joining the likes of Golden Tate and Steve Smith as wideouts who can win inside, outside, downfield, and in the short yardage game. These four receivers play much bigger and with much more toughness than their heights, showing strong ball skills, hands, and the ability to win with ease at the catch point. Watkins clearly has all of these qualities, and he has even more playmaking ability than most of the wide receivers in this league.

According to the Pro Football Focus, Sammy Watkins is 15th in the NFL in wide receiver rating, which basically means that passes thrown at him have yielded the 15th-highest QB rating among receivers. What makes this even more impressive is that he’s been catching passes from Manuel and Orton this season. Among other wide receivers in the top 15 for WR Rating, only DeAndre Hopkins (the recently benched Ryan Fitzpatrick) can argue that he’s had a worse situation. Then again, Orton has also put together an impressive QB Rating of 104.0 so far this season, so his 106.2 WR Rating isn’t way higher than Orton’s QB Rating. That said, he also had to deal with several games of E.J. Manuel, so that must be taken into account.

After recording just two impressive performances in the first six weeks, Watkins has gone off for over 100 receiving yards in each of his past two games, including a three-catch, 157-yard outburst against the New York Jets. The New England Patriots elite secondary managed to hold him down, but he’s been money against his other two AFC East opponents, as he burned the Dolphins in Week 2 for eight catches on 11 targets and 117 yards with a TD to boot.

I know other neutral fans would roll their eyes at what I’m about to say next, but I love watching the Bills play because of Watkins. He’s clearly one of the most exciting players in the league, because he legitimately has a chance to go the distance whenever he touches the ball. Those who watched him at Clemson closely understand that his acceleration and agility are just unreal, and he also has solid hands. Although he did drop three passes against the Houston Texans earlier this year, that was an anomaly of a game, and he was drop-free in his other seven games, so he’s shown good hands thus far.

Watkins is expected to play this week against the Kansas City Chiefs despite suffering a groin injury at practice yesterday, and hopefully he won’t be limited by the injury. Part of the reason for his slower than expected start to the season (or middle of the start of the season, to be more specific) was because of a nagging rib injury, but he’s fully recovered from that, as we saw in the past three weeks (the Bills were on a Week 9 bye). I hope he isn’t limited in any way by that groin aggravation, because it would rob us of watching one of the league’s most electrifying playmakers at his best.

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