Countdown to Kickoff: Profile on Buffalo Bills No. 14 Sammy Watkins
By Andrew Mills
We are almost there football fans! The start of the NFL season is only 14 days away, and with that, let’s look at the man who wears 14 for the Buffalo Bills, Sammy Watkins.
Here at NFLSpinZone.com, we started our Countdown to Kickoff series with a look at the newest San Diego Chargers defensive end in No. 99 Joey Bosa, and we’ve profiled one player everyday since (find all of the profiles here).
Two seasons after trading two first round picks for the opportunity to draft Sammy Watkins, the Buffalo Bills are counting on the young receiver to be a big part in their quest to return to the playoffs.
At “only” 6’1”, Sammy Watkins may not have the prototypical size of an elite NFL receiver, but his athletic ability, and his positional awareness, makes that a non-issue.
Watkins showed enough speed to gain separation from defensive backs, and the uncanny ability to time his leaps on jump balls, making him one of the premier big-play wide receivers in the NFL last season. His 17.45 yards per reception mark ranked third among wide receivers with 50 or more receptions.
Ask any Bills fan for a couple complaints about their favorite team, and it won’t be long until they mention the amount of targets that go Watkins’ way (You can find a great discussion on the topic here). However, despite being the 31st-most targeted wide receiver in the league last season, Watkins was the 16th highest scoring receiver in fantasy leagues.
If you’re one of those people who wants to live in a world where Sammy Watkins sees more targets, you may be in luck.
In week 16 of last season, we may have seen evidence from the Bills coaching staff that they are convinced that their best strategy on offense, is to target Watkins.
Before a Week 17 contest against the New York Jets, Sammy Watkins had only seen double-digit targets in three of his previous 12 games (Sammy missed four games due to injury in 2015).
With this game against the Jets being one of great importance to Bills coach Rex Ryan, who used to coach Gang Green in New Jersey, the Bills gave Watkins the most targets he’s seen in his young career (15). All Sammy did with those targets was produce 11 catches for 136 yards.
The real eye-opener, was that Watkins was not only running fly and post routes, which had become his calling card. In the final game of the season, Watkins was running short-crossing routes, slants, curls and digs; and he was doing it with great success. In that game, Watkins accounted for 76 percent of the Bills total passing yards.
The Bills are definitely a run-first team, but it seems like they may have finally realized that in today’s NFL, you cannot be successful without an efficient passing attack. Luckily for the Bills, they have one of the league’s most talented young wide receivers to help them in that quest.
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Sammy Watkins should finish with over 160 targets this season, and while his yards per reception will drop if he gets there, Watkins will be able to show the rest of the NFL what Bills fans have known for two years; that Sammy Watkins is an elite NFL wide receiver.