What's Up With Sammy Watkins?

[BStanRamFan]

10 hours ago, jrry32 said:

The way he's playing.

Disagree. The way he's being used combined with him and Goff not on the same page yet. Very frustrating to watch. Kupp drops numerous passes over the past 3 weeks and gets 7 targets a game. Need Watkins to get that many looks.

[bzane]

18 hours ago, jrry32 said:

The way he's playing.

 @jrry32, could you elaborate on that? You're a guy whose insights on the NFL are always worth reading- I'd like to hear what if anything Sammy is doing wrong. You'd think he would be motivated at this stage of his career, and getting a second chance with the Rams, to run his routes hard and correctly; to end up where Goff expects him to be; to sell his routes even when he's not the #1 option; to block when called upon. Is he giving up on routes, rounding them off, playing lazy-? 

[jrry32]

8 hours ago, bzane said:

 @jrry32, could you elaborate on that? You're a guy whose insights on the NFL are always worth reading- I'd like to hear what if anything Sammy is doing wrong. You'd think he would be motivated at this stage of his career, and getting a second chance with the Rams, to run his routes hard and correctly; to end up where Goff expects him to be; to sell his routes even when he's not the #1 option; to block when called upon. Is he giving up on routes, rounding them off, playing lazy-? 

He doesn't have the playbook down, and he has been caught quitting on routes. But I'm less worried about the quitting on routes right now. It seemed like more of one game thing than a pattern. Him not having the playbook down is a pattern. The other WRs are often having to tell him what to do after Goff audibles. And Watkins has made multiple mistakes this year where he wasn't where he was supposed to be when Goff threw him the ball.

11 hours ago, BStanRamFan said:

Disagree. The way he's being used combined with him and Goff not on the same page yet. Very frustrating to watch. Kupp drops numerous passes over the past 3 weeks and gets 7 targets a game. Need Watkins to get that many looks.

Kupp has dropped some passes, but he's always where he's supposed to be. That's why he's getting targeted. Goff trusts him. Kupp is a rookie. Drops will happen. Force-feeding Watkins looks isn't how you maintain a #1 offense. Watkins earning those looks is how you maintain a #1 offense. Right now, Watkins is a supremely talented player who is showing flashes of brilliance but is not reliable. I'm hoping the bye will give him an opportunity to catch up with the offense. Maybe Goff, Woods, and Kupp can take him under their wings and work with him.

[bzane]

36 minutes ago, jrry32 said:

He doesn't have the playbook down, and he has been caught quitting on routes. But I'm less worried about the quitting on routes right now. It seemed like more of one game thing than a pattern. Him not having the playbook down is a pattern. The other WRs are often having to tell him what to do after Goff audibles. And Watkins has made multiple mistakes this year where he wasn't where he was supposed to be when Goff threw him the ball.

Kupp has dropped some passes, but he's always where he's supposed to be. That's why he's getting targeted. Goff trusts him. Kupp is a rookie. Drops will happen. Force-feeding Watkins looks isn't how you maintain a #1 offense. Watkins earning those looks is how you maintain a #1 offense. Right now, Watkins is a supremely talented player who is showing flashes of brilliance but is not reliable. I'm hoping the bye will give him an opportunity to catch up with the offense. Maybe Goff, Woods, and Kupp can take him under their wings and work with him.

Ouch! -But thanks for the excellent insights, as always.

[BStanRamFan]

11 hours ago, jrry32 said:

 

Kupp has dropped some passes, but he's always where he's supposed to be. That's why he's getting targeted. Goff trusts him. Kupp is a rookie. Drops will happen. Force-feeding Watkins looks isn't how you maintain a #1 offense. Watkins earning those looks is how you maintain a #1 offense. Right now, Watkins is a supremely talented player who is showing flashes of brilliance but is not reliable. I'm hoping the bye will give him an opportunity to catch up with the offense. Maybe Goff, Woods, and Kupp can take him under their wings and work with him.

I'm a huge Kupp fan, but just being where you're supposed to be isn't enough for me. We need reliable hands and playmakers. Goff does trust him so fair point, but Kupp was looked at as "sure handed" and "reliable", the past few weeks (specifically SEA), he has not been as much.

 

Back to Watkins, he is not reliable or up to speed because he's not being involved much in the passing game. ATL is suffering because they have not been force feeding Julio Jones as much and all the analysts agree they are suffering for it.  Watkins has earned the looks, he needs targets. Atleast 5-9 a game and more deep balls. If he's even in the vicinity of Goff's pass, we will get a PI; which is just as good. They do need to get on the same page in the bye week, but if we are using Watkins as just a decoy, he was a waste of a 2nd round pick. Get him some screens, slants, come back routes so we can just get the ball in his hands and let him make plays.

[BillsGuy82]

On 19/10/2017 at 1:28 PM, bertuzzi said:

Its one of those trades that was bad for both teams. Rams would be better off keepin their 2nd and bills wouldve been better having kept sammy.

I didn't think this was a bad trade for us when it happened and I love the trade more right now. EJ Gaines has been solid when healthy and we have a shot at a solid player with the 2nd.

[JonStark]

3 hours ago, BStanRamFan said:

They do need to get on the same page in the bye week, but if we are using Watkins as just a decoy, he was a waste of a 2nd round pick. Get him some screens, slants, come back routes so we can just get the ball in his hands and let him make plays.

This 110%.

[jrry32]

11 hours ago, BStanRamFan said:

Back to Watkins, he is not reliable or up to speed because he's not being involved much in the passing game. ATL is suffering because they have not been force feeding Julio Jones as much and all the analysts agree they are suffering for it.  Watkins has earned the looks, he needs targets. Atleast 5-9 a game and more deep balls. If he's even in the vicinity of Goff's pass, we will get a PI; which is just as good. They do need to get on the same page in the bye week, but if we are using Watkins as just a decoy, he was a waste of a 2nd round pick. Get him some screens, slants, come back routes so we can just get the ball in his hands and let him make plays.

He's not reliable or up to speed because he doesn't know the offense. And I suspect that's why he's not being involved as much in the passing game. Take a look at the fade Goff threw to him in the red-zone on 3rd down. Watkins beat Peterson off the LOS badly. Goff immediately went to the fade. Watkins ran a stutter-and-go. I bet you that Watkins had a route conversion on that play and blew the read. My bet is that he was supposed to run a stutter-and-go if Peterson played off and that route converted to a fade if Peterson pressed.

That's the big problem right now. If you're Sean McVay, why would you feature a guy who is still struggling to be where he's supposed to be? Those sort of mistakes tend to result in turnovers.

Once Watkins shows more comfort in the offense, I bet we start to use him more. You have to keep in mind that almost every system today doesn't assign one route for a player to run on each play. They could assign a player two, three, four, or even five routes depending on the pre-snap look, the leverage of the defender, and the post-snap look. That's why it's not as easy to feature a guy who is struggling with his assignments as people believe. McVay isn't going to dumb down the #1 offense in the NFL. And frankly, Sammy is doing his job even if he is a decoy much of the time. I don't consider being the #1 offense to be a waste of a second round pick. Do you think we'd be as strong of an offense without Sammy?

[BStanRamFan]

15 hours ago, jrry32 said:

He's not reliable or up to speed because he doesn't know the offense. And I suspect that's why he's not being involved as much in the passing game. Take a look at the fade Goff threw to him in the red-zone on 3rd down. Watkins beat Peterson off the LOS badly. Goff immediately went to the fade. Watkins ran a stutter-and-go. I bet you that Watkins had a route conversion on that play and blew the read. My bet is that he was supposed to run a stutter-and-go if Peterson played off and that route converted to a fade if Peterson pressed.

That's the big problem right now. If you're Sean McVay, why would you feature a guy who is still struggling to be where he's supposed to be? Those sort of mistakes tend to result in turnovers.

Once Watkins shows more comfort in the offense, I bet we start to use him more. You have to keep in mind that almost every system today doesn't assign one route for a player to run on each play. They could assign a player two, three, four, or even five routes depending on the pre-snap look, the leverage of the defender, and the post-snap look. That's why it's not as easy to feature a guy who is struggling with his assignments as people believe. McVay isn't going to dumb down the #1 offense in the NFL. And frankly, Sammy is doing his job even if he is a decoy much of the time. I don't consider being the #1 offense to be a waste of a second round pick. Do you think we'd be as strong of an offense without Sammy?

I agree he's not up to speed and needs to learn his route's better, but until he does, we should still be putting the ball in his hands on slants, screens, Fly routes, etc to allow him to make plays or grab a PI.

 

I think we would not be as effective without Sammy, but if you're asking would i rather have a #1 offense with no 2nd round pick and a #5 offense with a 2nd round pick, i'd take the ladder. Gurley is what makes this offense successful and gives Goff the ability to be successful with play action. Honestly, if we didn't have Sammy, we would be featuring Josh Reynolds more and I think he has the ability to take the top off defenses and win jump balls so he would have had a larger role if we didn't bring in Sammy. You get the ball in the hands of your playmakers. Period. Until Sammy gets his routes down pat, we still need to be getting him the ball more than he has been getting it. Our best game offensively, Goff's best game of the season, Gurley's best game all season came vs the 49ers. I don't think it's a coincidence that it also happened to be Sammy's best game as a Ram.

[RamPackFan]

Lots of "trade hype" being genrated from ESPN/NFL talking heads about Rams possibly trading Watkins before the deadline...what are your thoughts on this? Me, personally, think we should ride with him the rest of the year and see if things get better and chemistry builds up more then re-evaluate at the end of the year....because from my understanding we only signed him for this year, correct? 

[RamPackFan]

7 hours ago, BStanRamFan said:

I agree he's not up to speed and needs to learn his route's better, but until he does, we should still be putting the ball in his hands on slants, screens, Fly routes, etc to allow him to make plays or grab a PI.

 

I think we would not be as effective without Sammy, but if you're asking would i rather have a #1 offense with no 2nd round pick and a #5 offense with a 2nd round pick, i'd take the ladder. Gurley is what makes this offense successful and gives Goff the ability to be successful with play action. Honestly, if we didn't have Sammy, we would be featuring Josh Reynolds more and I think he has the ability to take the top off defenses and win jump balls so he would have had a larger role if we didn't bring in Sammy. You get the ball in the hands of your playmakers. Period. Until Sammy gets his routes down pat, we still need to be getting him the ball more than he has been getting it. Our best game offensively, Goff's best game of the season, Gurley's best game all season came vs the 49ers. I don't think it's a coincidence that it also happened to be Sammy's best game as a Ram.

I'm with you on this.  It's hard to say how Sammy has affected out passing game being on the other side allowing other people to get more open due to defenses "keying" more on him. BUT, production wise I don't think it could get much worse having Reynolds out there.  I'd sure like to see more of what the kid can do.  During the preseason he looked amazing! Other than Dede Westbrook he was the main rookie WR who made the most explosive plays (if my memory serves me right)? The guy has much more range (due to length and size) than Watkins does and can stretch the field just as good. Hopefully we'll get to see more of him after the bye. 

[jrry32]

9 hours ago, BStanRamFan said:

I agree he's not up to speed and needs to learn his route's better, but until he does, we should still be putting the ball in his hands on slants, screens, Fly routes, etc to allow him to make plays or grab a PI.

But it's not that simple. We rarely run bubble screens (I can't think of any WR bubble screens that we ran that weren't on 3rd and long). Further, you have to keep in mind that Goff is calling the majority of the plays at the LOS. It's not as simple as just having Watkins run a slant or a go (although, we've had him run a lot of gos, but him and Goff aren't connecting deep). When Goff reads the defense, he's going to get us in the play that best attacks that look. That's his singular focus. Getting the ball to Sammy isn't what he's thinking as he tries to determine if they're going to run man or zone-under with their Cover 2 look.

Quote

I think we would not be as effective without Sammy, but if you're asking would i rather have a #1 offense with no 2nd round pick and a #5 offense with a 2nd round pick, i'd take the ladder. Gurley is what makes this offense successful and gives Goff the ability to be successful with play action. Honestly, if we didn't have Sammy, we would be featuring Josh Reynolds more and I think he has the ability to take the top off defenses and win jump balls so he would have had a larger role if we didn't bring in Sammy. You get the ball in the hands of your playmakers. Period. Until Sammy gets his routes down pat, we still need to be getting him the ball more than he has been getting it. Our best game offensively, Goff's best game of the season, Gurley's best game all season came vs the 49ers. I don't think it's a coincidence that it also happened to be Sammy's best game as a Ram.

I'm taking the #1 offense. We've already won some close games. We'll likely win more close games as the year goes. We need all the points we can get. 

[bzane]

2 hours ago, RamPackFan said:

Lots of "trade hype" being genrated from ESPN/NFL talking heads about Rams possibly trading Watkins before the deadline...what are your thoughts on this? Me, personally, think we should ride with him the rest of the year and see if things get better and chemistry builds up more then re-evaluate at the end of the year....because from my understanding we only signed him for this year, correct? 

Holy Cow, really?? After they not so long ago just traded next year's second-round pick for him? And, surely, his trade value has slipped during his time with the Rams, so they wouldn't get the same value back? Seems to me they'd be better off to hang onto him and hope he develops into what he was once thought to be, rather than lose out on value in such a short period of time.

[RamRod]

1 hour ago, bzane said:

Holy Cow, really?? After they not so long ago just traded next year's second-round pick for him? And, surely, his trade value has slipped during his time with the Rams, so they wouldn't get the same value back? Seems to me they'd be better off to hang onto him and hope he develops into what he was once thought to be, rather than lose out on value in such a short period of time.

There isn't any legitimate trade talk happening. I saw an article on NFL that was something like "each trade every team should make" or something like that and it had Sammy for us. Doesn't really mean anything.

[BStanRamFan]

I would do Watkins for Martavious Bryant straight up if i had to, but I really like Sammy Watkins. Once he gets the playbook down pat I think he's a top 10 WR in the league.

 

Pick wise, we aren't getting a 2nd back. Maybe a conditional 3rd? But i wouldn't do it.