Round 2 Pick 34; Christian Watson, WR, NDSU

[vegas492]

To be fair to Watson....it's the brain and coaching.

If his brain clicks right away with the coaching, the sky is the limit.

I'm full steam ahead with Watson.  But even I'm tempering my enthusiasm.

I feel like he will get a few deep ones right away, because teams will underestimate his speed and acceleration.

Then those looks are going to dry up and it is up to MLF to scheme him open.

I'm going to be absolutely giddy if I see him running crossing routes against man coverage and single high safeties.

[Kampfgeist]

11 minutes ago, JordanLoveFTW said:

Randall Cobb just said a WR doesn’t have to be great at everything, but be great at 4 or 5 things. 
 

That bodes well for Watson. He can be great at a few things right now. 
 

Less than 600 yards would be a monsterous disappointment for Watson with the situation he’s waking into. He needs to be better than rookie MVS on day 1. 

I think you are wrong.  RT makes good points in the post just above yours.  You should read them.

[CWood21]

55 minutes ago, JordanLoveFTW said:

Less than 600 yards would be a monsterous disappointment for Watson with the situation he’s waking into. He needs to be better than rookie MVS on day 1. 

You might want to re-evaluate your expectations.  Only 5 rookie WRs got 600+ receiving yards last year, and all 5 of them had 100+ targets.  I believe there were 3 WRs who hit more then 600 yards receiving as a rookie that weren't given 100+ targets in Darnell Mooney (98 targets and 631 receiving yards), Brandon Aiyuk (96 targets and 748 receiving yards), and Laviska Shenault (79 targets and 600 receiving yards).  If we can get ~60 targets, 40 receptions, and 500 yards out of Christian Watson, I'd be happy.

[R T]

57 minutes ago, Norm said:

Route running 

Being really fast

Jumping really high

Catching every pass

And something else.

That's all it takes!

And breaking every tackle. 

[Norm]

5 minutes ago, R T said:

And breaking every tackle. 

I was going to go with end zone dancing but this is better

[Brit Pack]

1 hour ago, Norm said:

Route running 

Being really fast

Jumping really high

Catching every pass

And something else.

That's all it takes!

And that 'something else' is not getting injured. Ever. At all. Especially, most certainly in the rookie year and most definetly not in training camp. If he can be available, he'll learn and he'll develop and he'll be good. If he is not available, he'll always be playing catch up, he'll put himself under more and more pressure and he'll crumble, and he'll fold and he'll wither away, never to be seen or heard of ever again!!!!!

[ThatJerkDave]

Didn't I already say in the Romeo Doubs thread:

On 5/24/2022 at 2:28 PM, ThatJerkDave said:

How many rookie WRs had 800+ yards last season?

The answer is 5, if you count Kyle Pitts.  Ja'Marr Chase, Kyle Pitts, Jalen Waddle, DeVonta Smith, and Amon-Ra St. Brown.  The next player was Elijah Moore, with 538 yards receiving.  As a rookie, MVS had 581.  In fact, only 15 players from the class of 2020 have 800 receiving yards in their first two seasons combined.  

 

Temper the expectations for year 1.  Watson will get some.  Doubs will get a little less.  Like vegas said, let's hope they are ramping up as the season ends.  

Then:

On 5/24/2022 at 3:36 PM, ThatJerkDave said:

I meant Moore had 2538 yards.  He was actually 4 times better than MVS!!!  4 times!

Yeah.  Rookie WRs don't typically produce right away.  Amari Rodgers' 45 yards tied him for 37th in receiving yards of all draftees.  Only 17 rookies had more than 200 receiving yards, and 7 of them were either RBs or TEs.  

 

Add to MVS being a damn good rookie, there were no 5th round WRs last season that had receiving yards.  The best 5th rounder was Kenneth Gainwell with 253 receiving yards.  Of the receivers that surpassed MVS's rookie totals, all were 1st or 2nd round picks, except Amon-Ra St. Brown.  St. Brown had 90 catches and 119 targets, MVS's highest 2 seasons combined for only 136 targets.  This proves 2 things:  1.  MVS is my dude.  2.  Too many people downplay MVS's contributions to the Packers.

 

I really like Christian Watson.  But expecting an MVS rookie year from him is setting it up for failure, then being able to claim they were right, and he is a bust.  The fact that only 5 players out produced MVS last season, and the 2020 class only has 15 that out-did his rookie year, IN TWO SEASONS, should temper expectations for our rookie WRs.

Watson should be able to replicate some of MVS's deep speed ability year one.  He should be able to force safeties back, and away from the middle and shallow routes.

[craig]

Volume receiving stats relates to opportunity.  Watson might hypothetically get extensive opportunity, earn extensive opportunity, and perhaps rack up pretty good rookie volume of snaps, targets, and yard.  

It might also hypothetically be a good thing if he doesn't get big snaps/volume, *IF* that hypothetically reflects that things are going favorably and the team is winning  without needing him.  *IF* he hypothetically doesn't rack up lots of snaps and lots of targets or yards, that might reflect that Tonyan and Watkins and Cobb and Bakhti and o-line are healthy, and that the offense is functioning well.  

[TheEagle]

2 hours ago, Norm said:

Route running 

Being really fast

Jumping really high

Catching every pass

And something else.

That's all it takes!

And you don't need to catch every pass if you are a playmaker. Plenty of great WRs (Terrell Owens and Brandon Marshall come to mind) didn't have great hands.

[TheEagle]

1 hour ago, CWood21 said:

If we can get ~60 targets, 40 receptions, and 500 yards out of Christian Watson, I'd be happy.

If he gets 40 receptions, he should get 600 yards. That is about my expectation for him. No matter what he does this year, it's going to be interesting to see where he's at come year 3.

[CWood21]

4 minutes ago, TheEagle said:

If he gets 40 receptions, he should get 600 yards. That is about my expectation for him. No matter what he does this year, it's going to be interesting to see where he's at come year 3.

That'd be nearly 15 YPC.  Of the WRs this past season with 1000+ yards receiving, only 6 (out of 26) had 15+ YPC.  That 40/500 is a more reasonable 12.5 YPC, which would account for 14 of the 26.  3 of those 12 were within a half a yard of hitting that 12.5 YPC mark.  There were only 14 WRs who averaged 15 YPC this past season, and only 5 of them had 65 or less targets.  That'd be a HUGE year if he came away with 40/600.

[R T]

2 minutes ago, CWood21 said:

That'd be nearly 15 YPC.  Of the WRs this past season with 1000+ yards receiving, only 6 (out of 26) had 15+ YPC.  That 40/500 is a more reasonable 12.5 YPC, which would account for 14 of the 26.  3 of those 12 were within a half a yard of hitting that 12.5 YPC mark.  There were only 14 WRs who averaged 15 YPC this past season, and only 5 of them had 65 or less targets.  That'd be a HUGE year if he came away with 40/600.

If his role is to play a similar role to that of MVS, I don't think the 15-yard average in out of the question. MVS was over 15 yards a catch in every season with the Packers and averaged 17.5 in his 4 seasons in GB, 20.9 in 2020.  

[CWood21]

6 minutes ago, R T said:

If his role is to play a similar role to that of MVS, I don't think the 15-yard average in out of the question. MVS was over 15 yards a catch in every season with the Packers and averaged 17.5 in his 4 seasons in GB, 20.9 in 2020.  

I would argue that MVS was drafted into that WR3 role behind Davante Adams and Randall Cobb.  And aside from those two, he was only competing with Jimmy Graham for passes thrown his way.  Right now, I've got Christian Watson as WR4 behind Sammy Watkins, Allen Lazard, and Randall Cobb.  In 2018, WR4 (ESB) had 36 balls thrown his way.  But they also had Davante Adams dominating with 169 balls thrown to him.

[PossibleCabbage]

Christian Watson is going to catch 10 80-yard touchdowns.

[Uffdaswede]

31 minutes ago, PossibleCabbage said:

Christian Watson is going to catch 10 80-yard touchdowns.

That's some poor field position to start drives. I blame special teams.