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Watkins: "I need 10 targets... You're making me look bad."


johnwalter

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even if it is thrown past his high point and just barely hits his fingertips at full stretch ?

Some fans don't watch football beyond the Bills. No WR comes down with that ball 100% of the time, but of course Sammy must.

 

Let's disregard the other great catches he's made when given the chance...

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Sammy needs to realize he's playing with the big boys in the NFL. Sammy isnt even the best WR from Clemson playing the league right now. The great one's flat out ball. Dinged, nicked, sprained they still rise to the occasion. Think Thomas, and Dez, Julio, Megatron, OBJ, Cobb, dont take a lot of shots on all those catches? I like the attitude by Sammy, now hes just got go out and do it. He needs that switch to come on like it did with Moulds. Until he puts up a great season,his potential will remain ahead of his production.

 

The WR's you named have an average of 5.375 years to Sammy Watkins 1.31 years. The kid hasn't had time to put up the numbers, and he has a righteous complaint to his first year of game planning for him i.e. decoy.

 

Not to mention the WR's you listed have the following as QBs. This sounds like an excuse but it is really reality.

 

Peyton Manning

Tony Romo

Matt Ryan

Matt Stafford

Eli Manning

Aaron Rodgers

 

Then we get into the "well why did we reach for a WR then?". Well as we saw (or didn't see) the last two weeks, Sammy opens things up for us with or without a good stat line.

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Especially when the numbers are way off. He's either saying he needs about 40% all of our passes to go to him, or he's saying Roman needs to call 35+ passes per game instead of running so much. He's quoted saying OBJ gets 20 targets, OBJ has 52 targets on the year (just over 10 per game). And in order for OBJ to see that many targets Eli has already thrown 60 more passes on the year than Tyrod has. Clay and Harvin lead the team in targets and targets per game, but that's also including 2 games where Sammy was unavailable and Clay and Harvin were the main receiving weapons.

There were several games last year where OBJ was targeted 20x or more. That's what Sammy was referring to.

No problem for Sammy to be vocal about being a bigger part of the offense. Big time WRs always want the ball.

 

But of course then he needs to pull in a tough high ball from his QB when the team positively absolutely needs it.

 

Put up or shut up.

I agree with that. The INT against NE he has to make that catch. Not because anyone else in the league would make that catch but because he needs to be and should be an elite star player. And star players make that insane catch when it is needed. A lot of people think we overpaid for him with the two number ones. I think it was a great trade because he is an elite and star player. They are not going to make every single play. It's impossible. But Watkins needed to make that catch that 95% of the WR cannot make. It doesn't matter that it was a bad ball or two yards off target. He needs to make that catch that no one else, not even OBJ, could have made (maybe Megatron or Julio or AJ Green could have).
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There were several games last year where OBJ was targeted 20x or more. That's what Sammy was referring to.

 

 

There was only 1 game where he was targeted more the 20 times (21), the final game of the year. The 2nd highest game in his career is 15 targets. You produce more, you get more targets. Sammy's plan of "I need 10 targets -- and l'll be fine with however many yards I get," is something a diva would say.

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There was only 1 game where he was targeted more the 20 times (21), the final game of the year. The 2nd highest game in his career is 15 targets. You produce more, you get more targets. Sammy's plan of "I need 10 targets -- and l'll be fine with however many yards I get," is something a diva would say.

You're right. My bad for believing people. He did average about 11 a game and his first three games were only about 5. So the last nine games he averaged about 13 targets. Sammy averaged about 8. That's 50% more per game that OBJ gets. It's significant.

 

All WRs think they are open most every play. They are all divas to some degree. I think fans would be shocked about how selfish their favorite player is if they knew what was said in these games. But you want that out of your players. You want Watkins to be thinking exactly what he is saying whether he gets the ball or not.

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sammy's biggest problem is that his qb's are risk adverse. once they see a hint of double coverage, they look elsewhere.

 

doesn't seem to stop teams like ATL from consistent double digit targets of julio jones.

 

 

his motive is all about his next contract and putting up the numbers to justify a huge deal.

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You're right. My bad for believing people. He did average about 11 a game and his first three games were only about 5. So the last nine games he averaged about 13 targets. Sammy averaged about 8. That's 50% more per game that OBJ gets. It's significant.

 

 

 

Definitely significant, but the point I was trying to get across is that targets are a function of getting open, or at least the QB seeing you as open. Ben Watson had 12 targets in last night's game, mostly because he was open all night and ATL didn't have answer to an otherwise mediocre TE.

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sammy's biggest problem is that his qb's are risk adverse. once they see a hint of double coverage, they look elsewhere.

 

doesn't seem to stop teams like ATL from consistent double digit targets of julio jones.

 

 

his motive is all about his next contract and putting up the numbers to justify a huge deal.

 

That's possible, but watching the games seeing him open so often, it is frustrating as a fan not seeing him get the ball. I like TT and am patient with him, but he is missing a number of players wide open.

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By my calculations, it'd be 36.5%. Is that unreasonable for your top WR who they traded up for?

 

Or if he gets 8 targets per game like Boldin did in Roman's system, that's just 29%.

 

Doesn't seem unreasonable to me.

It's not entirely unreasonable, I'm just pointing out that OBJ is only getting 25% of the targets on his team and Cruz isn't even active his targets are up because they throw more than we do by a lot. Is 8 fine? Maybe, but that's not what he asked for.

 

There were several games last year where OBJ was targeted 20x or more. That's what Sammy was referring to.

There will be games where numbers fluctuate like that, sure. It also probably matters that over their careers Sammy catches the ball 51% of the time he's targeted and OBJ catches it 67% of the time.

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TyDunne should be stripped naked and bested with sticks for twisting things around to make it sound bad.

He was just doing his job. Any reporter would have taken those words and run with them. It really probably could have been a lot worse.

 

Sammy needs to go out and do his job that he gets paid millions of dollars to do, play football. Last I knew, part of his job description is not complaining to reporters and throwing teammates/coaches under the bus.

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It's not entirely unreasonable, I'm just pointing out that OBJ is only getting 25% of the targets on his team and Cruz isn't even active his targets are up because they throw more than we do by a lot. Is 8 fine? Maybe, but that's not what he asked for.

 

There will be games where numbers fluctuate like that, sure. It also probably matters that over their careers Sammy catches the ball 51% of the time he's targeted and OBJ catches it 67% of the time.

Can't catch balls that bounce a few feet in front of him.

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There is a stupid mindset coming from this.

 

I get that Sammy should refrain from talking to the media like this, so if you want to gripe about that, that's fine. But the issue is what's happening when he's on the field. Injury or not, he's getting open and not being targeted.

The point is that he's fragile and has no business complaining unless he can stay healthy. Maybe then if he's healthy for long stretches and not being utilized he would have reason to complain. But if you can't stay on the field, it's hard to use you.

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http://bills.buffalonews.com/2015/10/15/sammy-watkins-speaks-up-when-i-get-one-on-one-just-target-me/

 

Quote:

 

“Everybody looks at you getting zero catches, zero yards but when you look on film 90 percent of the time you’re open,” Watkins said. “I understand that these guys are young and they need some time to trust me. Once we get that trust, it’ll be different. But for me, I need the ball at least 10 times — I need 10 targets — and I’ll be fine with however many yards I get. And that’s what I addressed in talking with my agent. We reached out to a couple people and tried to pull some strings like, ‘Hey, I need my targets. You came up to draft me and I’m not getting targets — that’s a problem. You’re making me look bad and you’re making yourself look bad. Why not make both of us look good?’”

 

“You really just put it on film," Watkins said, "and go to the coach like, ‘Hey, I’m getting open. What’s the deal here?’ Don’t be an (expletive) about it, just go talk to him about the situation. I see the bigger picture. I enjoy spreading the ball around. It makes my job easier. But at the same time, for a guy you go up in the draft to take as your No. 1 receiver, you would love those 15 targets that Julio gets, those 20 targets that Odell gets. Of course I’d have 100 yards every game and a TD, if I’m getting 20 targets."

 

 

UPDATE: Sammy responds...

 

@sammywatkins: @TyDunne Wish you could have added the part we have so many playmakers and me not caring about numbers I care about winning.. Grow up.. Sir.

TLDR:

Sammy Watkins "Just throw me the damn ball!"

Plus Sammy asked his agent to ask Whaley to tell his coaches to tell the QBs to Just throw him the damn ball!

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Can't catch balls that bounce a few feet in front of him.

How many passes should I throw out due to this by your estimation? For Sammy to catch up in Catch%, 33 of the 141 balls thrown his way would need to be completely uncatchable and 0 of OBJ's would have to qualify the same way.

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Can't catch balls that bounce a few feet in front of him.

If you can't complete the pass to him, whatever the reason, then why would you target him? Just to waste a down? You'd be better off running it. Sammy should say: "Our QBs are 'young' and can't complete many passes to me even though I'm wide open all the time, so let's just run the ball instead."

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