RADIO
Welcome back to Tape Tells All, the weekly series where I look at film and data for something that happened in the NFL this week.
This week, we're looking at Green Bay Packers rookie wide receiver Christian Watson, who caught three touchdown passes on Sunday.
We've been waiting for someone to step up besides Allen Lazard in this passing game. Is Christian Watson that guy? Was this the start of a breakout, or just a blip? By now, Watson's probably been added in virtually all leagues, but should you be starting him?
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Christian Watson Background
We all knew that the Green Bay Packers were going to have a wide receiver problem this year. With Davante Adams leaving for Vegas and Marquez Valdes-Scantling for Kansas City, the team was left with Allen Lazard and a bunch of untested players. Back in Week 1, the Packers were held to just seven points with Lazard out, with about a third of the team's targets going to running backs. When Lazard came back the next week, we saw a Packers team that ran more than it threw, with no player getting more than four targets...and that player was Sammy Watkins.
The point of this: the Packers were in bad shape. And they still are—worse, really, as Randall Cobb and Romeo Doubs are hurt.
That's where Christian Watson comes in.
Watson was Green Bay's second round pick out of North Dakota State, where he caught 43 passes for 801 yards and seven touchdowns last season. So far this season, Watson's missed some time, dealing with a hamstring injury that's kept him out of a few games this year.
And when he was on the field prior to Sunday's game, he was mostly invisible. His previous best game came in Week 1, when he was targeted four times, catching two of them for 34 yards.
And then, suddenly, boom, there's Watson in Week 10, catching three touchdowns. What happened?
Christian Watson's Week 10 Performance
First, let's address the one obvious thing that contributed to Watson's numbers: he was on the field.
That sounds silly, but after playing 66% of the snaps in Week 1—his previous best game—he didn't play over 32% of them again until this Sunday, when he was 54 snaps, which was 84% of Green Bay's offensive plays. As simple as this is, you have to be on the field to be productive.
So, why was he on the field more? Or, maybe a better question: where did those added snaps come from.
Allen Lazard played 98% of the team's snaps. Watson was at 84%, then Sammy Watkins was at 33%, Samori Toure 19% and Amari Rodgers, who the team cut on Tuesday, was at 9%.
One week before against the Lions, we had Lazard at 88%, Watkins 81%, Toure 38%, Rodgers 26% and Watson 23%. So, it looks like a big chunk of these snaps were at the expense of Sammy Watkins. Considering Watkins' lack of production this year, I think we can assume that Watson's production this week signals he should stay ahead of Watkins.
(A bigger question is if he can stay ahead of Romeo Doubs, who was injured in Week 9 and missed Week 10. Doubs had played over 80% of the Packers' snaps in six consecutive games before he went down. We'll revisit Doubs in the next section. This section is supposed to be looking back, not forward.)
Let's take a look at Week 10 now, first via digging into some numbers from The 33rd Team.
Watson was second among all players this week in target share at 42.1%, behind only Detroit's Amon-Ra St. Brown. Watson ran just 19 routes in this one, second on the team to Allen Lazard's 23, but that's more about the offense than it is about Watson, since Aaron Rodgers ended up throwing just 20 passes, plus he was sacked on two drop backs. Watson was still involved in most of the team's routes, and he was targeted on 42.1% of the routes he ran.
I think a more telling thing here—in a good way—is the air yards. Watson had 165 air yards in the game. Lazard had 10. 73% of Green Bay's air yards went his way. Rodgers has been in need of a deep threat, and Watson looked like he could be that deep threat.
Anyway, let's watch some touchdowns.
Watson's speed is really on display here. Just a simple crossing route down in the end zone here, which is the kind of play where you don't really expect to see a player create separation—there's just not time to get through the wind up and showcase how you being incrementally faster than the guys on the other side can build up. But despite that, he's able to find a space here and out run the trailing Cowboys defender, going in for the touchdown.
Or how about this one. The Packers go deep on play action here. Watson is ahead of his defender, but has to slow just a bit to adjust to the track of the ball, which leads to the Cowboys defender catching back up to him just as the ball drops in. Watson's able to shrug off the fact that a defender is on his shoulder, catch the pass, and then stay up right, sprinting the rest of the way for the score.
Christian Watson Fantasy Value
As I mentioned above, a lot really depends on Romeo Doubs here. I'm confident that the role Watson had on Sunday is safe if Doubs remains out. If Doubs doesn't play Thursday, for instance, I'm going to put Watson in a number of my lineups because I think the upside, and I like that his speed gives Aaron Rodgers the deep threat that he needs.
But Doubs had a pretty sizable role when he was healthy. So when Doubs returns, I'll likely do a bit of a wait-and-see approach in regards to starting Watson. If I have the luxury of having another WR2/3 I can play, I'll play him in the next Watson + Doubs game, just to see how things shake out. I can't really get more specific than that at this point, because the Romeo Doubs stuff is just such an unknown variable. He was clearly ahead of Watson in the pecking order and both are rookies, so it won't be a Sammy Watkins thing, where you can just push the veteran down the depth chart because he's not part of your future plans.
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