Sammy Watkins to Bills: 'You're making me look bad,' target me more
Wide receiver Sammy Watkins isn't happy about his role in Buffalo.
After three games, Sammy Watkins' statline reads as follows: seven receptions, 12 targets, 99 yards, one touchdown. For a second-year player who was the fourth player selected in the 2014 NFL Draft, those numbers can only be considered a disappointment.
Of course, Watkins has been dealing with a calf injury that has sidelined him for the past two games, so those lowly numbers can be at least partially explained by circumstances outside of his control. Still, Watkins isn't happy about his role in Buffalo. In an interview with The Buffalo News, Watkins made that abundantly clear.
Here's Watkins complaining about not getting enough targets:
"That's what I get mad at," Watkins said, "when I don't get looked at. I can look at film and his eyes go straight that way and I'm not getting looked at, at all. That's when I get frustrated. When I have one-on-one coverage, go to me. I don't care what's going on over there. I don't care if he's open. When I get one on one, just target me."
According to Watkins, if he got 20 targets per game, he'd be scoring a touchdown and racking up 100 yards every game.
Here's Watkins complaining about not getting enough targets and telling the Bills that they're making him look bad:
"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?'"
Watkins is right -- he deserves more than four targets per game. But getting 10 seems incredibly unlikely, especially on this Bills team. For starters, the team's leader in targets -- tight end Charles Clay -- has compiled just 33, or 6.6 per game. Out of the wide receivers, Percy Harvin leads the team with 30 total targets, or six per game.
Furthermore, as a team, the Bills have run the ball 11 more times than they've thrown it. And that's hardly a surprise. In the offseason, Rex Ryan even said that his playbook would have the most running plays in the "history of man."
To put it more clearly, Sammy Watkins probably isn't going to be seeing 10 passes thrown his way in every game for the remainder of the season. But he could be back in the lineup on Sunday when the Bills host the undefeated Bengals.
Unfortunately for Watkins, there's a chance Tyrod Taylor will miss the game due to an MCL injury, which means he won't be able to start building the kind of trust he spoke about in his interview.
It's certainly worth noting that Watkins wants to make it clear that he cares about winning over his individual numbers, as he tweeted the following to Tyler Dunne, who wrote and reported the original story.
@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.
— Sammy Watkins (@sammywatkins) October 15, 2015
@sammywatkins Believe that was written. From the story: The difference here is that Watkins vows his call for the ball is team-centric.
— Tyler Dunne (@TyDunne) October 15, 2015
















