Quote
AlbaNY_Ram
Cooks can run the short/intermediate routes, giving McVay the option of sending Woods deep. Last year Watkins pretty much always went deep, my assumption being that he isn't very good at the short/intermediate stuff. (Or at least not as good as Cooks is.)
Now the defense doesn't know who is going deep. How valuable is that?!?
I agree with the overall gist of your post but I disagree on your assumption.
Watkins had already shown in Buff. that he could run the short/intermediate routes. With his body, he's actually very good at some of the short stuff.
I think McVay didn't run him on those routes here because he was integrated into the offense late. McVay acknowledged that that was a big factor in how he used him. Cooks hasn't had that issue fortunately because he was here all TC and preseason.