It's easy to discount Watkins' contributions this year, especially if you simply focus on his stats (39 catches, 593 yards, 8 TDs on 70 targets).
Personally I think that a full offseason would do wonders for his ability to contribute in 2018 - from McVay figuring out how to use him to he and Goff developing some chemistry to Watkins getting a better understanding of the offense - there is certainly plenty of room for improvement. And I believe that improvement would lead to a larger role in 2018.
But then I wondered how Watkins could get more attention without the other skill players getting shortchanged and I think I stumbled on something.
The Rams ran exactly 1,000 plays in 2017, good for 19th in the league.
The Jaguars lead the league by running 1,078 plays.
What if the Rams defense improves enough to further limit their opponents' possessions and the offense improves enough to extend a drive or two a game ... wouldn't the Rams run more plays in 2018 than they did in 2017? If they can average 4 more plays a game they would run 64 more plays in 2018.
Suppose the Rams target Watkins with 40 of those additional plays: that would bring his targets up to 110. Even if he only produced at the same rate in 2018 that would translate to 61 catches for 928 yards and 13 TDs. Add the expected offseason improvement to that and he could be in the 75/1,100/15 range.
And that would still leave another 24 plays to actually increase the involvement of the other skills players.
110 targets doesn't seem out of line, even for the Rams' spread-it-around offense. Kupp had 94 in 2017, Woods had 85.
(Note Zack Ertz had 110 targets in 2017, good for 23rd in the league. DeAndre Hopkins lead the league with 174 targets.)
AlbaNY_Ram
