Buffalo Bills wide receiver Sammy Watkins spoke with the Buffalo media on Thursday and made it clear that his currently limited role with the team and the offense is not something he, or agent Eugene Parker, deem acceptable.
"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, per Tyler Dunne of the Buffalo News. "I need the ball at least 10 times - I need 10 targets - and I'll be fine with however many yards I get."
Watkins, a first-round pick in the 2014 NFL Draft that Bills GM Doug Whaley surrendered two first-round picks and a fourth-rounder for the opportunity to select, currently has seven receptions, 99 yards and one touchdown to his name in three games this season. But it's the 12 targets over that span that had Watkins pushing Parker to speak with the higher-ups in the Buffalo organization.
"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," Watkins said, via Dunne. "You're making me look bad and you're making yourself look bad. Why not make both of us look good?'"
Watkins does have a point - he's an extremely talented player and four targets a game is not enough, especially if he's seeing as much single coverage as he suggested to Dunne - but he's making it in what seems to be the worst way possible. Whaley and Bills head coach Rex Ryan surely know how talented he is. There's a reason Ryan said in April that he'd rather have Watkins than a first-round pick. Complaining to the media or his agent instead of simply working his way back into the lineup and the top of quarterback Tyrod Taylor's go-to rotation is not the way to endear himself to Whaley, Ryan, Taylor or Bills fans.
Still, it wouldn't be a Ryan team if there wasn't at least one player sounding off about something and stirring up controversy. And to hear Watkins tell it, voicing his issues with the current distribution of touches has already brought assurances of looks back his way. He just wants Bills fans to know that his desperate desire for touches is really for the greater good - not his own stat line.
"I was told, 'Look, you're going to get the targets that you need. You're going to start getting 100 yards every game,'" Watkins said. "That's really the focus: winning. If I get 80, 90, 100 yards, we're winning the majority of our games. That helps, not only me, but the whole offense click. Then I start getting more double-coverage and you run the ball to the right and Percy's going over the top. That's the biggest thing."
