I’m not going to revisit thise stats but I 100% remember When I researched it, the games that hurt Watson in College was about usage. When he has 1-2 targets he kinda sucked or was mediocre. When he had 5+ targets he went off the charts. He gets better once warmed up.
I noticed something like that, too. The more experience he gets, the better he gets.
I've mentioned this before, but one thing that stand out to me is how little experience Watson still has at catching footballs. From the time where he first started playing organized football in high school up to the beginning of this season, he caught fewer than 200 passes. That's including his first 2 years in the NFL.
Just off the top of my head, CeeDee Lamb had almost beaten that total before he got out of high school, and exceeded that number by well over 50% before he left college - and Davante Adams did as well.
Speaking of Adams, it wasn't until his 4th year in the NFL that Adams had a catch rate as high as Watson's
lowest catch rate so far, and the same is true of Donald Driver.
All of these guys had far, far more experience catching footballs before they got to the NFL than Watson did, and that matters a lot. In fact, even in his 3rd year in the league, Watson still has not caught as many passes as any of them had caught before they even got to the NFL. People have to understand, he's still learning how to play - not just how to run the routes, but simply how to track footballs in the air and catch them.
This guy has a very bright future. He's a really nice, positive, hardworking kid, great teammate, no ego at all, and he's getting better and better the more snaps he gets and the more footballs he catches. If he hadn't missed aslmost half of his first 2 seasons with injuries, I think he might be a star by now.
Edit: On a whim, I took a look at some of the Packer receivers also. Romeo Doubs and Jayden Reed had both caught more passes by the middle of their senior year in college than Watson has caught in his whole life, and their catch rates are significantly higher than his (several percentage points). Wicks and Melton have caught about the same number of passes in their lives as Watson, and the catch rate for all 3 is within 1.3%.
Honestly, I don't know how much can be read into this. I won't pretend it's earthshaking. But I can't help noticing that among the 5 young WRs on our roster, the more passes each of them has caught over their entire career, the better they seem to be at tracking and catching the football - and that compared to a number of established NFL stars and historical Packer receivers, Watson's numbers hold up very well. Several of the WRs Packers fans have loved over the years took longer than Wtson has taken to where he already is today.
