The Rams offensive turnaround has been one of the biggest stories of the 2017 season, but wide receiver Sammy Watkins had been playing a relatively small role in it since being acquired in a trade with the Bills in August.
Watkins had six catches for 106 yards and two touchdowns in Week Three, but only had 12 catches for 158 yards in the other six games the team played before heading into MetLife Stadium to face the Giants on Sunday. Watkins only added one catch to the ledger, but it was the kind of catch that made the Rams go and get him in the first place.
Watkins ran down a 67-yard bomb from Jared Goff for a touchdown in the first half of the 51-17 rout. The connection came on a route Watkins was running full speed for the first time, but was an outcome the club had been hoping to see for some time.
“We feel like we’ve been trying to hit that for a long time,” Goff said, via the Los Angeles Times. “First of hopefully many with him.”
Goff only threw 22 passes on Sunday before being pulled for Sean Mannion and targeted eight different players, so the passing offense doesn’t have to go through Watkins to be successful. When it comes to dropping haymakers on a defense, though, there’s nothing quite like covering the entire field on a pass play and Watkins showed on Sunday that he remains suited to the task.