How much will the Chiefs miss Sammy Watkins against Browns?
The Chiefs trailed by three when Sammy Watkins beat Richard Sherman off the line of scrimmage and hauled in the biggest catch of his life. When Watkins’ friends talk about the Super Bowl, they remind him he made one of the day’s biggest plays, a fourth-quarter reception that set up the go-ahead touchdown. Heck, the Chiefs might not win without it.
A year later, in their first playoff game since, the Chiefs will have to win without the player who made it. Watkins, the Chiefs No. 2 receiver, will miss Sunday’s game against the Browns because of a calf injury he suffered in Week 16.
Although the Chiefs aren’t short of offensive playmakers, none were more reliable during last year’s playoff run than Watkins, who led the team in receiving yards over the three games. And now the team embarks on the ensuing postseason without him, at least for one game. The Chiefs will turn to a rotation of Mecole Hardman, Demarcus Robinson and Byron Pringle behind top option Tyreek Hill.
“We all love Sammy — he’s done a heck of a job here —but with any situation like this, we just say next guy up and we go,” Chiefs coach Andy Reid said. “I’m not sure anybody blinks on that — you just giddy-up and go. That’s not because Sammy’s not a great player; that’s not it. It’s just one of those things, how this team is wired. We do the best we possibly can. From a coaching standpoint on down with the players, just do the best you can and here we go.”
Just how big of a loss is this? How much will they miss Watkins?
Well, it depends on which statistics you prefer to use. The adage that you can selectively use only the numbers to fit your argument — it’s true here.
If you look at Watkins’ contribution in the postseason? The Chiefs will miss him considerably.
If you instead look at this year’s regular season? They could be OK without him.
Let’s start with the former. In five postseason games with the Chiefs, Watkins has 24 catches for 464 yards and one touchdown — the game-sealing score against the Titans, the moment when you finally felt comfortable celebrating the Chiefs’ trip to the Super Bowl. We’ve seen opposing defenses double both Hill and tight end Travis Kelce in the postseason, and the Chiefs’ solution has been to find Watkins. Even in his worst playoff game with Kansas City, he still caught six passes for 62 yards. The Chiefs have scored at least 31 points in every game in which he’s played.
During this season, Watkins missed five of the 15 games — we’re excluding Week 17 in this exercise, because the Chiefs rested their starters anyway. In the 10 games with Watkins in the lineup, the Chiefs averaged 28 points per game. In the five he missed due to injury — again, excluding Week 17 — the team scored 34.4 points per game.
It’s a small sample size, and the team was aided by a defensive touchdown and special teams score against the Broncos, but the offense did average 421 yards per game without Watkins, slightly more than the 416 they averaged over the full season.
So can they replace Watkins? Probably not with an identical player. Robinson, Hardman and Pringle all bring different skill-sets than Watkins, who has found a role as the reliable and trustworthy receiver on the short and intermediate routes. They won’t replicate that, at least uniformly.
But can the Chiefs thrive without him anyway? They can. And they have.
This story was originally published January 16, 2021 at 2:18 PM with the headline "How much will the Chiefs miss Sammy Watkins against Browns?."