The Buffalo Bills took a significant gamble in bartering next year’s first-round pick to move up and land wide receiver Sammy Watkins with the No. 4 overall selection in the NFL Draft earlier this month.
Granted, it’s the offseason and Watkins has yet to absorb any NFL-style contact, but there was no hint of buyer’s remorse as the team wrapped up its rookie minicamp Monday.
“I thought after having watched him now for a couple days, my assessment of him is that he probably has better hand eye coordination than I thought coming into it,” said Bills head coach Doug Marrone. “I’m excited to see him. Again, I think for me the big thing, and I’ve always been this way and said this before when (the media has) been around, I really look forward to when the pads come on and we start playing football and really evaluating people then.”
Watkins was the top-rated wide receiver in the 2014 class by NFLDraftScout.com, and is considered a dynamic playmaker who can take the ball behind the line of scrimmage and be a threat to score or take the top off a defense with his straight-line speed.
One of the few knocks on him coming out of college was Watkins’ somewhat lackluster sophomore season, which was sandwiched between a phenomenal freshman effort and an outstanding junior year. Watkins admitted after the draft that his drop off in 2012 could largely be chalked up to being young and not fully focused on building on his freshman season.
Watkins said all the right things after being drafted by the Bills, and has backed it up early on with his work ethic at the team’s headquarters.
“Someone told me today that he was in here at like 6:45 running routes on air,” said Marrone. “I think those are the things you want to hear. You want to hear about that. You don’t want to leave anything to chance and you just want to make sure the performance on the field proves whether you’re good enough or you’re not good enough.”
Watkins said the ability to work with NFL coaches has already improved his route-running and overall mechanics. He’s also adjusting to life in the NFL, understanding how to manage everything from his schedule to his eating habits.
“I have the speed and size and the ability, now it’s just down to the details and the little things,” said Watkins. “Initially the cornerbacks are great, they know the details of your route and you have to be crisp and right on everything you do and have to make everything look the same. I woke up this morning and that’s what I was trying to do. Stay straight, keep my head up and work on my routes and my breaking points.”
–Offensive tackle Seantrel Henderson was one of the top high school recruits in the country, and remained a potential first-round prospect despite a string of off-field issues following him from Southern Cal to Miami over the past four years. NFLDraftScout.com had him rated as one of the top tackle prospects last summer, but that was before acknowledged failed tests for marijuana and another reported failed test at the Scouting Combine.
Henderson plummeted to the seventh round, and has gone out of his way to make a good impression with the media during rookie camp. Marrone is pleased with what he has seen so far, but also made it clear Henderson has a long way to go to build a trust factor with the coaching staff.
“It’s early. It really is,” said Marrone. “For me, consistency is the thing. I think over a period of time we’ll know. I think that we’re off to a good start. I think that’s easy to do. I think it’s what I expected.
“There is no doubt that he can play. There is no doubt about that. The problems that have come in to is can he be consistent enough and be disciplined enough and have the structure to be a pro. That’s what being a pro is really. We talk about what it’s like to be a Bill, but it’s really about being a pro.
“You have to have that discipline and structure. Like I tell the players all the time you can get yourself in trouble in this profession when you start treating your job like a hobby. From my experience I’ve been around some players that when they do that, they’re not going to last very long.”
Consistency and professionalism was the overarching message Marrone left his rookies with before breaking camp. When they return to the offseason program, the first-year players will feel the full brunt of what it means to be in the NFL alongside the veterans competing for roster spots.
“You don’t want to look back and look in the mirror and say, ‘Gosh I wish I had done a little bit extra here, a little bit extra there,’ because it’s not like you’re going to go down to (Triple-A) and get a chance to do this again,” said Marrone. “A lot of times in this league you get one shot. I’ve always thought about the players that maybe might have learned their lesson after being cut, how many of those guys would have come back and really been good football players if there was some sort of developmental process.”