Los Angeles Rams: Prove it deal for Sammy Watkins could be best option for 2018

The Los Angeles Rams would love to see Sammy Watkins back for the 2018 season.

Last August, the Los Angeles Rams pulled off a surprise trade with the Buffalo Bills to acquire Sammy Watkins to provide Jared Goff with a speedy deep threat to work with, which the quarterback was clearly missing as a rookie in 2016. Even though he was considered to be somewhat of a risk due to his history of injuries along with the fact that his numbers had failed to live up to what the Bills expected, the Rams felt confident enough in Watkins being a good fit for Sean McVay‘s system.

Not to mention, Watkins was entering the final year of his contract, meaning Los Angeles could simply give the wideout a chance, and just part ways in 2018 if things failed to turn out the way they were hoping for. And even though Watkins only ended up with 39 catches during the 2017 season, the former Clemson star was arguably more valuable than his numbers indicate.

For starters, the presence of Watkins clearly benefited some of his teammates such as Robert Woods and Cooper Kupp since he would tend to receive extra attention from defenders. Plus, Watkins may have only ended up with 39 catches for 593 yards, but also it should be noted that eight of those catches happened to go for touchdowns.

Over the last month or so, there’s been talk about the possibility of Los Angeles placing the franchise tag on Watkins since McVay and company would love to have another opportunity with the speedy wideout playing in this offense. But when it comes to whether paying Watkins all of that money to play under the franchise tag, the one option the Rams may want to consider is providing him with a deal similar to the one that Alshon Jeffery received last offseason from the Philadelphia Eagles.

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Originally, Jeffery signed a one-year, $14 million deal with the Eagles since the team wanted to make sure the wideout would be worth investing in before making the long-term commitment, which obviously worked out well after the two parties would eventually agree to a four-year extension during the middle of last season. When seeing how well this turned out for Jeffery and the Eagles, there’s every reason to believe the same could happen for Watkins with the Rams to help the offense remain in solid shape for years to come.