Christian Watson Week 1 Start or Sit: A WR2 Ahead of Adams
Start him. Not comfortably, but start him.
The case is two numbers. Watson has averaged 17.0 yards per catch across 48 career games, and he pulled in a third of Green Bay's targets in the last trip to Minnesota. Forty-eight games is not a hot streak. That's who he is: a downfield receiver who wins on air yards, not on volume. A third of the targets in a game is the usage you'd want from a WR2, and it's the only target-share data point attached to him here. Take it, because it points to the role staying intact.
This is why he lands as a low-end WR2 and sits ahead of Adams in the pecking order. Anyone ranked below him on that same list is somebody you'd be flexing on a hope. Watson at least has a mechanism: when the deep ball connects, the week is won.
The risk is obvious and I won't dress it up. A 17.0-yard average per catch means fewer catches. Fewer catches means a lower floor, and a low-end WR2 with a low floor can hand you four points and cost you a matchup. That's the trade you're making. In a 12-team league, you make it. In an 8-team league where your bench is full of startable bodies, sit him and take the safer option.
What changes my mind in-season: the target share. If Watson is running routes but not drawing looks at anywhere near the rate he saw in Minnesota, the boom weeks stop being predictable and he becomes a matchup-only flex. One game won't tell me. Two will.
What I'm not doing is benching a 17.0-yards-per-catch receiver for a possession guy with a nicer-looking matchup. The ceiling is the whole reason he's on your roster.
Start Watson as your WR2. If he burns you, he burns you deep.
