Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Sammy Watkins made local and national NFL headlines last week when an article detailing his beliefs on life and football published to Bleacher Report.
The article by Tyler Dunne (who was kind enough to join us for a lengthy interview on our podcast network) included Watkins having some mixed feelings about his usage last year with the Chiefs. Watkins exploded for 198 yards Week 1 but wouldn’t reach 100 yards again until the playoffs, when he in three games, he was the team’s leading receiver (288).
Asked about the writeup on Tuesday, Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy threw his support behind Watkins.
“I enjoyed the article,” Bieniemy explained. “One thing you guys got to understand is players go through a lot of different highs and lows. There’s a lot of pressure that players receive when playing this game outside of what we do. I’m not going to divulge on any of our conversations, but I love Sammy. I love the way he comes to work every single day. I am very blessed and fortunate that we’re bringing him back.”
Watkins signed a new one-year deal with the Chiefs in early April.
“He’s a big, huge part of what we do,” Bieniemy added. “I’m actually proud that he allowed people to get to know him because he’s a beautiful kid, he’s a hardworking kid, and the only thing that he wants to do — he wants to be great. And I think more than anything, I think everybody can take that and just feel his urgency to want to express how hard it is to achieve those goals.”
During Dunne’s conversation with Watkins, there was one thing he said the wide receiver repeated multiple times.
Watkins knows what’s coming next for him: eight more seasons, two more Super Bowls, one gold jacket. Book it.
“Just listen to him,” Bieniemy said. “He’s allowing everybody into who he is, but he just wants people to know that he wants to be the player that he was expected to be, and we love him because of that.”