Fantasy Upside
Through his first two seasons in the NFL, Christian Watson has proven that he can put up big fantasy numbers when he's on the field. Through 18 games of action, Watson has scored 17+ half-PPR fantasy points on six occasions and had a wild stretch of four games back in 2022, in which he scored seven touchdowns while averaging 19.5 yards per catch. If he has his hamstring issues truly sorted out, we might see more of that moving forward.
Fantasy Downside
Watson's "downs" have been brutally low for fantasy and otherwise. On top of missing 16 of a possible 34 regular season games, he has scored less than 6.0 fantasy points on ten occasions. As a contested-catch, deep-ball specialist, he caught 33.3% of his 18 contested opportunities while hauling in only 66.7% of on-target throws that traveled 15 or more air yards in 2023. Bo Melton (100%), Dontayvion Wicks (84.6%), Romeo Doubs (81.8%), and Jayden Reed (81.3%) each did a better job of catching those on-target deep shots. His potential downside is that he's a one-trick-pony and not the No. 1 perimeter option the Packers likely thought they had when they took him in the second round of the 2022 NFL Draft.
2024 Bottom Line
Like every other pass-catcher in Green Bay in 2024, it's going to be hard to get truly consistent week-to-week fantasy production out of them. If Watson's hamstrings are fully healthy, we should see far better numbers than we saw last year, but that doesn't mean he's suddenly going to be absorbing 7-8 targets per game. At the risk of taking the easy way out, Watson is absolutely a "better in best ball" target, so you don't have to deal with the lows, but his highs could be fantastic if you have the patience for them in typical redraft leagues.
