We’re at the point in Sammy Watkins’ career where some may feel like it’s make-or-break time,  especially considering the Bills didn’t pick up the option in his rookie contract, which is unheard of for franchise-type players. You shouldn’t be one of those people. In fact, now is the time where you should approach the owner in your league to see what it will take to acquire him.

Foot Injury

If you’re one of those worried about Watkins right now, it should be purely based on the foot injury that he dealt with last year, and not the fact that the Bills chose not to pick up his player option. The reason I remain optimistic is that we’ve seen players like Julio Jones, Dez Bryant, and Julian Edelman return to form after having similar surgeries on their feet. And yes, all of them had multiple surgeries on their foot, similar to Watkins. It almost seems like they all either had a re-occurrence or tried to come back too soon.

He just happens to be one that came back too soon in 2016, trying to fight through the pain and it showed in his performances in Weeks 1 and 2. After he totaled just six catches for 63 scoreless yards, the Bills decided to shut him down for a while. Watkins came back and averaged 61.2 yards per game over the final six weeks, but was he fully healthy? The answer was no considering he had his second surgery right after the season ended.

This is the point to buy, because none of the aforementioned players have had a third surgery (Jones’ latest surgery is a different issue) and all of them were among the top wide receivers in the league last year. Most don’t even realize the player Watkins has been with Tyrod Taylor, simply because it’s been a while since they’ve seen him healthy. But that’s what I’m here for, to let you know that Watkins is going to be healthy, and you’re getting a top-10 wide receiver at a discount.

Dominant When Healthy

If you were to remove his two games to start the 2016 season where he was clearly playing hurt, here are Watkins’ numbers over his last 14 games with Tyrod Taylor: 110 targets, 67 receptions, 1,236 yards, and nine touchdowns. Over a full 16-game season, those numbers would extrapolate to 126 targets, 77 receptions, 1,413 yards, and 10.3 touchdowns. Those numbers would’ve added up to 203.1 points, which was more than Antonio Brown scored in 2016. Crazy, right?

Am I telling you that Watkins is better than Brown? Absolutely not, but what I am telling you is that he’s being severely undervalued in both dynasty and redraft right now. He’s just 23-years-old and has performed at an elite-level, despite being on a team that ranked No. 32 in pass attempts in 2016 and No. 31 in 2015.

2017 & Beyond Outlook

While Watkins’ numbers may add up to someone who looks like they should be drafted as a top-five wide receiver, you can’t draft him that high simply because he’s been a highly volatile receiver from week-to-week, and that is large in part to the stat referenced above, pass attempts. Though they are both defensive coaches, there may be hope for more attempts with the coaching change from Rex Ryan to Sean McDermott, because they definitely can’t get any lower. The fact that he’ll be a free agent at the end of this season may actually turn out to be a good thing for his future target projections.

Injuries aside, Watkins has played in 36 career games where he’s seen at least one target, and while he has 10 games of 109 yards or more, he’s also had nine games in which he’s totaled less than 30 yards. He’s not going to be consistent like Antonio Brown, but then again, there aren’t many receivers who are. Again, Watkins has played hurt, so the numbers can be a bit skewed in terms of his downside. But here’s a fun fact: Despite the fact that Watkins played through injuries in 2016, Tyrod Taylor had a higher quarterback rating targeting him than Jameis Winston did targeting Mike Evans (89.6 to 86.4). That number was much higher for the Taylor/Watkins connection in 2015 when it was 128.8, behind only Doug Baldwin and Tyler Lockett.

We’re not talking about a fourth-round pick that everyone thought was under-drafted back in 2014. No, we’re talking about the No. 4 overall pick, the guy that everyone knew could be a top-tier wide receiver coming out of college. Even better, he’s shown us that he can be dominant at times. Can you imagine giving up on Julio Jones after he had his second foot surgery in 2013? You would’ve missed out on three 1,400-plus yard years since then. If you don’t own Watkins in your dynasty/keeper league, I highly suggest you approach that owner to see what it would take to get him. In redraft, you should consider him a must-draft if he falls into the fourth-round, though I’d take him in the third-round if presented with the opportunity, over guys like DeAndre Hopkins and Allen Robinson.

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Mike Tagliere is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Mike, check out his archive and follow him @MikeTagliereNFL.