St. Louis Rams: Tavon Austin slowly, surely lifting ‘bust’ label
St. Louis Rams wide receiver Tavon Austin is slowly but surely lifting the ‘bust’ label that seemed imminent for his career as a former top 10 selection who hadn’t lived anywhere near expectations.
It hasn’t been exactly as the St. Louis Rams thought it would be when they traded up for former West Virginia wide receiver and return man Tavon Austin with the 8th overall pick of the 2013 NFL Draft, one of the worst in recent memory.
Austin has been slow to start in his NFL career, and after two years it seemed like he was on his way to first round ‘bust’ status, but he’s doing all he can to change that in 2015.
Austin’s numbers haven’t been overly thrilling, but one number stood out to me after Thursday night’s win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The diminutive jack-of-all-trades on offense and special teams has scored 10 total touchdowns this season, more than his first two years in the league combined.
The Rams have finally started using Austin more as a runner out of the backfield, getting him the ball in space any way they can and watching him make plays. While his explosiveness and deep speed are his best traits, he’s not even averaging 10 yards per catch as a receiver, but he’s averaging over 9 yards per run and providing the Rams’ offense with a consistent home run threat as a punt returner.
His touchdowns are split five as a receiver, four as a runner, and one as a punt returner. He’s been dynamic all year, although not a consistent ‘wide receiver’ but one of the top playmakers in the game in terms of scoring touchdowns.
The Rams desperately needed the emergence of Austin at receiver, and I don’t even think at this point you could safely say they have seen that, but they have the emergence of a top flight touchdown-maker if I can be so elementary. He’s hitting paydirt once roughly every nine times he touches the ball offensively.
He’s the most targeted player on the Rams offensively in terms of the passing game, but with the number of touches he’s gotten on the whole, but comparing his 87 touches to the 230 of Todd Gurley, who also has nine total touchdowns this season offensively, it’s easy to see the kind of efficiency and progress Austin has made in his game despite a grim looking start to things.