Timeline 25: Remembering the Broncos wideout who couldn’t catch the ball
Jun 3, 2020, 6:40 AM
On March 6, 1995, The Fan was born. In the 25 years since, a lot has transpired on the fields, courts and ice in Colorado, giving the hosts and listeners who’ve been part of the station during that time plenty to talk about and debate.
During the course of the next few weeks, we’ll take a look back at that history, remembering the good times and the bad, the winners and the losers, the successes and the failures. It’s a series we’re calling “Timeline 25” and it continues today with a look at a one of the quirkiest stories in recent Colorado sports history – the Broncos wide receiver who couldn’t catch the football.
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A lot was expected out of Darius Watts. The Broncos selected the wideout in the second round of the 2004 NFL Draft with the hopes that he’d come in and contribute right away. After all, the 51st overall pick came into the league boasting an impressive resumé.
During his college career at Marshall, Watts had recorded monster stats. With the Thundering Herd, he hauled in 272 passes for 4,031 yards and 47 scores. At the time, that was the second-most touchdown receptions in NCAA Division I-A history.
Early on in his time with the Broncos, things were going well. During the first eight games of his rookie season, Watts hauled in 21 passes, a very respectable number. But then, things started to go south.
During a 41-28 loss to the Falcons on Halloween, Watts dropped a would-be touchdown in the final four minutes that would’ve made it a one-score game. Four weeks later, in a 25-24 defeat at home to the Raiders, the wideout let another score slip through his hands in the waning moments, forcing Denver to settle for a 43-yard field goal that was blocked.
While these key drops weren’t the only reason the Broncos went from 5-1 to 10-6, they certainly played a part in the late-season slide. They kept Denver from pushing San Diego for the AFC West crown, forcing them into a wild card berth for the second-straight year.
Why the sudden case of the dropsies? It turned out that Watts was suffering from nerve damage in his right hand.
A car accident in 1999 had left his right arm immobile. Doctors repaired a torn biceps muscle, but the surgery had caused his hand to convulse into something he dubbed “the claw.”
Eventually, surgeons fixed that problem too, taking a tendon from his wrist and transplanting it into his hand. But that didn’t repair everything; Watts was left with permanent nerve damage.
The wide receiver was forced to deal with not having any feeling in two of the fingers on his right hand. The numbness was so bad that he once badly burned his pinkie on the stove because he couldn’t feel the heat.
Ultimately, this also caused Watts to be unable to catch the football. During his Broncos career, he became best known for his critical dropped passes.
As a rookie, Watts had 31 catches for 385 yards and one touchdown. In his second year, he only posted two receptions for 22 yards, failing to reach the end zone. He was inactive for the final 10 games, as his confidence was shot, as was the team’s faith in him.
Watts was cut prior to the 2006 season. He spent two years trying to hook on with the Giants, but never appeared in a game.
