Prior to the Los Angeles Rams trading for Sammy Watkins, Tavon Austin was expected to be the team’s most dangerous receiver. Despite the fact that he’s not a traditional wideout, he was expected to have a better season with Sean McVay calling the plays and scheming the offense.

The addition of Watkins and Austin’s injury troubles this offseason have prevented him from getting off to a fast start, but McVay wants to see his role grow as the season goes on. He’s still getting a feel for how to use Austin offensively, and understands it’s up to him to put Tavon in a position to succeed in the passing game.

“I think it’s still feeling it out because I think clearly he’s special with the ball in his hands and doing some of the different things you guys have seen with the jet sweeps, playing the running back position and being able to take some screens,” McVay said. “But, I think he has a lot more in him just as a complete receiver – running some great routes this past week.

“We haven’t gotten him those opportunities yet, so we’ve got to do a good job, I’ve got to do a good job of being able to put him in those spots and I think he’s fully capable of that, so I think that’s something that is to be determined and you’d like to see his role grow as the season progresses.”

Through two weeks, Austin has played a total of 16 snaps on offense. He’s caught two passes (on four targets) for 12 yards, and carried it four times for 14 yards. That amounts to 26 yards on six touches, which is a poor ratio for a player as quick and explosive as Austin.

McVay admits he took it slow with him in Week 1, being his first real action after suffering a hamstring injury. It’s smart to not push a player who’s battling a soft-tissue injury because of the fact that it can easily be worsened.

As for Austin’s lack of looks on offense, it’s been the result of games dictating what the Rams are doing, according to McVay.

“He’s been part of the game plans. I think just the game has dictated – first of all, when you look at the Indy game, the game got a little bit where you have kind of a different approach in the second half with the lead that we did have. We had him heavily involved in that,” he said. “But also that was his first week back from the hamstring, so you don’t want to overload him as he’s getting back to returning punts, doing the different things that we’ll ask him to do offensively.

“With last week, we had a handful of things, wanted to get involved. When you have 49 snaps you want to try to have some balance, some different things like that. Didn’t get him as involved as we would have liked to, but the flow of the game kind of dictated a different approach that we had because of that.”

Austin is one of the highest-paid players on the Rams, he simply hasn’t performed like it this season, or even last. It’s now put a burden on McVay to get him involved, otherwise he looks like a player who’s being paid to ride the pine. That’s not something a coach wants to be asked about on a weekly basis, putting McVay in a difficult spot.