SMITH: At some point, big wins will come for Watson.
At some point in his career, Deshaun Watson will quarterback Texans to defining victories
Are the Texans still holding Deshaun Watson back?
Is the franchise’s $156 million quarterback struggling to win the big, defining games that normally result in $156 million paydays?
It is early.
Week 2 early.
Crazy to overreact to anything after just one game early.
The Texans started 0-3 under Bill O’Brien in 2018 and still won the AFC South, then hosted a playoff game.
The Texans began 2-5 under O’Brien in 2015, switching out Brian Hoyer and Ryan Mallett at QB, and still won their division and hosted a playoff game.
Starting on Sunday afternoon inside a near-empty NRG Stadium against Lamar Jackson’s Baltimore Ravens, Watson still has at least 15 games left this season to prove he can lift his Texans to a level they’ve never reached.
But Patrick Mahomes is 2-0 versus Watson in the Texans’ last two games. The reigning Super Bowl MVP clearly outplayed Watson in both contests and the on-field competition between the young star QBs was closer than the battle between the teams.
Jackson and Baltimore torched Watson’s squad 41-7 last year in a relentless road blowout.
When Tom Brady still played for Bill Belichick, New England’s old QB started 2-0 against Watson’s Texans before the latter broke through with a victory last season.
In the not-too-distant-future, there will hopefully be a time when D4 starts beating the NFL’s other elite QBs (and teams) on the sport’s greatest stages. Nineteen years into their existence, the Texans are still waiting for their own national breakthrough.
Facing Mahomes’ Chiefs and Jackson’s Ravens is a horrible way to open the 2020 season, if you don’t believe in the Texans’ Super Bowl chances this year. But all eventual breakthroughs must start somewhere. Which means that Sunday could be the beginning of Watson’s next stage if he can lead the Texans to a home upset of the Super Bowl LV contender.
“At the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about. You’re going up against the best,” O’Brien said this week, as his team tries to even its 2020 record against a franchise that dominated the NFL in the regular season last year. “We were a playoff team last year, we played the Super Bowl champs last week and now we’re playing a team that was 14-2 last year.
“When you boil it down in football terms, it’s Deshaun and our offense versus their defense. And then it’s Lamar and his offense versus our defense. Obviously when you look at it from a fan perspective and from a league perspective, when you have great quarterbacks going against each other, it’s really good. It’s a great era in the league of young quarterbacks that are just really talented and great people.”
O’Brien is obviously right: It’s the 0-1 Texans vs. the 1-0 Ravens, not Watson against Jackson.
But the Sunday evening and Monday morning national TV highlights will highlight the Texans’ highly athletic No. 4 and Baltimore’s highly athletic No. 8. Just like Kansas City holding a 31-7 fourth-quarter lead over the Texans in Week 1 ultimately came down to Mahomes soaring again and Watson struggling to connect with his new wide receivers.
The Texans’ 25-year-old QB enters his 43rd professional game with a 24-14 regular-season record as a starter and 1-2 mark in the playoffs.
Watson has fallen to Andrew Luck’s Indianapolis Colts and Mahomes by a combined 72-38 in the postseason. Yet, Watson was also by far the biggest reason that the Texans overcame a 16-0 late third-quarter deficit to knock off Josh Allen’s Buffalo Bills in a wild-card game inside NRG last January.
The early trend from 2017 has continued into September of 2020.
As Watson goes, the Texans go.
“I was very impressed just watching from the outside looking in, just watching film and stuff when we played the Texans in previous years,” new Texans running back David Johnson said. “Now that I’m teammates with him and just to see his composure, for one, he’s always seeming like he’s knowing what he’s doing. He always seems like he has the command and control of the offense in the game. Honestly, he never seems like he’s too anxious. He knows what to do in every situation. … He’s still young and I feel like he definitely still is going to be able to continue to do even more for us and going forward for the offense, as well.”
A stunning offseason trade that sent DeAndre Hopkins to Arizona didn’t help Watson’s chances in Week 1. Brandin Cooks, Randall Cobb and Kenny Stills combined for just 43 yards on four catches in a disappointing loss to the Chiefs, while Hopkins recorded 14 receptions and 151 yards in the Cardinals’ upset win over San Francisco, who represented the NFC in the Super Bowl last year.
There will hopefully come a time when the franchise surrounds him with the weapons and protection he deserves. If that time matches up with Watson rivaling Mahomes, Jackson and Co. as one of the NFL’s elite QBs, the Texans might finally start winning the big games that define seasons with D4 as their leader.