Watson taking a beating
Shaky line, decisions by quarterback lead to too many hits
If the Texans’ pass blocking and Deshaun Watson’s internal clock don’t improve, the quarterback is going to absorb a ton of hits this season.
Watson has been sacked 17 times through four games and has been hit 43 times.
The Texans are on pace to surrender 68 sacks for the season — they allowed 54 last year — and Watson is on pace to be hit 172 times.
Only the Buffalo Bills with 21 sacks given up, have allowed more total sacks than the Texans.
The Texans benched right tackle Julie’n Davenport after he was penalized eight times in the first three games, replacing him with Kendall Lamm against the Colts. During the Texans’ 37-34 overtime win, Watson was sacked seven times and hit 11 times.
“He played tough,” coach Bill
O’Brien said of Lamm. “Like anybody else, there are some plays that he’ll try to improve on, but he did a good job.”
Watson is learning to make better decisions about when to run and when to throw the football away or simply go down. The Texans want him to continue to improve in that area.
“There are certain plays that he extends, which are great plays, where he either runs or he creates a passing lane downfield for guys to get open,,” O’Brien said. “And then there are other plays where there has to be what I call a silent alarm in his head, where nobody’s really open, this journey’s over and I need to just either throw it away or duck out of bounds or whatever it is. Probably the best young quarterback I’ve ever coached at making the right decision. But he needs to probably make that right decision all the time.”
Watson has passed for 1,246 yards, seven touchdowns and four interceptions with a 93.7 passer rating. He has rushed for 161 yards and one score.
“He’s got great instincts,” O’Brien said. “He can see things. He’s an awesome guy to coach.”
Secondary needs to bounce back
Four games into the season, the Texans’ overhauled secondary is still having problems.
The Texans have allowed 11 touchdown passes and have just one interception. Opposing quarterbacks have a cumulative 115.3 passer rating this year.
Andrew Luck passed for 464 yards against the Texans on Sunday.
“We need to create more turnovers,” said veteran safety
Tyrann Mathieu. “Yeah, we won, but it’s not how we wanted to win.”
For the season, the Texans have allowed 1,229 passing yards.
“We’ve got to correct some things with our coverage,” coach
Bill O’Brien said. “Great quarterbacks are going to make plays, and that’s just the way it is. But we’ve got to do some things to shore some things up.”
Kelemente shows grit with injury
When the Texans signed former Saints guard Senio Kelemete to a three-year, $12 million contract in March, they thought they were acquiring a legitimate tough guy.
It turns out they were right. Kelemete has been playing through pain.
Kelemete started Sunday but left the game briefly when he aggravated the knee injury that prevented him from playing a week ago. Kelemete went back into the game and finished up, replacing Greg Mancz.
Kelemete doesn’t think he’ll need to undergo surgery.
“Obviously if I can go and give everything I got, I’m going to be out there,” Kelemete said. “If I can’t, I’m not going to hurt myself or anyone else. It’s something I have to deal with. Hopefully, it will go away with time.”
Adams joins practice squad
The Texans signed former Colts linebacker Tyrell Adams to the practice squad.
They previously signed wide receiver Cyrell Grayson to the practice squad and cut cornerback Breon Borders from the practice squad and placed wide receiver Jester Weah on the practice squad-injured list.