Any dumb fk fans thinking we can magically replace Watson hasn't been watching years of us bumbling around with shtty qbs and wasted years of Andre Johnson. Getting rid of Watson, will for sure lead to rebuilding stage for years. Frqnchise qb of Watson caliber aren't plentiful, no matter how much some of these fans put Watson down.
Who is putting Watson down? I haven’t seen a single person knock his play this season. Have seen some question his tactics in offseason. You’re right, aren’t many of his caliber. And it would most definitely be a huge rebuild. Texans might not have a choice.
CC: Bobby & rainingthrees Why Deshaun Watson is even more valuable to the Texans than you might think After the Texans lost their final game of a terrible season, J.J. Watt apologized to Deshaun Watson. “I’m sorry,” Watt said to the quarterback as they walked off the field together. “We wasted one of your years. I mean, we should have 11 wins.” After all, Watson had just completed the 36th season ever by a quarterback who averaged at least 8.0 adjusted net yards per attempt, and the other 35 teams all finished at least 8-8. But Watt was underestimating just how bad the rest of the Texans’ roster was. By Pro Football Focus’ wins above replacement metric, the Texans didn’t waste Watson in a four-win campaign; they needed every last bit of his production to even get those four wins. To put into context what 3.34 WAR is worth, Eric Eager, a PFF researcher whose tweet is above, noted Watson currently ranks third in this volume-based statistic despite not appearing in the playoffs. The other QBs who round out the top five — Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady, Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes — will all compete for a shot at the Super Bowl on Sunday. “So Watson still being third, despite the postseason going on, is unreal,” Eager said. Eager said the 2020 Texans were unlucky, finishing last in takeaways and going 2-8 in one-score games, so they were probably more like a six- or seven-win team. But the WAR metric indicates that without Watson, bad luck wouldn’t be required for the Texans to be a clear cellar dweller, and that’s a possibility the fanbase is reluctantly coming to terms with while Watson remains unhappy about a lack of communication from team owner Cal McNair during the hiring process that landed new general manager Nick Caserio. If Caserio and McNair can rectify the team’s relationship with Watson, the Texans will still be in a better position than most rebuilding teams because they’ll have an elite franchise quarterback already in place. But if Watson tries to force his way out, he’d be the most valuable player ever to hit the trade market. Let’s take a deeper look at Watson’s stats from this season to understand how he improved from previous years and where he offered the most value. All stats are from Sportradar, TruMedia or Pro Football Focus, unless noted otherwise. Accuracy and aggressiveness Watson finished the regular season with the third-highest PFF grade of any quarterback, after previously ranking 10th in 2019 and 12th in 2018. Eager said the jump in grade — and Watson’s spike in WAR, from 2.1 a season ago to 3.34 now — is a result of the Texans’ passing offense being not just better than in previous years, but more QB-driven than ever before. In the previous two seasons, Watson had DeAndre Hopkins, who accounted for the most WAR of any non-quarterback during that span. But Watson’s top targets this season, Brandin Cooks and Will Fuller, were not elite contested-catch receivers, nor were they among the league leaders in average separation at the catch point — yet Watson still completed a career-best 70.2 percent of his passes. Based on Next Gen Stats’ tracking data, that was 4.2 percent above expectation, which ranked first. Watson also led the NFL in completion rate on throws at least 20 yards downfield (51.6 percent). He finished tied with Mahomes for a league-leading 102 explosive passes (16-plus yards), despite attempting 44 fewer throws than Mahomes. Since entering the league in 2017, Watson ranks second in completion percentage (67.8), behind only Drew Brees, but Brees averaged 6.5 air yards per attempt during that span; Watson averaged 9 air yards per attempt, which also ranks second. Simply put, Watson has been efficient without sacrificing aggressiveness. Decision-making A common criticism of Watson throughout his career has been that he takes too many sacks because he holds onto the ball for too long. This season, he averaged 2.85 seconds to throw, which was the 13th longest time among qualified QBs, but when he chose to extend plays, the results were better than ever. When taking at least 3 seconds to throw YEAR PORTION OF TOTAL ATTEMPTS COMPLETION RATE YPA 1ST DOWN RATE 2018 41.90% 62.30% 9.2 41% 2019 33.50% 53% 9.2 36.70% 2020 34.70% 62.40% 9.8 45% The overall portion of Watson’s throws that took longer than three seconds to get off, listed in the table above, is important to note. But the situations in which he extended plays reveal more about the progress he’s made as a decision maker. The Texans passed on early downs more frequently than ever before in Watson’s career, and in these instances, he did a better job of knowing when to give up and avoid negative plays. Watson on early downs YEAR DROPBACKS AVG TIME TO THROW SACK RATE 2018 393 2.99 seconds 9.90% 2019 384 2.84 seconds 7.60% 2020 439 2.5 seconds 7.30%
When he’s running Though the Texans didn’t consistently incorporate designed runs for Watson into their offense, he was the most effective part of the team’s last-ranked running game, rushing for 444 yards and three touchdowns on 90 carries. Only Arizona’s Kyler Murray and Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson generated more EPA off of scrambles than Watson this season, and neither was nearly as effective of a passer as Watson. Did the offense make things easy for Watson? As mentioned above, the Texans passed on early downs more frequently than ever before in Watson’s career, and offensive coordinator Tim Kelly deserves credit for that. Despite the team’s overall failings, Watson liked working with the first-time play-caller and has pushed for him to stick around as part of the new coaching staff. Though the early-down pass frequency was a departure from Bill O’Brien’s play-calling style, Kelly was in other ways very similar to O’Brien, whom he worked under for his entire NFL career prior to O’Brien’s firing. Houston was once again near the bottom of the league when it came to usage of screen passes (just 36 of them, which ranked 27th) and play-action attempts (81, which ranked 31st). Did Watson have a weakness? Not really. Watson’s ability to excel no matter the surroundings was the theme of the season. But he was much better when opponents didn’t blitz him. HOU - QB Deshaun Watson BLITZ YPA 8.1 10TH CMP% 60% 27th SUCCESS % 50.9% 17th NO BLITZ YPA 9.2 1ST CMP% 74.3% 1st SUCCESS % 56.9% 3rd Defenses tended to blitz more often when playing man coverage, so Watson was unsurprisingly better when facing zone looks. Against zone, he completed a league-leading 78.7 percent of his passes and averaged 0.26 EPA per dropback, which ranked sixth. Versus man coverage, those numbers dropped to 56.5 percent and 0.24 EPA per dropback, the latter of which ranked 12th. In previous years, Watson displayed a dramatic drop off in performance when he didn’t have Fuller on the field. The drop off still existed this season, but it wasn’t nearly as severe, despite the fact Watson also didn’t have Hopkins to lean on. Will Fuller's impact on Deshaun Watson YEAR WITH FULLER WITHOUT FULLER 2019 0.16 EPA/play 0.02 EPA/play 2020 0.16 EPA/play 0.10 EPA/play And how about when Watson didn’t have left tackle Laremy Tunsil? Considering the haul the Texans gave up for Tunsil, his presence should have a dramatic impact on Watson’s performance, right? Actually, going back to the start of the 2019 season, stats don’t show that. Laremy Tunsil's impact on Deshaun Watson DROPBACKS EPA/PLAY SACK RATE With Tunsil 1,079 0.07 8.80% Without Tunsil 159 0.39 4.30% The three games Watson has played in without Tunsil since the start of the 2019 season were against the Jaguars, Titans and Patriots — all bad defenses — and the sample size here is small. This is not an indication that Tunsil isn’t an elite pass blocker. It is, however, yet another sign that the Tunsil trade was not the positive difference maker the Texans hoped it would be. Instead, it accelerated their path to their current position: lacking in cap space and draft capital to improve a roster that couldn’t parlay elite quarterback play into even a .500 record. Though Watson never publicly criticized his teammates, he did acknowledge that he was playing the best football of his career this season while losing more than ever before. He’s plenty smart enough to understand how those facts are in direct conflict with each other because of decisions he had no say in. “Being able to accomplish the things I accomplished through a dysfunctional year … I’m pretty proud of that,” he said in his final press conference of the season. The dysfunction has only become more evident since, and now the Texans face the possibility of Watson requesting a trade after his best season yet.
I'm beyond caring about Watson throwing tantrums, he's not going to be traded so he can either dry his eye or continue to cry and it'll make no difference to me one way or the other. Hopefully he decides to have some dignity and act like a professional in order to turn things around. We'll see.
If he truly wants to be a leader of men and if he is serious about having a voice in the organization it would behoove him to look in the mirror and consider changing his approach. All of this drama could have and should have been handled internally.
Maybe this is my “get off my lawn!” Moment but Deshaun isn’t doing anything different that other high profile (hell even lower profile athletes) are doing. It’s the generation. I grew up watching Ernest givens and Warren Moon, Hakeem and the Rockets, etc etc and I just find all sports these days boring. I know part of that is just me having changed and it’s not the fault of athletes doing what is in the best interest of themselves BUT for me it has been to the detriment to the sport. While I don’t condone anything that has happened we also don’t know what the hell has actually happened. In the end it’s not the owners or players that suffer it us, the fans that suffer. Just my .02 unimportant cents.
Watson hasn't said anything public about all this, for those who are saying he should have kept it in house. The cryptic social media stuff only started after Cal f'd up the press conference by acknowledging there was an issue and saying he texted Watson and hadn't heard back yet. If Cal and Easterby weren't so fcking stupid he would have just said "I won't comment on anonymous sources" when somebody asked instead of making a dumb statement. Then fly his ass down to Cabo and try to hash it out in person over some margaritas. Cal will fly out personally to pick up a guy for an interview, but only sends texts to his most valuable employee???
You grew up watching Hakeem Olajuwon and think this generation is different?... Olajuwon had his issues early - he could be an angry malcontent who was quick to fight, complained openly about his contract and was accused of faking injuries, which led to a very public feud with team management and very nearly ended with him being traded in '92. What I think you *may* be responding to, more, is your distance from the impetuousness of being young and less mature. The business model has changed such that it does give players more leverage now - but I don't believe the generations have changed all that much.
I don’t disagree and I stayed as much that maybe it’s me that’s changed. What’s changed is we the fans have so much more access or at least the rapidness to which we hear things. But while I mostly agree with your sentiment can you imagine Jordan asking to team up with Ewing or Malone? Obviously I believe I grew up watching the golden years of sports. Truth be told I don’t hate on Deshaun especially if management told him one thing and did another.
Well... he never would've teamed up with *those* two - but he did get a coach fired; ran players out of Chicago and, look - they fell into Scottie Pippen - but Jordan didn't exactly tolerate playing with scrubs. His last three championships featured Rodman and a host of guys I promise you he had a hand in picking/approving. And it's not access - it's money. These players have much greater leverage than they did because of the money.
Man I enjoy healthy discussions. I was locked into one way of looking at a situation and you’ve given me more to think about. Always come down to money no?