I love Watson as a QB, but some people act as if he's the rising tide that lifts all boats. He isn't. You might have noticed that the Texans lost a lot of games this year. There was no rising tide on that team.
He absolutely is the rising tide.
He was phenomenal during a season in which the Texans defense was among the worst in the league and key offensive players such as David Johnson and Will Fuller missed significant time.
HOU only won 4 games but threatened to win 8 others. All lost by one score. Despite the awful defense, injuries and loss of Hopkins via trade, DW gave that team a fighting chance in most every game. Just as you’d expect an elite franchise QB to do. And did so despite opposing defenses knowing he had to sling it almost every play.
With regard to detractors, I really do not understand what they are looking at. There’s a faction of fans here at FH that somehow believe Ryan Tannehill and Ryan Fitzpatrick are great yet Deshaun Watson is overrated???
Give me a small freaking break!
I said this in another thread and I’ll say it again and will fully stand behind it. Swap Patrick Mahomes for DW and KC doesn’t miss a beat. DW is every bit as good as PM.
As soon as you see him on a team as well rounded and explosive as KC that’ll become more evident. But it should be evident enough already considering how he was able to perform on such a bad team.
The Packers only won 6 games a few years back. Did that mean Aaron Rodgers wasn’t a rising tide QB? SMH.
One player can’t mask all the deficiencies of an entire team. But one as good as Watson sure gives that team a fighting chance, as we saw in at least 8 of the games they lost. And they were still competitive in some of the multi score losses to KC, BAL and GB.
The biggest piece of the puzzle in building a championship team is finding the right QB. Watson is one of those gigantic puzzle pieces. As bad as the Texans are and as little capital they have of building around him right now — there’s no chance they‘d consider trading that gigantic puzzle piece if their hand wasn’t forced.
So why shouldn’t a team like MIA go all in for that gigantic puzzle piece when they already have a much better team than HOU does and when their future assets still won’t be as depleted as HOU’s are now?
The proposed trade would still leave MIA with picks 18 and 50 this upcoming draft. Losing their 2022 1st would be rough, but perhaps they can find a way to avoid that. HOU isn’t in the drivers seat considering DW’s no trade clause and they’ll be hard pressed to do better than 3, 20 (from CHI), 36, a couple 4th‘s and a conditional pick.
The Jets can offer higher picks, but they are much closer to HOU in terms of being devoid of talent and would be hurt more than MIA trading all that capital. Not sure they’ll want to do that. Anybody else HOU might deal with can’t guarantee them a top 3 pick.