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Deshaun the Great

Discussion in 'Houston Texans' started by Colt45, Sep 10, 2017.

  1. A_3PO

    A_3PO Member

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    Perhaps I just don't like the guy, but Phillip Rivers is too high on that list for me.

    Matt Ryan should be ahead of Big Ben.

    Would take DW4 over Cam, no brainer, as would anyone with their head screwed on.

    Mitchell Trubisky is going to surprise a lot of people this season!

    How will Jimmy Garoppolo play in meaningful games instead of garbage time to finish out the string? I'm not yet sold on him as an upcoming top 5 QB.

    Eli Manning is in my personal NFL Hall of Fame. I hope his recent downturn can be blamed on Ben McAdoo's toxicity. Would love to see him bounce back but he's probably done.
     
  2. zeeshan2

    zeeshan2 Member

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    More dumb Jimmy hype
     
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  3. Nook

    Nook Member

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    Who the hell would have Jameis Winston #2? First off, he isn't very good and doesn't work hard. Second, he is has a mental disorder and doesn't have the trust of his own locker room ........... and third, he is a serial rapists. Usually being a serial rapist is a problem for a quarterback, because of suspensions and prison time.... plus you know family friendly team events are REALLY awkward with Jameis trolling around trying to rape his teammates wives.
     
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  4. J.R.

    J.R. Member

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    Gil is old so give him a break. ;)
     
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  5. Nook

    Nook Member

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    I'll just say this......... there is a 50/50 chance that Jameis is playing in the silver and black at some point..... he will have a gut and roll up lots of yards and lots of turnovers.
     
  6. Fulgore

    Fulgore Member

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  7. donkeypunch

    donkeypunch Contributing Member

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    You forgot to mention that he loves crab legs. The ones you dont have to pay for, of the pocket variety.
     
  8. Htownballer38

    Htownballer38 Member

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    Good read
     
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  9. J.R.

    J.R. Member

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  10. FLASH21

    FLASH21 Heart O' Champs

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    Jamies reminds me of that crazy old uncle every black family has that talks about the good ole days; while wearing an unbuttoned leopard print shirt, gold chain, bath slippers, BBQ pitchfork in one hand and glass of brandy in the other at all the family reunions.

    Basically, Uncle Elroy from Next Friday... aka Mr. Nasty.

    [​IMG]
     
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  11. red5rocket

    red5rocket Member
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    Only team with two players on the cover
     
    Rockets FTW and Two Sandwiches like this.
  12. Juxtaposed Jolt

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    A bit sad, when you think about it, since it's essentially a cover of "name players that were injured last season."
     
  13. FLASH21

    FLASH21 Heart O' Champs

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    If you're worried about last season yeah.

    #NewYearNewMe

    [​IMG]
     
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  14. Nimo

    Nimo Member

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    ...And it is one of four covers. There possibly could be another team with more than one player on the other covers.
     
  15. red5rocket

    red5rocket Member
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    Boooooooo!!!
     
  16. redrowdy03

    redrowdy03 Member

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  17. Fantasma Negro

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    He's put a lot of muscle on, he's huge!! That looks like LeBron out there
     
  18. red5rocket

    red5rocket Member
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    Everything he does is exciting
     
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  19. J.R.

    J.R. Member

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  20. J.R.

    J.R. Member

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    What we saw from Deshaun Watson

    As good as Wentz was, Watson was better in a smaller sample. Lower the limits to 200 pass attempts -- Watson had 204 -- and the Texans star led the league in yards per attempt (8.3) and Total QBR (81.3). He succeeded with a stat line that looks more like a top passer from the 1970s than one from today, which seems remarkable given that Watson is about as modern of a quarterback as it gets. Understanding what he will do in 2018 starts with the fact that ...

    Watson succeeded despite an astronomical interception rate

    It's virtually impossible for a quarterback to be good while throwing interceptions as frequently as Watson did last season. He threw eight picks on those 204 attempts, which was good for an interception rate of 3.9 percent. Only Siemian and DeShone Kizer threw interceptions more frequently with that 200-pass minimum. The Clemson star was on pace for a 486-pass season, which would have resulted in 19 interceptions over a full campaign.

    Despite the fact that he threw a ton of interceptions, Watson was great! He posted the best passer rating by a quarterback with an interception rate between 3.5 and 4 percent since Y..A. Tittle in 1963. The group of passers who topped a 100 passer rating with this sort of interception rate includes Watson, three passers from before the AFL-NFL merger of 1970 and Chris Chandler's 1998 campaign. Just below them are more familiar names, including Roethlisberger's rookie campaign in 2004 and Tony Romo's first two seasons as a starter.

    Usually, you can be good or you can throw interceptions. Watson did both.

    The good news is that I think Watson should be better at avoiding interceptions as his career goes along -- and even as early as 2018. For one, two of his interceptions came on Hail Mary attempts, which shouldn't be treated as meaningful. Watson had two dropped interceptions, per FO, so his adjusted interception rate is in the same ballpark, but the added interceptions for other quarterbacks push him to 29th-best in the league, ahead of seven other passers.

    In watching those picks, there's a line running through the decisions: Watson often got greedy and tried to make off-schedule throws without setting his feet and getting his body moving forward and/or tried to squeeze his passes into impossible windows. He scrambles around the pocket before making a late throw into the end zone. He rushes a throw under pressure and sails a pick-six to Jason McCourty. The Texans run play-action and roll Watson out to the boundary and flood it with receivers, leaving no room and a pick for Richard Sherman when Watson throws off his back foot.

    Those are the sorts of things rookies do. Watson's decision-making should get better as he continues to grow, just as Wentz's did a year ago.

    Bill O'Brien should (hopefully) be more aggressive

    The Texans coach deserves credit for reshaping his offense around Watson's skills, but his late-game decision-making didn't fit the offensive juggernaut O'Brien had constructed. You can't buy a Ferrari and spend your entire drive across the country in the right lane. In doing so, O'Brien cost the Texans possible wins against the Patriots and Seahawks.

    After Watson spent most of Week 3 decimating the Patriots' defense, O'Brien went conservative at the exact moment when his former boss Bill Belichick would have tried to seal things. The Texans faced a 4th-and-1 from the Patriots' 18-yard line with a two-point lead and 2:28 to go. The Patriots were down to one timeout and would have had two chances to stop the clock, so a conversion would have given the Patriots the ball back with no more than 30 seconds left (and possibly ended the game with a touchdown or a second conversion). Instead, the Texans kicked a field goal to turn a two-point lead into a five-point lead and dared Tom Brady to drive down the field on their defense. He did so with 23 seconds to spare.

    Five weeks later, O'Brien got conservative in a different way. Watson ran for a first down to get the ball to his own 20-yard line at the two-minute warning with a four-point lead. The Seahawks had all of their timeouts, but one first down would have basically wrapped the game up. In a game in which Watson had thrown for 407 yards and run for 62, O'Brien ... handed the ball to Lamar Miller three times. The Seahawks used their three timeouts, and on 4th-and-2 from his own 28-yard line, O'Brien decided that the chances of punting with his defense keeping the Seahawks from scoring a touchdown were better than his chances of either converting a fourth-and-two or stopping the Seahawks from punching the ball in the end zone from 28 yards out. The Seahawks scored in three plays.

    Doug Pederson's success going for it on fourth down in 2017 should encourage coaches with great offenses to trust them on fourth-and-short in key moments. (Likewise, as Pederson noted, coaches should learn from Doug Marrone's letting the Patriots off the hook in the AFC Championship Game.) Coaches work too hard during the week to hurt themselves with poor decisions on 4th-and-short. Yes, they're going to take some heat if they go for it late in a game and the decision doesn't go their way. But Pederson showed throughout last season that the upside is worth the risk. The Texans have to place their faith in Watson & Co.

    Watson's receivers did incredible work

    As much as Watson's interception rate made him look like a quarterback out of the 1970s, his average pass distance only furthers the story. Watson averaged a whopping 11.1 air yards per throw during his time as a starter, which is something out of a Joe Namath stat line. That's the third-deepest average pass in a 200-attempt season since 2006, and the two guys who topped Watson were famously unique: Tim Tebow (2011) and Michael Vick (2006).

    Typically, when you see a passing offense with a lot of deep passes, you get a lot of drops. Receivers dropped 6.6 percent of Tebow's passes and 7.0 percent of Vick's throws during their respective seasons. They're not alone. When you look at the quarterbacks whose average pass distance has traveled 10 yards in the air or more since 2006 before Watson, the average drop rate for those quarterbacks was 4.9 percent.

    Watson's drop rate was 1.0 percent. One percent! Part of that is the nature of a smaller sample, but 1.0 percent is the lowest drop rate we've seen for any quarterback with 200 or more pass attempts since 2006, when ESPN's drop data starts. The previous low was 1.7 percent, coincidentally set by the Texans' Matt Schaub in 2013. Marcus Mariota and Matt Ryan were at 1.8 percent in 2016. None of those passers was throwing anywhere near as deep as Watson was last season. There's no way that's going to keep up in 2018.

    Watson was incredible on play-action

    This shouldn't be a surprise given Watson's abilities as a runner. Opposing defenses simply couldn't deal with Houston's play-action game last season. When he faked a handoff, Watson averaged 10.3 yards per attempt, with a 124.3 passer rating and a staggering 95.6 Total QBR. The latter number led the league and was the fourth-best QBR by a passer with 50 or more play-action attempts since 2007.

    Watson should still be effective on play-action in 2018, but it'll be tough for the second-year passer to be as good.

    The Texans' schedule was relatively easy

    Watson came in for the second half of a brutal loss to the Jaguars in Week 1, but after that, he faced a pretty middling group of defenses before the ACL tear. His final start was against a Seahawks defense that finished the season 13th in defensive DVOA and was likely better earlier in the season, before dealing with the injuries that seemed to afflict nearly every one of the star contributors. Otherwise, Watson's starts were against below-average pass defenses, including the Bengals (17th), Patriots (21st), Chiefs (23rd), Titans (24th) and Browns (26th).

    I'm not so sure, though, that Watson's schedule will be much tougher in 2018. Although it's not a specific projection of defensive performance, both the ESPN Football Power Index and Football Outsiders project that Watson's Texans will face the league's second-easiest schedule this season. Watson will have to play the Jaguars twice, but he gets the 32nd-ranked pass defense of the Colts twice too.

    What's next

    Both Watson and Wentz should be very good if they stay healthy in 2018. The way that they succeed, though, is extremely likely to look different than the way we saw them bust out in 2017. It wouldn't be unreasonable to expect both to produce slightly less impressive numbers than the figures we saw last season. If they're both healthy heading into the postseason, though, I suspect their organizations will happily make that trade. Health concerns -- particularly for Watson, who has now torn each of his ACLs -- should be the only obstacles between these two franchise quarterbacks and MVP contention in the years to come.
     
    SuperS32 and Red.Glare like this.

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