Houston Texans: Deshaun Watson impresses in preseason opener

The wait for the Houston Texans hopeful to solve our quarterback problems was finally over with the debut of Deshaun Watson.

For the Houston Texans, so much of their future relies on the shoulders of Deshaun Watson fresh out of the draft from Clemson. There was a reason why he was picked, why we traded up to get him and ultimately why he will do great things for this organization.

He didn’t look perfect out there but there was a lot of positives to take away from his performance. He looked smooth, poised, patient and did not force his throws to his receivers. We saw a lot of that with Brock Osweiler last season where he’d still make the bad throw even though he likely knew it was going to be one.

There’s a lot to said about his performance but I talked about it more on the Locked on Texans podcast with my Co-Host Robert Land:

Watson’s improvisational skills are second to none, being able to escape trouble quickly and do the right thing with the football. He also demonstrated that if a nickel package is thrown at him he’ll blow through it like tissue paper which resulted in his 15-yard run for the touchdown with 56 seconds left in the third quarter.

Although I give the proverbial caveat that this is just a Houston Texans preseason game, he just doesn’t look like your typical rookie out there. He looked like he has been down this road before and is ready for anything that’s thrown at him. Bill O’Brien has continued to reiterate that he’s ahead of schedule and that’s certainly the case from what I’ve seen today.

But there were times were his talent was just too much for his receivers, I saw many overthrows that he made — they looked beautiful — but he’s just has to get the timing down with the receivers. But quite honestly, the guys he threw to are not for certain to make the team so it will interesting to see if O’Brien puts him out there over the course of the season with him throwing to the 1st team of receivers.

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That certainly will be a true test to see if the rapport has gotten down for him and if all systems are go for DW4.

Watson was in for a little over two quarters — overlapping the second, third and fourth — to go 15-for-25 for 179 yards with a 81.9 passing rating. Those are encouraging numbers to see for budding quarterback that’s likely on the rise.

On the other hand, his counterpart, Tom Savage had a strong showing as well. He started off shaky but looked a lot comfortable when the team went to a no-huddle and he was able to start moving the chains. After going 1-for-3 out of the gate, he was able to reel off an 8-for-8 campaign before being sat down by BOB. He certainly had seen enough and Tom proved that he could rally himself out of a tough situation.

Savage finished 9-for-11 for 69 yards and a 92.8 passer rating. There were no turnovers by the quarterbacks tonight which is certainly notable in comparison to what we’ve seen in the past.

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They were gunning for him with all of the pressure on the young, relatively inexperienced offensive line but was able to persevere. At the very least, it certainly indicates that there’s a good quarterback battle going on!

I can’t wait to see more of this but I have to admit that Watson makes this offense fun to watch once again.

Go Texans.

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