Houston Texans: Week 1: How J.J. Watt’s play was graded vs. JAX

The Houston Texans had a lot of darkness throughout their level of play out on the field but the one bright spot was a guy that you may have not thought would stand out.

Defensive end J.J. Watt, the cornerstone to the Houston Texans’ franchise, returned for his first game since around this time last year as his season was cut short because of back surgery.  Watt went into oblivion, being rarely seen why our defense emerged to be No. 1 without him.  It was resilience of the many men that are still here that helped pushed them over the top to second consecutive playoff berth in the past four years.

But things are different now — Watt has returned to his throne of supremacy and we’re all watching to see how the rest of his “subjects” respond to his presence on the line.  Were we going to see the same Watt that we’ve come to know?

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Or would it be a cheap, unsuccessful, bargain-basement, straight-to-DVD version of himself?  This was on the minds of numerous Houston Texans fans as we all tuned in yesterday and you’d be surprised at the level of performance he had although he would’ve had the impression that he was a ghost.

The grades are out at Pro Football Focus and there’s certainly a lot to be said about Watt’s level of play.  PFF gave him a grade of a solid 78.1 and here’s what they had to say:

"“Watt looked good in the run game, often standing his man up at the line of scrimmage and working his way to the hole to disrupt the play.”"

PFF also mentions his weaknesses from Week 1:

"“Where he struggled was rushing the passer. Watt recorded a hit and a hurry, but both were clean up plays. He had a hard time turning the corner on the edge and often found himself pushed back through the top of the pocket.”"

We all knew that his pass rush was going to be rusty and PFF certainly confirms that.  But as the time and weeks progress, he’ll certainly be contributing in that area as we’ve come all to expect.  I still think the Watt as we know we may never see again but I think he’ll be a pretty damn effective football player.  That still may be good enough for him to earn his fourth career Defensive Player of the Year award.  Who knows?

His most notable play of the game was with 10:02 left in the 1st, when he made a big stop in the progress of Leonard Fournette‘s run, allowing only two yards.  We certainly wish we could say this repeatedly about the rest of the D-Line but that’s just water on the bridge as the Houston Texans un-triumphantly fell to the Jags’ 29-7.

Next: THREE reasons why J.J. Watt should be the Person of the Year

Who were the highest graded Texans this week?  Zach Cunningham (82.1), C.J. Fiedorowicz (81.2), Marcus Gilchrist (79.8), Brandon Dunn (79.0) and D.J. Reader (78.2).

Let’s hope we continue to see progress than digress from Watt as the season pours on.

Go Texans.