Deshaun Watson is the real deal

Deshaun Watson was the biggest story of the first half of the NFL season last year. Forgetting that is understandable because of how early and suddenly he fell to injury, but there had been real discussion that Watson could be the league’s MVP.

The hype came to a head when Watson and the Texans played the Seahawks in Week 8 — an offensive clinic on both sides. Watson picked apart the Seahawks’ signature defense for 402 yards and four touchdowns (and three picks, but still), torching the Legion of Boom so thoroughly that a rarely humbled Richard Sherman said after the game, “We know how other teams feel now.”

Unfortunately for Watson, the Texans, and fans of football, Watson tore his ACL in practice the following week. Watson and the Texans’ offense had been propping up a defense that had been decimated by injuries, and after showing so much promise, the Texans became a tragically disappointing team overnight. (Houston went 3-4 before Watson’s injury, and a dismal 1-8 after.)

More importantly, Watson had provided a reason to watch a middling football team. His last game of the season made the case in point: The Texans lost, but not before trading the lead six times in the second half with the Seahawks, all leading up to the sort of finish that forces fans of any team to switch over from the games they were watching. It was one of those Where Were You? games that made you remember why you loved football.

Thankfully, the Texans should only get better in 2018. Two key pieces of the defense, J.J. Watt and Whitney Mercilus, are back, but perhaps even more crucially, so is Watson, who over six starts built himself into an MVP-worthy force before a freak injury buried him in our consciousness.

Watson’s rookie season, though short, is worth reliving both as a reminder of how good he could be this season, and also how utterly captivating the NFL can be.

The Texans’ Thursday night game in Cincinnati wasn’t one of Watson’s great performances, but he provided a signature moment — this 49-yard gallop into the end zone — that showed some of his detractors that his college game at Clemson could translate to the NFL.

Watson didn’t show out that game, but his big run let us know that, yes, his mobility could be a weapon, too.

Watson’s second-ever NFL start was against Bill Belichick, Tom Brady, and the greatest dynasty the game has ever seen. Few had expectations of a Texans’ victory, but there was excitement for Watson’s big test, and he didn’t disappoint.

Watson completed 67 percent of his passes for 301 yards, two touchdowns, and two picks in the 36-33 loss, and Houston was competitive throughout. His most impressive play was this escape and cross-field throw for a first down.

Not a lot of rookies — or even veterans at that — are capable of making that play in the NFL. If Watson didn’t have your attention before this game, he certainly did afterward.

But that game was about more than just big plays for Watson; his vaunted composure in college translated well to one of the toughest teams and venues in football. There’s not much more you can ask out of a rookie quarterback than to keep up with the New England Patriots.

The Titans, well, they just weren’t ready for Watson.

He had arguably his best performance of the season here, with the Texans’ offense just toying with the Titans’ D. And while this throw wasn’t one of his four touchdown passes, Watson’s step-up-and-chuck-it to Bruce Ellington was perhaps his most veteran-level play.

Watson wrapped up with five total touchdowns on the afternoon, and completed what would be a season-high 74 percent of his passes. Coming off his performance against the Patriots, Watson’s carving of the Titans’ defense was hardly surprising. But in a vacuum, the performance was astounding for a rookie making his third start, and it showed that Watson’s game the previous week was not a fluke.

Few performances were as fun to watch as Watson trying to lead the Texans back against the Chiefs. Keep in mind, this game took place when the Chiefs were playing like perhaps the best team in the NFL during the first half of the season.

Of all the plays Watson made during this game, none was as sensational as this Get Off Me + Bomb to Will Fuller.

Watson finished that game with five touchdown passes, and his elusiveness, in addition to his incredible arm, played a big part in that. Against the Chiefs, Watson proved he wasn’t just having a great rookie season, but perhaps the best season of anyone in the NFL.

At this point in the season, we expected a good game out of Watson, and he delivered. The Texans came into the game with a 2-3 record, but Watson was on fire and the Browns were 0-5.

Rookie quarterbacks get a lot of credit for making The Plays They Need To Make in a game. This throw was one of those — Fuller is WIDE open — but few quarterbacks in the NFL can deliver a ball this nicely.

Watson’s three touchdown passes had the Texans up 33-3 in the third quarter. A down game against a should-be overmatched opponent wouldn’t have been surprising for most rookies, but Watson handled the Browns just as any other franchise quarterback would.

And now Watson’s rookie opus.

There are very few times in an NFL season when one game captures the entire attention of everybody in the sport. What is even more rare is for a rookie to largely be the reason for tuning in. But that’s what Watson did in the Pacific Northwest in Week 8.

Two plays in particular stand out. The first, a vicious sling from Watson to Will Fuller for a 59-yard touchdown. The play almost looked like a cartoon because of how hard Watson threw the ball and how fast the camera had to move to capture Fuller falling into the end zone after the perfect toss.

Then, there was Watson avoiding a sack at the hands of Marcus Smith twice to find Lamar Miller, giving the Texans a late 31-27 lead.

Watson and the Texans scored 14 points on Seattle’s defense in the fourth quarter. Since the Legion of Boom’s reign of terror began in 2012, Seattle has only given up 14 or more points in the fourth quarter seven other times.

The more experienced Seahawks won, 41-38, but Richard Sherman gave his highest praise to Watson after the game (via MMQB): “You played the best game any quarterback has ever played against us, and we’ve played all the legends ... I respect how you hung in there and kept battling and battling.”

College football fans tried to tell everyone that Watson was, and is, the real deal.

He was arguably the most exciting player in college football during his two seasons as a starter at Clemson. His career stats bear that out, but the highlights were certainly his two games against Alabama for the national championship, where Watson combined for 825 passing yards against college football’s closest thing to an NFL-talent defense. And yet, people still doubted whether Watson could do the same things at the pro level.

The first half of his rookie season helped prove college football fans right, and then some — in hindsight, Watson could have been the top overall pick.

And Watson’s impact wasn’t just flashy. The Texans were worse when Watson wasn’t under center, and the difference was jarring. According to Bill Connelly’s numbers, the Texans’ standard down success rate when Watson was playing was in the 63rd percentile of the NFL. When he wasn’t on the field, success rate dove to the 5th percentile.

Watson was missed most in the red zone. The Texans’ 11- to 20-yard line success rate was 35.7 percent before his injury, and just 27.6 percent in his absence. Inside the 10, the Texans were nearly unstoppable with Watson; their success rate was 66.7 percent with him, and just 34.5 percent without him.

In more simple terms, the Texans scored more than 16 points just once after Watson went down with his injury. In five games before that, they scored 33, 57, 34, 34, and 38 points.

Watson even made a fan out of Jaguars cornerback and noted quarterback roaster Jalen Ramsey, who said of Watson in GQ: “He’ll be the league MVP in a couple years. One hundred percent. There’s not even a debate about that.”

Ramsey’s praise may be prophetic. It also highlights Watson’s most special characteristic: his ability to transcend allegiances. For eight weeks, he was that player, the guy you might be more inclined to watch than your own team. His elusiveness, his arm, his poise, and his big moments injected fun into a sport that often gets weighed down by injuries, uninspired ideas, and divisiveness.

Football is tribal. Fans and players come to hate players, teams, cities, and entire states because of 60 minutes of action. Watson, somehow, cut through that tribal culture with games like the one he had in Seattle, where you just couldn’t wait to see what he was going to do next.

In that way, Watson is, more than anything, a unifying player. Throughout six starts and an incredible eight-week span, we all watched as he changed how an entire sport is perceived. And now, 10 months later, he’s back for more.