Monday Morning Pleighbook: Deshaun Watson wasn’t healthy enough to fly but WAS healthy enough to beat the Jaguars

It doesn’t sound like Deshaun Watson should even be playing football on Sunday, considering his circumstances. But the Texans had him do it anyway.

Watson rode 12 hours on a bus from Houston to Jacksonville, because his rib and lung injuries are bad enough that the team’s training staff was concerned with how the cabin pressure on an airplane might affect the injury.

That’s right: Watson wasn’t healthy enough to fly on an airplane, per his own team.

Watson downplayed the injury before Sunday’s game during the week, saying, “I didn’t worry about the injury or anything during the Cowboys game because I didn’t know what was going on. No one did, and then last week I was fine. I was cleared to play and I was healthy.”

I certainly hear that. None of us can truly know the extent of his injuries. But I would also suggest that if your presumed franchise quarterback isn’t healthy enough to fly a plane, he probably shouldn’t be playing in a professional football game. You know, a game where he could be running into 6’8, 300-pound Calais Campbell.

Watson came into the game having been sacked 25 times on the season, which was second-most in the NFL. So it’s not like the Texans were doing a great job of protecting their franchise quarterback in the first place. Going up against one of the league’s most fearsome defenses seemed less than ideal given his health issues. He ended up being sacked just once this game, while being hit five times.

It didn’t matter since the Texans were able to pull out a 20-7 win over the Jags and escape without further injury to Watson. The game was so bad for the Jaguars, they were forced to turn to Cody Kessler because there’s only so much bad football to be tolerated from Blake Bortles.

Watson’s numbers weren’t great. He completed 12 of his 24 passes for one touchdown with a quarterback rating of 43.3. But there were still bright spots, like this dime to DeAndre Hopkins, who made a stupid good grab over Jalen Ramsey:

Hopkins had 50 yards and a touchdown on Ramsey, showing why out of all quarterbacks and receivers in the league, Ramsey has yet to have a bad thing to say about Nuk.

Regardless of how you feel about Watson playing, it is impressive that he couldn’t fly in a plane, and still managed to win an NFL game.

Bob Wylie is somewhere with cold, un-stretched muscles, incredibly proud.

It was a combative afternoon for Eric Reid, Malcolm Jenkins, and the Eagles. But the best moment came after Reid was able to get to Carson Wentz, and Zach Ertz took exception to how aggressive Reid was with his quarterback.

It didn’t end well for Ertz:

You have to respect Ertz’s instinct to protect his quarterback here, but it certainly didn’t go well. Reid took him down with ease, and in this instance, it was more of the thought that counts as opposed to anything Ertz actually did. Because Reid threw that ass.

We knew that Reid was ready for all the smoke though, especially after this pregame look:

Reid also had what probably should have been the game-sealing interception, but it was overturned. Either way, he held it down from start to finish.

You can read all about the friction between him and Jenkins here, which stems from the Players Coalition, and their respective involvements.

We hear it somewhere at least once almost every Sunday: “He’S GoInG tO WaLk InTO tHe EnDZOne!” But that’s not exactly the case, and usually said individual is jogging faster than you’d drive in a residential area.

However, on this Cordarrelle Patterson kick return for a touchdown, that was 100 percent the case:

Patterson, quite literally, walked into the end zone. That’s also after he was able to give a high-five to his teammate J.C. Jackson.

There has never been a cooler conclusion to a 95-yard touchdown than that one.

This is probably going to be the most aggressive catch we see all season, and it’s courtesy of New England Patriot Josh Gordon:

There’s a few things about this catch that make it amazing:

The catch wasn’t for some gigantic gain, but was another reminder that 1. the Browns decided to trade him 2. to the Patriots and 3. no other team thought to stop this.

SB Nation’s Adam Stites has documented the ongoing tale that is Aggressively Small Shoulder Pads Worn By Michael Bennett. Do a quick Google image search for his pads, and you’ll see that it doesn’t look like he’s wearing much of anything.

But Sunday’s attire looked egregiously small, even for him:

That genuinely looks like a Philadelphia Eagles version of a basketball jersey. There’s no coverage on the top of the shoulders, and the inside is even going towards his chest.

At this point, he’s checking off a box so he won’t get fined. Because if he could play football without pads, it certainly seems like he would.

The Eagles got into baseball last season across multiple games. This year, it appears they’ve taken into fútbol, led by Alshon Jeffery once again:

That was their better game on Sunday, after they blew a 17-0 lead to the Panthers at home. They just might have to pull out those underdog masks once again.

The bar is so low in Buffalo.