Deshaun Watson shows us the magic that’s possible within football’s boundaries

No matter how many times I watch Deshaun Watson’s escape in overtime against the Bills, I’m still in disbelief of it. It only gets more impressive with each viewing.

When it happened, I was so stunned I tweeted in all caps that Watson was a fucking magician. Still high off the thrill of it, I rhetorically asked how he managed to wriggle away from two grown men colliding into him at full speed, and then have the presence of mind to run out of the pocket to make the pass. Immediately, people corrected me, telling me how the magic was not only possible, but unsurprising.

The explanation was that the angles the two Bills players took towards Watson cancelled out each other’s impact. One went for his legs and the other hit his torso, spinning him around and making his escape possible. Their conclusion was the play wasn’t magic, but more the failure of two players to do their jobs properly.

Human beings are wonderful, rational creatures who think nothing is outside the sphere of reasoning. No matter how ridiculous a situation may be, we always find a way to grasp it, to bring it back from the absurd to a place that not only makes sense, but feels like it was always supposed to happen. Watson escaped because defenders didn’t wrap him up. When looked at in retrospect, nothing is ever truly surprising.

This penchant to reason everything to the ordinary isn’t a malicious drive to disenchant the world. Rather, we try to find order in chaos as an instinct to maintain some sense of control.

Of course, every event has a cause, no matter how unbelievable it may seem at first. The explanation for why the Watson play happened seems correct. But what I enjoyed about the play, and still do, is that it shattered our expectations. Sports are a great platform for these moments. Watson’s play makes sense, but it’s hard to imagine the same result happening again if that same situation occurred.

Even in the context of the NFL, where superhumans routinely do superhuman things, it would be near impossible to replicate that play. Elusive quarterbacks have escaped the pocket under duress before, but every instance is unique to its circumstances. Defensive incompetence is often a factor, but so is the quarterback’s ability. Then there’s an aspect of luck that makes these moments special, turning them into something that both makes sense and doesn’t at the same time.

Even with our knowledge of players pulling daring escapes in the past, Watson is expected to fall when two defenders run at him freely. The Bills had sacked him several times already in the game. Yet, he got away.

After the play, the camera panned over to the Bills’ sideline where his counterpart, Josh Allen, looked stunned. In front of Allen was another Bills player looking around in disbelief with his hands on his head. Their reactions are a testament to Watson’s magic, that even his colleagues, players who see incredible plays all the time, still could not believe what they had witnessed. Though it’s clear how Watson’s escape is possible, the fact of it happening was still incredible.

By pushing past what we expect to happen in that moment, Watson expanded our knowledge of both our rational world, and of what we can imagine.