https://www.si.com/nfl/2017/11/04/w...rade-browns-aj-mccarron-deshaun-watson-injury
By Gary Gramling
The reaction to the Deshaun Watson ACL tear was a bit over the top.
It’s disappointing, for sure, as Watson was an absolute joy to watch. (Will Tom Savage be able to replicate Watson’s rare brand of athletic playmaking? Only time will tell.) But it’s a torn ACL. In an unlikely and absolute worst case scenario, a slow recovery and conservative approach to rehab, he’s not back until the 2019 opener. At which point he’ll be a week or so shy of his 24th birthday.
But the injury does move up a conversation that we were going to have in January or February: What’s next for Watson? Everything the Texans have done since Week 3 has been brilliant and worked almost perfectly. It’s been heavy on motion and misdirection though, and it’s fair to expect opposing defenses to handle it better with a full offseason to break it down.
Whether it’s paranoia or not, Houston now has a franchise player with a, let’s say, “less than Cam Newton” frame and a tendency to be reckless with his body, coming off a torn ACL. It’s not just a matter of limiting designed runs, it’s the question of whether they can get the ball out of his hand quickly on a consistent basis.
The good news is that the Texans will have a full offseason to cook something up. The better news is that Watson improved at breakneck speed as a passer, and coming into last year’s draft people in the league seemed to love everything about him from an intelligence and intangibles aspect.
Plus, as our Albert Breer consistently points out, at Clemson Watson already had to go through the process of having opposing defenses adjust over an offseason and take parts of his game away. The future is promising, even if we’ll miss him over the course of the next nine games.
I don't want to imply that this has some bigger, deeper meaning, but this is my favorite play of Watson’s rookie year. This is a third-and-14 from last Sunday in Seattle. He takes off with the ball, and three Seahawks defenders have eyes on him. There is no
way he should get to the sticks here:
It’s like, after six quarters, he had managed to fully recalibrate and adjust to the speed of the NFL and can now map out these escapes on the fly. Or maybe he was just incredibly lucky here. Either way, it was neat. I was fairly sure the Watt/Mercilus injuries ended the Texans’ playoff hopes, but now the Watson injury surely does.
