We can all agree that the Houston Texans have a great passing game.
The Texans are in third place, behind the Packers of Aaron Rodgers and the Chiefs of Patrick Mahomes. One of Houston’s throws this season was a bizarre gimmick game, a short Dump by Randall Cobb wideout that fell incomplete. The other 431 were launched by DeShaun Watson, a leading Quarterback talent who collects the best stats of his young career.
In the modern NFL, a team’s ability is so often what separates serious contenders from all. In the past, a fearsome defense or a rash attack could take you to the higher ranks, but that’s not so true these days.
Want to get in the green? Want to be a Playoff Team? You probably need a significantly above average passing game. To make a good measure, you should try to jack your passer rating 100. Do this and you are virtually guaranteed to spit on the bare essentials, coming from the post-season distance.
This is called Turning the knife. Blubb!
Aside from those winless Browns in 2017 and their passer rating of 61.4, there is no lonelier point on the card than this year’s Texans. In the last ten years and the change, all other Teams have finished with such a high passer rating with double-digit wins. Most have (or will likely end up) finishing with 13 or more wins, which is the best NFL record in many seasons.
The Texans are on pace five. This should not be possible. A team beaten by a generational talent, healthy and at the top of its powers, should not go 5-11.
So far, we have relied solely on the notation of passers as the Standard by which we measure pass capacity, so we are moving on to something more accurate: net Yards adjusted per pass attempt. Let’s also extend the reach to every Quarterback season of the entire post-fusion era, 1970-2020.
The farthest left point marked in Green is DeShaun Watson. The other highlighted right is DeShaun Watson if he keeps his current rhythm until the end of the season. It is already a spectacular season. If it goes further, you could absolutely make the argument that in terms of quality and quantity, we’re looking at one of, I don’t know, 10 or 20 greatest Quarterback seasons ever? It’s fair to say, isn’t it?
Watson is on track to start all 16 games, so let’s pick up on all those seasons that are even in his stratosphere and see how many games they’ve won.
Assuming Watson continues to maintain his all / A of 7.99, here are the four places he could possibly finish here: four, five, six or seven wins. After losing nine games, the Texans condemned him to a losing season. Suppose you somehow lead the table the Rest of the way and end up with seven wins! It would still be second to none.
Watson’s closest neighbours in misery, who hang around 8.0 with eight wins and an all/a, are Daunte Culpepper in 2004 and Philip Rivers in 2008, two more tragically wasted seasons. In addition, all other quarters of his caliber have won 11 games. Still, the vast majority of them won 13.
It takes a holy anchor to sink such a ship.
The most punishable crimes are usually supplemented by another department. Since these are classified in distance, it is natural that their hasty attacks are not as strong, but they are generally good or at least decent to stop the Pass or run in defense. The Texans and the Lions (seen here as a passing no attack.9) are the only ones that flow like a bag of door handles into all other quadrants.
But the Texans are as tragic as the Lions are not. Do you know who works the night shift, brings the Ball to the ground and makes up about a third of Houston’s Yards? Deshaun Watson.
The only quarters that claim a higher share of their Teams ‘ Yards are Lamar Jackson of the Ravens and Kyler Murray of the Cardinals, both of whose Teams compete for Playoff spots, are tailored to their mobile QBs, and boast great racing games. The Texans now hold the fewest Yards in the NFL. In fairness, they name fewer races than almost all other Teams, but the fact remains that Watson also has to take over a large part of the burden in this department.
Again, this is Watson’s 16-game projection based on his pace through 13 games. But again we see the enormous amount it contributes to this season. Only one guy threw the Ball with that level of excellence while running the ball for so many yards: 1992 Steve Young. Young went 14-2; in the case of Wonder Watson IRA 7-9.
We have gone so far without even mentioning two conditions that are so important that they have defined the entire history of the Texans in 2020. The first is that before the season they traded Watson’s favorite target to DeAndre Hopkins, who could be the best catcher in the NFL. It was one of the most unbalanced transactions in the modern history of American Sports. Some of the best football writers who work today have tried to find explanations as to why Houston would have accepted such a terrible trade, and how the Texans came up empty. I can only imagine how Watson had to take it. It is a crime that he and we have stolen a season that could have been even more spectacular.