Houston Texans: Deshaun Watson and the stigma around the offensive line

The Real Issue

There’s a good young crop of quarterbacks in the NFL, highlighted by Deshaun Watson, Patrick Mahomes, Carson Wentz, Baker Mayfield and Jared Goff. Watson and Wentz this season are facing very similar issues. After tearing their ACLs in the 2017 season, they spent the offseason rehabbing and knocking off rust rather than making leaps developing their game. Not at a fault of their own, but some old habits from college are reappearing for the both of them.

As Benjamin Solak of Bleeding Green Nation of SBNation and The Draft Network writes, Wentz has reverted back to old habits.

Unfortunately, I am seeing much of the same with Watson. My biggest two concerns with Watson coming out of college were his ability to handle pressure and his footwork. His footwork still looks better than it did in college.

While playing for Clemson he had a tendency to let his front foot fly, which resulted in overthrows and turnovers. That isn’t the case anymore with refined footwork and better ball velocity. In terms of his ability to handle pressure, the issues still need to be addressed.

Watson is an incredibly mobile quarterback, but what makes him special is he is a pocket passer above all else. He needs to continue to prove that. While he has the ability to escape the pocket, he has been panicking in the face of pressure this season. These issues were very visible on Autry’s first sack against the Texans.

The offensive line gets pushed back, but no pass rusher breaks through the line. The pass rusher on the left edge for the Colts forces Watson to step up in the pocket, and that is when Watson needs to get rid of the ball.

When Watson steps up in the pocket to avoid the pass rush, his legs become parallel. This means he is no longer a thrower and his only option is to escape the pocket. At this point, there are still no wide receivers open and Watson tries to make a move back to the middle of the field. Instead, he gets dropped for a loss.

Watson is just simply trying to do too much. Watson needs to work on maintaining his position as a thrower, and throwing the ball away when necessary. According to NextGenStats.com, Watson sits second from the bottom in time to throw.

Time to throw measures the average amount of time elapsed from the time of snap to throw on every pass attempt for a passer (excluding sacks), as seen in the glossary. For comparison, Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott sits eighth from the bottom and has given up more sacks. You don’t hear very much about the Cowboys offensive line struggling.

Again, this is not to say that the Texans offensive line has been superb. They haven’t been. They have become a scapegoat for the offense though, and while there is room for improvement in play and personnel, some blame needs to be placed on Watson. It may take another offseason of training and development to break out of the bad habit of holding on to the ball for as long as he does.