Houston Texans: J.J. Watt continues path toward greatness

The Houston Texans continue to have milestones from J.J. Watt during his career.

J.J. Watt of the Houston Texans continued to add to his legacy on Sunday in Week 9 as he recorded his 100th career sack. Not only that, he became just the second player all-time to have at least 100 career sacks and be a three-time Defensive Player of the Year selection as well.

The player Watt joined on that list was also pretty good as well, and his name is Pro Football Hall of Fame linebacker Lawrence Taylor. Taylor — who played 13 seasons with the New York Giants — totaled 132.5 career sacks in 184 career games. His best season for sacks was 1986 when he had 20.5 sacks. Taylor was the Defensive Player of the Year in 1981, ’82 and ’86.

Watt — a Defensive Player of the Year in ’12, ’14, ’15 — now has 100 career sacks in 120 games (all starts), and the 100th sack of his career was to Jake Luton of the Jacksonville Jaguars, a quarterback who was making his NFL debut.

In his career, Watt had two seasons of 20.5 sacks in ’12 and ’14, and/or seasons with at least 16 sacks in a season, with the other two seasons being 17.5 sacks in ’15 and 16 sacks in ’18.

This season, Watt has four sacks in eight games played, and with the 100 sacks, Watt is now tied for 34th all-time with Andre Tippett who played from1982-93. Next on the all-time sacks list is 31st place as three players are tied for that honor with 100.5 sacks (William Fuller, Charles Haley, and Cameron Wake).

Since the sack stat has only been recorded since 1982, the all-time sacks leader is Bruce Smith (1985-2003) with 200 career sacks play for the Buffalo Bills and Washington

Houston Texans and J.J. Watt moving forward in 2020 season

Since the Houston Texans played their first game in 2002, the all-time franchise numbers aren’t as high as other franchises around the league. That being said, Watt has an amazing 15 percent of all Houston Texans sacks in franchise history, which is a great accomplishment in itself.

Also according to the Texans PR Twitter page, J.J. Watt joins DeMarcus Ware as the only players with 100 sacks and 450 total tackles in their first 120 career games. Ware finished his career ninth all-time in sacks with 138.5 from 2005-16, playing for the Dallas Cowboys and the Denver Broncos.

The tough part about all of these great accomplishments is the fact the Houston Texans are 2-6 overall, and the defense of the team isn’t very good at all. Houston allowed the one-win Jaguars to score 25 points and nearly tie the game at the very end when Jacksonville scored a late touchdown, but failed on the two-point conversion, giving the Texans a 27-25 win.

Last week, Watt even stated during a Houston Texans press conference that he didn’t want to “rebuild,” and who can blame him? This is his 10th NFL season, and none of the Texans teams he’s been a part of have gone past the divisional round of the playoffs.

It will be very interesting to see if the two-win Texans keep Watt after this season is finished, but for right now, the defensive end has made his mark on the franchise. He is still putting in quality play, as the opponent puts a lot of focus on him each game, and Watt still has the desire to be great.

Watt is one of the two faces of the franchise with Deshaun Watson, and both players deserve better than what they been given around them this season, but on Sunday, Watt continued to put his name with the all-time great pass rushers. Most likely, he’ll continue to climb up the all-time sacks list as the 2020 season continues.