J.J. Watt: 5 Reasons why he’s the greatest Texans first-round pick

3. J.J. Watt became a household name from his very first year

The rookie season of J.J. Watt was one that landed him on the 2011 All-Rookie Team with the likes of Cam Newton, Julio Jones, A.J. Green, Von Miller, Mike Pouncey, Patrick Peterson and others, as the ’11 draft class seems to be a special group of players.

In his third game as a professional, Watt recorded his first sack against the New Orleans Saints, where in that game he also totaled four solo tackles, two tackles for loss and one QB hit. In fact, during the first three games of Watt’s career he had one QB hit in each game, and in his NFL debut, the defensive end Watt had a fumble recovery.

As a rookie, J.J. Watt finished with 16 starts, 5.5 sacks, 49 solo tackles, 13 tackles for loss, 19 QB hits, four passes defensed and two fumble recoveries. That season, the Texans finished 10-6 overall, winning their first AFC South championship in franchise history.

Watt had his first multi-sack game during his rookie season, and that was against the Jacksonville Jaguars on Nov. 27, 2011, recording two sacks.

Even from that point as a rookie, it was easy to see special things were coming for Watt. Being that he was the Texans’ first-round pick that season, it was evident he was going to be a franchise-changing player like Andre Johnson was back in ’03 when he was selected third overall by the Texans.