Will the Houston Texans defense rebound against an unimpressive Caleb Williams?

If the Houston Texans give up 200 yards and 60% completion on passes (on at least 20 attempts) to Caleb Williams, I'll eat my hat. I don't know what hat I'll eat, but I'll eat it. The title asks a simple question that the opening sentence should have clarified. Yes, the Texans' defense will rebound against a pitifully unimpressive Williams.

The Chicago Bears lucked into a win against a bad Tennessee Titans team. The Texans survived one lucky team in the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday but persevered by being better. Last time I checked, the Bears don't have a lucky horseshoe on their helmets. This means the luck shouldn't be as strong in Week 2.

Williams did not impress in Week 1, at all. He completed 47% of his passes and threw for just 93 yards. He wasn't just bad, he was historically bad. There aren't many number-one overall picks in his position who put up such pathetically awful numbers. Numbers that should be a concern. Yes, he's a rookie. Yes, it was Week 1, but either the team around him isn't good, or he isn't very good. Or both. It can be both.

This is the long-winded way of saying that the Texans are going to bounce back in Week 2 and if they don't, if by some miracle Williams looks like a rookie-year version of C.J. Stroud against the Texans, then Houston is going to have to start asking some serious questions. How do they improve the defense after being torched by two subpar-performing, young quarterbacks?

I'm not worried about Williams' long-term development, because the Texans only have to worry about him this week. If Williams makes a magical leap from game to game, it'll be hard to not look at the Texans' defense and wonder if it's inherently broken. After all, Richardson and Williams are not expected to be Top 10 quarterbacks. So if they're ripping up the Texans' defense on deep passes in back-to-back weeks, we're going to have a problem to worry about.

Especially with Josh Allen, Jared Goff, Dak Prescott, Patrick Mahomes, and Lamar Jackson to worry about. If they're struggling to keep the Colts and Bears out of the endzone on deep passes, what will Mahomes and Allen do?

The Texans have to rebound against the Bears and Williams because they don't have a choice.