Texans appear unconcerned about hits on QB Watson
If the Houston Texans’ suspect pass blocking and Deshaun Watson’s internal clock don’t improve dramatically, the quarterback is going to absorb a ton of hits this season.
One year after tearing his anterior cruciate ligament as a rookie, Watson has been sacked 17 times through four games. The Texans have allowed a sack 11.49 percent per passing attempt and are on pace to surrender 68 sacks for the season. They allowed 54 sacks last year.
Only the Buffalo Bills with 21 sacks given up overall, have allowed more total sacks than the Texans.
The Dallas Cowboys rank second in sacks given up per passing attempt, with a 12.17 percentage.
Watson has been hit 43 times and is on pace to be hit 172 times this season.
“He’s a very tough guy,” Texans head coach Bill O’Brien said. “You know, some of it can be concerning, but it’s some of the design of the plays. That’s what we do. He’s got good physical strength. There’s certain things that we do not want him to take a hit on. There’s other things that we do that he loves to do, and we like to call them and that’s part of the way he plays.
“I think he’s really smart about it for the most part when you look at how he deals with those plays. He gets his pads down or he ducks out of bounds. He’s a very, very smart runner.”
The Texans benched right tackle Julien Davenport after he was penalized eight times in the first three games, replacing him with Kendall Lamm against the Indianapolis Colts. During the Texans’ 37-34 overtime win, Watson was sacked seven times and hit 11 times.
“He played tough,” O’Brien said of Lamm. “Like anybody else, there are some plays that he’ll try to improve on, but he did a good job.”
Watson is learning to make better decisions about when to run and when to throw the football away or simply go down. The Texans want him to continue to improve in this area.
“There are certain plays that he extends, which are great plays, where he either runs or he creates a passing lane downfield for guys to get open, and then there’s other plays where there has to be what I call a silent alarm in his head, where nobody’s really open, this journey’s over and I need to just either throw it away or duck out of bounds or whatever it is,” O’Brien said. “Probably the best young quarterback I’ve ever coached at making the right decision. But he needs to probably make that right decision all the time.”
Overall, Watson has recaptured his dynamic rookie form.
Although Watson got off to a slow start against the New England Patriots, he has rebounded and is averaging 311 passing yards per game.
The former consensus All-America from Clemson is on pace to finish the season with 4,984 passing yards, 28 touchdowns and 16 interceptions.
He has passed for 1,246 yards, seven touchdowns and four interceptions with a 93.7 passer rating. He has rushed for 161 yards and one score.
“He’s got great instincts,” O’Brien said. “He can see things. He’s an awesome guy to coach.”
SERIES HISTORY: 5th regular-season meeting. Cowboys lead series, 3-1. Texans are 0-1 at home this year, 1-3 overall.
