Deshaun Watson did not disappoint last night against the Bengals. Watson played balanced football with 67 yards rushing (and an amazing 48-yard touchdown run before the half), with 15-24 125 yards passing. Watson started off shaky in the first quarter, but towards the end of the game, Watson started showing flashes of promise in the passing game, which had been shaky in the pre-season.
Let’s talk about his pocket passing. Watson showed great promise inside of the pocket towards the 2nd half of the game last night. Watson looked calm, threw very accurately, and threw farther than he normally does. If the line can start winning the battles (which they showed some promise yesterday, but still need a lot of work) Watson can succeed in this offense. O’Brien seemed to trust his rookie more in the second half as well as he let him throw it and had bigger plays for him. The Watson/O’Brien connection has barely started. With Watson only seeing first team reps for less than a week, he seemed to get better with more reps. Hopefully this extended break until next Sunday allows Watson to prepare more.
The Defense stepped up and JJ looked like his former self during the game. It’s great to see Watt getting back to where he was pre-injury. Clowney had a great fumble recovery which he ran blazingly fast (over 17MPH!!!) to take the Texans into enemy territory. Lonnie Ballentine came up in the clutch yesterday by breaking up the 2 big passes that came to him on a single drive. He was a late game hero. AND WHO CAN FORGET JJ’S HUGE GAME WINNING TACKLE. I feel so bad for that center, he wasn’t expecting it at all. The defense had some issues, but most were fixed. The two defenders who went down (Johnson and Joseph) have been checked out a little more since last night, and nothing seems to be serious. The Texans can’t truly afford to have any more injuries as well.
The Special Teams didn’t live up to the hype all of pre-season and week 1, but the FG unit did well. Punt returning and Kickoff protection still need work. As far as that, Shane looks like he’s 23 punting for over 50 yards every time. What would we do without him…
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