Deshaun Watson Shows What He's About With Best Season
There's a Hormel Pepperoni commercial with a guy beating a drum, playing the accordion and singing about the tasty deli meat with a trumpet and other instruments strapped to his body.
It's essentially what Deshaun Watson's 2020 season with the Houston Texans looked like: highly entertaining, slightly disturbing and eventually wondering when it would just end.
Mostly, though, it was incredibly impressive to pull all that together as a one-man band and produce something so effective. We're talking about Watson at this point, not the pepperoni guy.
The Clemson legendary quarterback who won a national title with the Tigers in 2016 played this entire NFL season with one hand seemingly tied behind his back. He lost his top target, former Clemson WR DeAndre Hopkins, to an offseason trade. Bill O'Brien, the man who orchestrated that move, was fired as coach and general manager after an 0-4 start to the season.
Watson eventually lost receivers Will Fuller, Randall Cobb and Kenny Stills. He was left with Brandin Cooks and a bunch of practice-squad pass-catchers. The NFL's second-highest-paid QB was given one of the worst run games in the league and another bad offensive line. Oh, and the defense was one of the worst in the NFL.
Yet the Texans signal-caller never quit. He never opted out because his team sucked and his health was put at risk both on and off the field in a pandemic year.
“I just continue to grow, and it just showed the passion and the energy and just the love of the game, the love of the relationships, the love of the preparation that I bring each and every day towards this game," Watson said. "And that’s what it’s all about for me is really just making other people around me better.”
As the season wrapped up Sunday with another collapse in the season finale against the Tennesee Titans, Watson put the finishing touches on the best season of his career. That's right. It was a great year, one that even led to the notion that a QB on a 4-12 team could receive MVP consideration.
Watson led the NFL with 4,823 passing yards, the first time in his career he's done that. His 70.2 completion percentage and 33 touchdown passes were both personal bests in a season. Watson threw the ball and completed those passes more than any other season before this.
"It's pretty dope as an individual and as a team to be able to do the things I did this year," Watson said after throwing for 365 yards three touchdowns in Sunday's 41-38 loss to the Titans.
Counting that game, eight of the 12 losses for Houston were by eight points or less.
Watson didn't have the proper people around him to make Houston a winner in 2020, and what the future holds remains to be seen. Watson isn't going anywhere after he signed a mega-contract extension last year, but he doesn't have a coach or a proper GM at the moment.
He should get some say in who the Texans go after since he's the franchise. This season showed what Clemson fans already knew: Watson will give whoever he's playing for and with everything he has.
For Houston, they hope he can put together another season like this one with a better defense and improved offensive weapons down the road. Ultimately, winning matters greatly to Watson, but 2020 showed he's all about the journey as well.
"Of course I’m going to remember all the wins and championships and things like that and the records," Watson said, "but the players and the opportunity to help people get better and make this as a living is definitely one thing that I cherish at the top of my priority list as I continue to grow in my profession."
