Inside AFC South: Surging Players

Consider December an ideal time for NFL players to play their best football as the regular season reaches the finishing stretch.

Teams like the Tennessee Titans and Indianapolis Colts, both 9-4 and tied for first place in the AFC South Division, benefit from these efforts in games that will determine whether they make the playoffs or not.

Teams like the Houston Texans (4-9) and Jacksonville Jaguars (1-12) are looking ahead to next season, which means players are trying to make a positive impression for them or prospective future employers.

Writers for the Sports Illustrated-powered sites covering the AFC South teams offered their takes on which players are surging at season’s end.

Houston Texans

Texans Daily

Despite losing his No. 1 wide receiver twice — DeAndre Hopkins to a bad offseason trade and Will Fuller V to a recent six-game suspension for performance-enhancing drugs — quarterback Deshaun Watson has played the best football of his four-year career.

The Texans signed Watson to a four-year, $160-million extension before this season, but haven’t done their star player many favors. No matter, he’s completed 297-of-431 passes (68.9%) for 3,761 yards (8.7 per attempt), 25 TDs with just six interceptions, and a passer rating of 109.4. Watson has also rushed for 369 yards on 76 carries (4.9 ypc) with three TDs.

Because he utilizes his scrambling ability to extend plays, he’s susceptible to sacks in taking 39 of the 40 the Texans have allowed. But Watson keeps playing with admirable determination. Despite a 4-9 record and being mathematically eliminated from the playoffs, the Texans have lost five games by one score, including one in overtime when they didn’t get the ball. Watson has had only one interception in the past eight games.

An offensive line anchored by Pro Bowl offensive left tackle Laremy Tunsil could be better, particularly in opening holes for an ineffective rushing offense that ranks dead last at 86.2 yards per game. Yeah, it’s all on Watson to give the Texans a chance, and he has more often than not.

The awful decision to trade Hopkins, among other questionable calls, led to the firing of head coach/general manager Bill O’Brien. His successor will know from day one that an immediate priority is to surround Watson with more playmakers.

Indianapolis Colts

Phillip B. Wilson/AllColts

After some early growing pains, rookie running back Jonathan Taylor is hitting his best stride with the Colts trying to make a playoff push.

The second-round selection out of Wisconsin rushed for a career-best 150 yards and two touchdowns in Sunday’s win at Las Vegas. His 62-yard TD rush wasn’t just his longest as a pro, it was the first time the Colts had a run of 25-or-more yards. They were the last NFL team to do so. He also had 15 yards on two receptions for a single-game best of 165 total yards.

In the last three games, Taylor has rushed for 331 rushing yards on 55 carries (6.01 ypc), and has caught all nine passes in which he’s been targeted for 83 yards and his first TD reception.

Taylor spoke Friday about how he hasn’t hit the rookie wall because the Colts have shared the workload for much of the season since 2019 leading rusher Marlon Mack suffered a season-ending ruptured Achilles tendon in the second quarter of the opener. But Taylor, who has 759 yards rushing and 286 receiving, is definitely the workhorse now for the finishing three-game stretch.

The Colts (9-4) are in position to make the playoffs for just the second time since 2015. They enter Sunday’s home game against the Texans as the AFC’s sixth seed and are tied with the Titans atop the AFC South, but the Titans have the tiebreaker advantage.

For much of the season, the Colts offense counted on 17th-year quarterback Philip Rivers to spread the ball around and minimize mistakes with quick reads and smart decisions. The run game without Mack fell far short of the team’s No. 7 ranking last season — Taylor was benched for his only lost fumble in a home loss to Baltimore — but the recent ground-game success has created a balanced offense which should be more difficult to defend down the stretch. The Colts have improved to 15th in rushing (113 yards per game) after being ranked in the bottom third in the first half of the season.

Jacksonville Jaguars

John Shipley/JaguarReport

It’s tough to say any players are truly "surging" for a 1-12 that hasn't won a game since Sept. 13. But the Jaguars do have a pair of front-seven defenders playing their best ball.

Defensive end K'Lavon Chaisson was drafted No. 20 overall in April, instantly creating high expectations for the young, raw pass-rusher. Chaisson's rawness and relative inexperience was clear for much of the season, though, which maybe should've been expected. Through the first 11 games, Chaisson had one sack and 10 pressures. More often than not, he wasn't impacting opposing passing attacks in any facet.

But the switch has been flipped in the last two weeks. Chaisson has eight pressures in two games, including three quarterback hits in Week 13. Jaguars head coach Doug Marrone called his Week 12 performance against the Vikings Chaisson’s best game. He hasn't had another sack, but he is beating offensive tackles and disrupting the quarterback more often.

Second-year pro Joe Giles-Harris has become an impact player at strong side linebacker in that same span. Stepping in for an injured Kamalei Correa in Week 12, Giles-Harris had four quarterback hits and was a constant thorn in the side of the Vikings offense. He followed this up in Week 13 with a sack, a tackle for loss, and another quarterback hit.

Jacksonville hasn't had a lot of things go their way in 2020, but Chaisson and Giles-Harris have quietly grown into reliable playmakers.

Tennessee Titans

David Boclair/AllTitans

It would be unfair to say Corey Davis was on his way to being a bust.

He led the Titans in receiving in 2018, his second year in the NFL, although his numbers were not exactly eye-popping (65 receptions, 891 yards, 4 TDs). For his first three seasons, he averaged a little more than 47 receptions and 622 yards and had six touchdown catches.

Not bad. But not exactly what you want from the fifth overall pick – and the first wide receiver taken – in the 2017 NFL Draft. Coaches often went out of their way to say what a difference-maker he was as a blocker in the run game, which usually felt like faint praise.

None of it was enough to convince Tennessee to pick up the fifth-year option on his contract.

This year, particularly of late, Davis has been a different guy. Through 13 games, he leads the Titans with 56 receptions and is second with 835 yards. His catch percentage, 76.7, is tops among Titans players with 12 or more receptions and is well above his career percentage, 62.1.

He has two 100-yard games in the past four weeks and has averaged nearly 100 yards per game over that span (99.8, to be exact). That surge started on Nov. 11, a day after his older brother Titus died at 27 years old due to a rare form of cancer. Davis caught five passes for 113 yards in a loss to the Colts. Two weeks later, he set career-highs with 11 receptions for 182 yards in a loss to Cleveland.

Barring a disaster, Davis will notch his first 1,000-yard season in what likely will be his last season in Nashville.