Watson has already had a chance with weapons.

No, you shouldn't neuter him like the Packers are doing to Rodgers, but he DOES need a damn defense if he's going to win anything substantial in the next several years.
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Actually it was on the defense. That defense gave up a TD when the opponent had at least one first down inside their RZ 74% of the time against the league. Not against the top tier offenses, but the league. And not just scores, but TDs.

When they faced the Chiefs in the divisional, and had to play against the best offense in the NFL, well they were going to give up a lot of TDs, period. And Watson doesn't play defense.
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He's not. No one will in the AFC as long as the Chiefs have Mahomes.
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I hope this is proof that anybody who looks at the body of work from a college QB and says, "I can't explain it... but he's just a winner!" is a fucking pea wit.

Yes, Watson is a very good NFL QB, but as it turns out, the guy with the losing record in college is the REAL clutch QB. Imagine that! How could that be?

Maybe because winning in college is COMPLETELY different than winning in the pros?
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I mean like... going to conference championship games and stuff like that. Something the Texans have never done in their history.

If Watson went to an NFC team, he could also wind up playing in a Super Bowl if he had the right cast.

But those are a lot of "if"s
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My god this thread makes me laugh every time it pops up
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Regarding that, the guy with the losing record in college kept his overmatched team in most games almost single handedly. Veach has said that was a major key in their decision-making.
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Obviously.

Ken Dorsey, Steve Walsh, Gino Torretta, Matt Leinart, every Nebraska QB during their glory years, Chris Weinke, etc.

All are Exhibit A's.
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Sure.

But what I'm saying is that I'm not sure Watson is the level of elite to have much of a complaint here.

He's not Manning, Brady or Brees. He's not Rodgers and he's not Ben, IMO.

Go back to the beginning of the Patriots run and you have how many SBs won by guys who weren't better QBs than Deshaun Watson? Eli won a couple, Flacco won one. I think Watson and Wilson are probably on similar footing (the year that Wilson won - Wilson's now a better player than Watson).

One can say he's a victim of unfortunate timing who's unlikely to win a championship due to circumstance, but over the last 20 years, there's been maybe 3-4 championships won buy guys who weren't flat-ass better than Deshaun Watson is.

I'm just honestly not sure there's a place that would clearly help him in that regard. I don't think there's a right 'crossroads' for him, other than falling into a premier system like Eli did. And ultimately that kind of system can drag Jimmy Grapes mediocre ass to success (or Eli Mannings, for that matter, who's never been a top 10 QB in the league, IMO) so I think it's more of a truism than anything.

I think the 'why sign long-term when you can't win a championship there?' thing is often overstated, especially for marquee positions. In MOST cases you're unlikely to end up in a landing spot where you're going to win a championship. So you might as well get paid. And Houston's a sizeable media market w/ plenty of local opportunity and wealth so he has avenues outside of the game for exposure.

I just don't see things changing a ton for him regardless of his timing.
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Can't disagree with that, no. But this league does have a habit of over-rewarding QB play simply because there's not enough truly good ones. We'll never know with Watson because he's probably stuck in Houston regardless.

Can't necessarily disagree with any of this either. It's just that the circumstance of timing will probably prevent any of us, including Watson himself, from ever knowing for certain.
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Cowboys and Houston should switch QBs.
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Watson is better than Dak? That's debatable...
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Watson still had plenty of chances to keep that game competitive. If the roles were reversed, Mahomes would not have lost by 20 after leading by 24.
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It's Alex Smith vs. Eli Manning 2.0

Both guys have serious flaws in their games but approach it in a completely different manner. Manning knew he wasn't a precise short-passer so he became something of a mad bomber and traded risk for reward. He knew he was not significantly less likely to throw a pick or misfire on a short pass, so he threw deep to try to make the reward higher and offset marginally increased risk.

Smith wasn't someone who was comfortable taking deep shots so he leaned into the fact that he was pretty precise underneath.

Both guys were probably about equally useful, equally productive quarterbacks. It their peaks, they were in the upper level of second tier quarterbacks.

Dak is Alex to Watson's Eli. I don't think either of them were truly demonstrably better than the other, but they did things in a decidedly different way. And the latter's way is probably more useful in the post-season because it can dig you out of the hole that you'll inevitably find yourself in at least once if you're playing 3 quality playoff caliber teams.

I don't think either guy is clearly better than the other at his particular style, but I think Watson's style is more conducive to post-season success than Dak's.
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Watson is overrated. He’s good but wildly overrated. Glad we got Mahomes. And no Watson wouldn’t be better with our receivers. Mahomes is just better. At everything.
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