See, I remember me and a few buddies discussing the trade and I thought cleveland had paid way too much for him, both to the texans and the overall contract. For a guy who has never won a playoff game and put up pretty meh numbers, they gave up 3 first round picks and 3 other draft picks, with the first rounders all being protected (so if cleveland ends up tanking there's a very real chance houston could end up with multiple top-5's including their own picks). I get that the QB market is weird with teams shelling out tons of money for unproven guys hoping that they become good, but if they wanted someone of his same talent level they could've sent a 4th to philly and picked up gardner minshew and saved themselves $200m.
I think that vastly undersells how good Watson was a few years back. Of course that doesn't mean he necessarily has what it takes to do it under higher pressure in the playoffs. But that being said, I think today's game makes it very clear that it's still a big question mark whether he will ever be able to get back to the level he was at.
See, I wouldn't really say he was good though and just got carried by a weak division a la stafford (let's not forget that his lone 5,000 yard season came when he both had megatron and got to face a crippled bears/vikings team 4 times that year). Even if he goes back to the level he was at, we're at a point in which one guy can't really transform an offense and it's more about the pieces around him (see: my team where jared goff, a QB many people had touted as one of the worst, is leading a top-7 offense with one of the greatest rookie treasure troves in history). I'm under the impression he's going to be incredibly average, have something like a 65% completion percentage with 3,000 yards/21td's/10ints next year and be dead last with a 6-11 record next year. The bengals should remain dominant, the ravens (while also bad due to how overrated their QB is) should still be a playoff-bubble team, and the steelers should get better once they get some weapons for their QB.
See, I remember me and a few buddies discussing the trade and I thought cleveland had paid way too much for him, both to the texans and the overall contract. For a guy who has never won a playoff game and put up pretty meh numbers, they gave up 3 first round picks and 3 other draft picks, with the first rounders all being protected (so if cleveland ends up tanking there's a very real chance houston could end up with multiple top-5's including their own picks). I get that the QB market is weird with teams shelling out tons of money for unproven guys hoping that they become good, but if they wanted someone of his same talent level they could've sent a 4th to philly and picked up gardner minshew and saved themselves $200m.
I think that vastly undersells how good Watson was a few years back. Of course that doesn't mean he necessarily has what it takes to do it under higher pressure in the playoffs. But that being said, I think today's game makes it very clear that it's still a big question mark whether he will ever be able to get back to the level he was at.
See, I wouldn't really say he was good though and just got carried by a weak division a la stafford (let's not forget that his lone 5,000 yard season came when he both had megatron and got to face a crippled bears/vikings team 4 times that year). Even if he goes back to the level he was at, we're at a point in which one guy can't really transform an offense and it's more about the pieces around him (see: my team where jared goff, a QB many people had touted as one of the worst, is leading a top-7 offense with one of the greatest rookie treasure troves in history). I'm under the impression he's going to be incredibly average, have something like a 65% completion percentage with 3,000 yards/21td's/10ints next year and be dead last with a 6-11 record next year. The bengals should remain dominant, the ravens (while also bad due to how overrated their QB is) should still be a playoff-bubble team, and the steelers should get better once they get some weapons for their QB.