With the Houston Texans nearing an all-out rebuild, Deshaun Watson might regret signing a long-term contract last year. In September, he agreed to a four-year, $156 million extension that will keep him in Houston through the 2025 season.
But JR SportBrief doesn’t think Watson will last that long.
“If I’m Deshaun Watson, I’m not all that confident that next year is going to be good, and I would be shocked if the year after that would be good,” JR said on CBS Sports Radio. “If you’re the Texans, you’re in between a rock and a hard place. You have your franchise quarterback, but the rest of the cupboard and the future is pretty bare after that. No cap space, no draft picks, and you have a franchise quarterback. What good is paying him all that money if he has nobody to roll with, if you’re not going to win any games, if you’re going to go 4-12 next year again because Bill O’Brien knocked everything out of the cupboard or basically gave it to the neighbors down the hallway for free?”
Indeed, O’Brien made a series of puzzling decisions as Houston’s general manager. Those decisions ultimately cost him his job after an 0-4 start to the season.
That wasn’t a case of a loaded team getting off to a slow start, either; it was a case of a depleted roster playing as one might expect.
“I think this ending, whatever it is, I can’t see this relationship [between] Deshaun Watson and the Texans . . . being a fruitful one,” JR said. “I don’t see Deshaun Watson having long-term success in Houston. I think ultimately their new general manager, Nick Caserio – another guy who came down from New England – I think he’s the next former New England Patriot to come in a long line of trading away assets. And sooner or later, it wouldn’t surprise me if that was Deshaun Watson.”
The Texans are still in the market for a new head coach. Perhaps they hit the hire out of the park. But even then, who is protecting Watson? Who are his offensive weapons? Who is getting stops defensively?
“Let’s see who the coach is, but long-term, I do not see this working out,” JR said. “Deshaun Watson will either say, ‘Hey, I want to go,’ it might be a mutual decision, or the Texans might say, ‘We’re paying him how much money to suck every year? Let’s see if we can get some picks back and stock up.’ I don’t think this is going to work out – because the Texans right now, they look like they want to be New England south. It hasn’t worked out for a lot of Belichick disciples, let alone going through four and five of them a time.”