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Deshaun Watson is a winner. Even when his teams have been down, he has always kept them competitive, whether in high school, college, or in the NFL.
However, the Houston Texans are 1-5 and are closer to watching the playoffs from the couch this January than actually participating in them. With more head coaches through the first six games than wins, Watson has been trying to keep his teammates encouraged despite the hard times.
“As a leader just making sure that everyone is staying encouraged,” Watson said. “Just keep working, keep coming in each and every day trying to get better. Keep pushing forward and keep competing. that’s the biggest thing.”
Watson has led by example in the improvement department. After posting sub-90 passer ratings the first two weeks, he recorded two straight 110.7 ratings in Weeks 3-4. Though the Texans were 0-4 at the time, and coach Bill O’Brien was fired on Oct. 5, Watson kept improving with a 109.1 rating in Houston’s first win of the season, and then a 138.9 rating in Week 6’s loss to the Tennessee Titans. Watson was willing Houston to a win with 355 passing yards and four touchdowns. The rest of the team’s execution to stop Tennessee just didn’t manifest as the Texans fell 42-36 in overtime.
“I’ve had a lot of success on the football field, so, it’s a little different than regular life,” Watson said. “I’m a guy that deals with a lot of patience. Sometimes I shouldn’t, but I deal with a lot of patience in my regular life and just a lot of things in general. That part is, I’m looking at the more positive things and what’s going to come in the future.
“Right now, I’m just building and building and building. Right now, I’m putting in the work and working my craft, working everything that’s around me so in the future it can be a lot more success.”
Watson sees the 1-5 Texans as a “position that God placed me in,” and won’t waver in his positivity or desire to improve, which is just the attitude it will take to duplicate what the 2018 Indianapolis Colts did and make the playoffs despite a 1-5 start.