The season isn’t won in September. It’s won in December and January.
For some teams, December acts as a precursor for postseason football. Before earning the eligibility to play in January, teams must get there in the stretch run, the month of holidays.
The Houston Texans are one of those teams.
Deshaun Watson is the quarterback of that team. In two games of December play in 2019, he’s 1-1. Despite the .500 record, he looks forward to the rest of the month, which includes two bouts with the 8-5 Tennessee Titans with one against the 6-7 Tampa Bay Buccaneers sandwiched in-between.
Watson is excited about high-stakes football, even if it entails more work.
“Everything is on the line, so it requires more focus, more film work, more preparation,” Watson said on Wednesday.
In Dec. 8’s 38-24 loss to the Denver Broncos, Watson threw his first interception in December since 2016, when he played at Clemson.
Watson is 4-3 in seven December games counting college. He passed for 1,884 yards, 10 touchdowns, two interceptions and a 101.7 passer rating on a 69% completion rate in those appearances while rushing for 249 yards and five touchdowns.
“The work and the time that you put in the previous weeks, the previous months,” said Watson, “you’ve got to go a little bit harder and you’ve got to outwork the guy that you’re going against and the teams and the opponents that you’re facing in this moment because it’s coming down to crunch time and every play, every move, everything you do on and off the field counts.”
The Texans are entering their most crucial stretch of the season. Winning out two out of the next three would mean going to the playoffs as an AFC South division championship. Losing two or more could leave them out of the postseason entirely.
Watson is the man that will dictate if the Texans talk about January football.