Officially, Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson has a chest injury, with which he fully participated in practice on Wednesday. Unofficially, it’s hard to figure out exactly what the situation is.
Meeting with reporters on Wednesday, Watson was asked about a tweet that he retweeted. The retweeted tweet said that Watson played with a partially collapsed lung and a broken rib against the Cowboys. Specifically, Watson was asked what it was like playing with a partially collapsed lung and a broken rib.
“I have no idea, honestly,” Watson said. “I was just playing ball. I didn’t recognize it, we didn’t recognize it during the game.”
So he now has those injuries?
“No, I’m fine now,” Watson said. “I’m healthy.”
Anyone who has had a broken rib knows that it doesn’t quickly or magically heal. Besides, Watson officially has a chest injury, which could include the broken (or not) rib. Either way, Watson insists that he’s fine.
“I’m cleared to practice, cleared to do everything,” Watson said. “I’m good.”
And it sounds like he was never all that bad.
“We didn’t know during the game,” Watson said. “It was just sore, just finishing the game. That was pretty much it.”
That was pretty much it was it relates to anything said by anyone from the Texans. Coach Bill O’Brien was asked about the rib/lung injury, and he declined to elaborate.
“Again, I just refer to the injury report,” O’Brien said.
A broken rib causes intense pain and discomfort. It hurts to cough. It hurts to laugh. It hurts to sneeze. It hurts to have hiccups. It hurts to breathe. And it definitely hurts to get hit there again. So either Watson never had a broken rib or he’s living, practicing, and playing with an injury that has to be creating plenty of problems for him, pretty much all the time.
If it’s the latter, those problems could be exacerbated by a Jacksonville defense that is more than capable of getting to Watson, repeatedly.