The Texans mortgaged the future to protect Deshaun Watson now. If Monday’s any indication, he might not be around when that loan matures.
Despite the addition of left tackle Laremy Tunsil, Watson was again martyred for the cause, sacked six times in a dramatic loss to the Saints.
“We’re going to watch the film tomorrow and fix our mistakes,” Tunsil said, vis Sarah Barshop of ESPN. “How many sacks did we give up today? Six? We’ve got to improve that number. We’ve got to drop that number down a little bit.”
He was supposed to make this better, after Watson was sacked a league-high 62 times last year. Last night’s six was the most allowed in the league so far this year.
While it’s loud in the Superdome, it’s hard to blame it all on the Saints fans. Or, honestly, the line. Watson has a tendency to stay with plays, looking downfield, when there may or may not be a play to be made.
“They blitzed us, they got us on a couple of blitzes,” Texans coach Bill O’Brien said. “I thought we did block them at times. We’ve got to block them more consistently and the ball has to come out a little bit quicker sometimes. Same old deal. We’ve just got to get a little bit better and work hard this week to shore this up.”
“Same old deal” is a glib generalization, one that could keep Watson from delivering on his enormous potential.