Natural-born winner: Texans’ Deshaun Watson ‘thrives on pressure’
Jeff Saturday believes Deshaun Watson and the Texans will have their hands full with the pressure the Chiefs’ defense will bring in their playoff matchup. (1:20)
HOUSTON — Every coach says it differently, but they describe essentially the same thing.
Deshaun Watson‘s high school coach, Bruce Miller, said his quarterback “made us state champions.” Clemson coach Dabo Swinney likened Watson to basketball legend Michael Jordan, who won six NBA championships.
Watson’s current coach summed it up succinctly. “He knows how to win,” Houston Texans coach Bill O’Brien said, “and there’s not too much more you can say about it.”
Watson latest triumph — a 22-19 comeback victory over the Buffalo Bills for his first NFL playoff victory — is nothing new for those who have watched Watson since his teen years. Before lopsided defeats to the Ravens and Broncos this season, Watson couldn’t recall the last time his team lost by double digits.
“What separates him from the other guys is in the biggest moments and the pressure moments — when has he ever wilted? Never in high school,” said Michael Perry, Watson’s offensive coordinator at Gainesville High School in Georgia. “You saw what he did against Alabama. It was the best of the best at that level. And then what he did [against Buffalo] … I mean, he just thrives on pressure. Most guys can’t take it or shrink away in that moment. He just thrives. And that’s what he’s made for.'”
It’s that knack for winning that gave Watson instant credibility when he first walked into the Texans’ locker room in 2017.
Watson won a state championship in high school and reached two national championship games at Clemson, winning one (three years ago Thursday). After tearing his ACL as a rookie and a subpar performance in his first career playoff game last season, Watson’s winning ways returned in 2019 with victories in the Texans’ biggest games — over the Chiefs, Colts, Titans and Patriots. Watson put last year’s disappointment in the past tense with the sensational comeback against Buffalo.
He credited J.J. Watt‘s third-quarter sack with giving the Texans momentum, which Watson used to revive a dormant Houston offense. He put his full skill set on display in the final quarter and a half against Buffalo, culminating in an incredible escape from a sack and subsequent 34-yard completion that led to the Texans’ game-winning field goal.
The Texans had won one playoff game in O’Brien’s five seasons, and it was against the Oakland Raiders’ third-string quarterback in the 2016 season. Watson can put the Texans into the AFC Championship Game for the first time with a victory against the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday (3:05 p.m. ET, CBS), adding another line to his winning résumé during a season in which he has established himself as an NFL superstar.
“I’ve always had the mentality to compete and do whatever it takes to win, and if I lose, get back up and keep pushing forward,” Watson said. “But I’ve always had that mentality and always wanted to win and compete hard. … But it’s definitely in my DNA to go out there and compete and try to win in everything I do.”
Perry remembers the first time he realized Watson had the chance to be a superstar. During Watson’s sophomore year in 2011, he led Gainesville High School to the state semifinals in Georgia while ending top-ranked Sandy Creek’s 41-game winning streak.
“Everybody thought we were going to get killed by them,” Perry said.
In that game, Watson made a play similar to the never-say-die plays he’s made in the NFL.
“During the game, our center snaps it high, over his head, and somehow he leaps up and tips the ball back to himself. And there’s a Sandy Creek edge rusher who is completely unblocked, coming right at him. So he tips the ball to himself. … Deshaun catches the tipped ball back to himself, and he then fires a quick out and it’s a perfect, in-stride throw. …
“When I saw that, I was like, this kid’s gonna be playing on Sundays one day.”
Watson made spectacular plays in the team’s biggest games.
“In the state championship game, one of our linemen gets blown back in the backfield 4 yards deep,” Miller said. “Deshaun steps up where the guy blew our linemen up and goes 40 yards down to about the 20. And you don’t coach that.”
It’s the first play in Watson’s ESPN Recruiting Nation high school highlight reel.
Check out some of Deshaun Watson’s top plays as a high school player in Georgia.
Watson’s attitude and mindset quickly rubbed off in the Texans’ locker room, just as it had in high school.
“In 2012 [when we won state], it was a very average football team,” Miller said. “[Watson] raised the level of our players to be state champions.”
In two-plus seasons as the starter, Watson led Clemson to a 32-3 record and its first national championship in 35 years in the 2016 season. The Tigers rallied to beat Alabama on Watson’s game-winning touchdown pass on his final college throw.
Swinney said then that NFL teams that passed on Watson in the draft would come to regret it. Watson was picked No. 12 overall.
Three years in, it’s proving to be true.
It didn’t take O’Brien long to see why Watson was so highly regarded. The coach and his staff met Watson at the combine in February 2017, and then hosted him for a pre-draft visit that April.
“He’s a winner, cares about winning, will do whatever it takes to win,” O’Brien said. “That came across in the first two meetings, so I would say [I knew he was special] way before he got here and on the practice field. He did some things in rookie minicamp that were really unbelievable plays, but it was way before that, that you knew that you had somebody that could be a special player.”
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Watson’s confidence has helped shape this Texans team. His “you’re never out of a game” mindset is contagious.
“Anybody that’s been around him for a long time, he doesn’t have any fear,” O’Brien said. “He has no fear and he goes into every game, he has a lot of fun playing. You see the smile on his face, he loves playing football and he loves being out there with his teammates.”
In the week leading up to the Texans’ first playoff game, Watson sent the rest of the offense a text: “Let’s be great today,” it read.
On the day of the game, Watson left a pair of Beats headphones and a card with the same message in his teammates’ lockers.
“You’re the leader,” Watson said. “You’re the face of the franchise and everyone is looking for you, so regardless if you’re down, if you’re up and you’re facing that — sometimes adversity – but you’re having success too, people want to still see that fight and that will to continue to finish what you started and try to win the game or what you’re competing in. Everyone is going to follow that and everyone will see it.”