Watson Or Savage? Who would you like to see lead the Texans week 1

The better Savage looks, the more time we can give Watson to improve and be ready.

I'm back on this boat if Savage plays good in his final preseason game (3).

 

Its who you'd LIKE to start. But its also who NEEDS to start. Who you LIKE is about personal entertainment. Who NEEDS to start is whats best for the team.

Everyone WANTS Watson to start. And they should. He's more stylistically pleasing, more prestiged player than Savage. And Texans gave up a lot for him.

I LIKE Watson to start. But whats best for the team is Savage starting regardless of the like, BO'B coaching and team politics

 

Im going with Savage for week 1, he is looking good this preseason, let him get the job, Watson can learn more about the playbook, and about the game from the sidelines, I know people dislike Savage because he is not very flashy or spectacular, but he is doing a great job, he deserves the starting job, if he plays bad, or gets injured, then Watson can come in.

 

Savage clearly outshined Watson on Saturday. If this is the Savage that we can expect to see then there is no question on who the starter should be.

Watson was going up against the Patriots' 1st team d-line while being protected by 2nd and 3rd team guy's, but even still his play was not good enough to vault him ahead of Savage. I'm still bullish on Watson, but Savage is the clear favorite and barring injury, I don't see how that could possibly change going into week one.

 

It should be Savage to start the season if he stumbles go with Watson.

 

Savage looked really good on Saturday. I heard some local radio guys trying to downplay his performance as, "yeah he went 8-9, but did you even notice?"

I did notice -- thought his ball placement was excellent and timing was very good. One of the better performances I've seen from him -- certainly better than anything he's shown in the regular season.

Watson had some tough luck, but didn't look as good as the first game. Still, he's playing with a bunch of guys who won't have jobs in two weeks, so hard to kill him for it.

 

I disagree there, he actually got lucky a few times on 2 short slant routes that managed a ton of YAC that made up almost all of his passing yards and on another play where his WR made a great play to prevent what was going to be an easy interception. It's hard to say he had some "tough luck" when he couldn't throw an accurate pass past a few yards beyond the LOS. He certainly can't blame that on anyone else.

 

I didn't notice, because he's boring and will probably just be a journeyman qb.

That doesn't mean Watson is better.

 

He definitely did have a bit of tough luck playing with that rag tag group. Did Savage get lucky on that terribly underthrown Schaub-esque pass that Ellington bailed him out on the right sideline?

Savage was solid, but let's not go with this 8/9 narrative like he was flawless.

 

The ball was put in a place to give his guy a chance at catching it in bounds, it wasn't "terribly underthrown" unless you are talking about the Watson pass where the WR had to play CB and prevent the interception. That was absolutely a "Shaub-esque" pass.

I won't say that it was a flawless effort by Savage, but it was pretty close to it.



Watson on the other hand, didn't throw an accurate pass that was further than just a few yards past the LOS....so by comparison Savage was the best QB ever.

 

I don't think it's fair to call slant passes "lucky" if he's hitting the receiver in stride that leads to the big gain. Not much luck to that, good play call and good execution.

Tough luck referred to the fumble turned incompletion, which should have been caught and continued the drive. Ellington had two drops in a row, both should have been caught and would have moved the chains. That's three of his incompletions right there.

He definitely had mistakes that were all on him -- touch pass to corner of end zone and the underthrown play you referred to above come to mind.

 

Savage. He'll get hurt eventually and it will give Watson more time to work on his accuracy with zero pressure.

 

What I was calling "lucky" was that the short slant passes went for like 80 or 90 of his total 100 or so passing yards. It was also "lucky" that one of the scrub WR's he was trying to throw the ball to managed to play DB and prevent what would have been an easy interception due to a badly under thrown pass.

I actually credited him with doing a good job of reading the defense in a couple of situations.

As to "Ellington had two drops in a row", that's an incredibly charitable interpretation of what happened. Both passes were thrown horribly inaccurately, one so bad he couldn't tell the ball was even intended for him. Watson didn't throw an accurate pass further than a few yards beyond the LOS all game long.....but I guess some will just blame others for that.

 

I've definitely liked what I've seen from Savage so far overall. Hopefully it translates to the Regular Season.

 

Again, I don't think slant passes are "lucky" -- especially if he leads the receiver. I can understand your argument if someone was saying "yeah he only completed three (3) passes but he got 100 yards!" -- then yes, by all means, break down how good chunks of those yards came from quick slants. But that doesn't mean he was lucky - it means he executed the play well (leading receiver) and it was a good play call (open up middle). We may just agree to disagree there.

I don't know if we're referring to the same two plays -- two (2) minute drill just before halftime. First pass, Ellington is running a crossing route and inexplicably stops in midfield. Watson correctly led him with pass and Ellington couldn't haul it in because he stopped his route. Next play Watson throws to Ellington away from CB and it goes right through his hands. I would strongly disagree that either was "horribly inaccurate," but maybe we're watching different plays?

 

Yeah, we're watching the same plays, only you are somehow convincing yourself that those god awful passes were anything close to accurate and thus blaming the incompletions on the receiver.

On the first play, it was a check down to a guy that was supposed to find the weak spot in the defense, he got to where he needed to be but the ball didn't go to him. Watson threw the ball as if the receiver was going to be running a straight slant, but that's not what he was doing. Perhaps it was a bit of inexperience with the playbook by one or both on that one if we want to give the QB the benefit of the doubt.

On the second play, the ball was just thrown off target to where the WR was forced to dive to even get a piece of the ball. An accurate pass would have been caught.

When you see receivers that have to constantly lunge to get anywhere near a pass, it's not a good thing and if you want to blame that on the WR, why didn't Ellington have those problems when Savage was throwing the ball to him?

 

I know you're the type to never concede a point, even when blatantly wrong, so I won't pad my post count by arguing back-and-forth the same thing in several posts. I would only suggest you go back and re-watch with untainted eyes -- Watson even motioned to Ellington after the play that he was supposed to keep running the route and not stop. Pretty clear that was 100% on Ellington -- which is to be expected, he's had less than a week with the playbook.

 

I would argue that you are the one watching with the tainted eyes. Ellington was the best receiver on the field that day and didn't have those problems when Savage was the QB, but you feel the need to blame him for Watson's bad passes for whatever reason. It's pretty weird.

 

I'll start out by saying I'm actually on your side more times than a lot of the other posters. I agree Watson isn't ready and needs to work on his accuracy but this is a little hypocritcal. I know you are not a Mallett lover, or Brock lover, they just seemed best for the team at the time.

BUT, according to you, half of Brock's interceptions were on Hopkins. Now, at the time, I agreed for most of them. But how can you say that it couldn't be Ellington's fault when he is even newer in the system, maybe he was supposed to keep running. Hopkins didn't have trouble with Savage, but you kept blaming him. Now someone blames Ellington and it's only Watson's fault.

Like I said, I agree with you a lot of the time, but sometimes you do tend to get set in a way that fits your narrative while telling the person arguing against you that they are just fitting their own narrative.. makes for hard conversation.

 

@Bobbythegreat c'mon man!! You seem to be enjoying Watson's dip in performance a bit too much. He didn't look as good as he did in game 1 but he was nowhere near as bad as you are claiming.

I get it. You hedged your bets in the whole Watson vs. Savage debate so you could spin either result in your favor. As soon as Savage does something bad you'll come popping off about how you were the one to point out he never threw a TD pass in an NFL game until last Saturday.

This is what I was talking about the other day but you more or less side stepped the question. I'm going to safely assume now you are 100% on the Savage bandwagon bc he's the "best option" at this point. So I want to know what exactly are your thoughts on Watson? I just want to make sure you don't come in here lighting up the boards about how you called Watson's potential from the start (once he eventually proves himself) if that's not actually what you think right now.