Will defenses figure out Deshaun Watson? They’ve had an offseason to examine some of the unconventional formations and plays that worked against them last year. Will they make the necessary adjustments to slow him down?
Aaron Rodgers dipped into the issue in the Greenville News. He’s of the school of thought that the game gets harder when playing against defenses that have a better feel for you.
“As he’ll find out, the second year is maybe the toughest year for a quarterback because you have an entire offseason for teams — especially teams in your division — to study you,” Rodgers said. “It makes things a little harder. I played pretty decent my first year and came back in ’09 and was seeing some different looks because there’s a lot more film on you.”
It’s an interesting take, and we’ve seen hot young quarterbacks cool off in the past. Vince Young and Colin Kaepernick, for example, kind of took the league by storm initially, then cooled off after defenses adjusted to what they were doing. Robert Griffin III also declined, though also included a major knee injury.
Taking a slightly more analytic view, there have been nine quarterbacks who have kind of taken the league by storm in their first season as a starter. I’m talking guys who started at least half of the season and put up top-10 per-game numbers. We can then look at how these guys did in their next season.
(There’s actually another I’m not listing: Tyler Thigpen. He wasn’t a heralded guy and started only one game the next year for Kansas City. I’m not even listing him. And I’m sneaking in Kaepernick, even though he actually started only seven regular season games. He also ranked just outside the top 10. But he took the 49ers to the Super Bowl that season, starting three more games, and he seems to be the kind of guy we’re looking for. Plus it will give some readers the chance to gleefully point out in the comments section that no team has signed Kaepernick.)
Also note that Watson started only six games, so he’s not technically part of this group either, but these are the kind of guys to compare him to.
Of the nine, five came back and posted numbers that we’re pretty similar. That is, their points per game rank (standard scoring) was pretty similar. Three declined significantly: Kaepernick, Matt Cassel and Vince Young. I’m also putting Griffin in the decline pile. He slipped from 5th to 11th but didn’t completely fall apart in that second year.
With Watson, I think it comes down to his knee. Is he healthy? If so, I would expect he’ll probably put up top-5 numbers at the position.
On chart below, you're looking at total yards per game (passing and rushing), total touchdowns per game (again, passing and rushing) and how the player ranked in fantasy points per game, using standard scoring and measuring him against others starting at least half of the season. First three numbers show how the guy did in his first season as a starter. Then you see the same numbers for the next year.
The chart is a little awkward and clumsy, and I apologize -- I couldn't think of a way to present the information more cleanly.
| SURPRISE QUARTERBACKS; SUSTAINING SUCCESS | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Name | Yds | TD | Rk | Next Yd | Next TD | Next Rk |
| 2002 | Chad Pennington | 234 | 2.00 | 10th | 225 | 1.67 | 11th |
| 2006 | Tony Romo | 273 | 1.60 | 4th | 271 | 2.38 | 2nd |
| 2006 | • Vince Young | 200 | 1.38 | 9th | 196 | .80 | 22nd |
| 2008 | Aaron Rodgers | 265 | 2.00 | 2nd | 297 | 2.19 | 1st |
| 2008 | • Matt Cassel | 253 | 1.47 | 10th | 208 | 1.07 | 25th |
| 2011 | Cam Newton | 297 | 2.19 | 4th | 288 | 1.69 | 4th |
| 2012 | Andrew Luck | 289 | 1.75 | 10th | 262 | 1.69 | 9th |
| 2012 | • Colin Kaepernick | 264 | 1.72 | ~11th | 233 | 1.56 | 21st |
| 2012 | • Robert Griffin III | 268 | 1.80 | 5th | 284 | 1.23 | 11th |
| 2017 | Deshaun Watson | 308 | 3.33 | ~1st | ? | ? | ? |
—Ian Allan