Bill O’Brien: Texans’ Offense Will Change Dramatically In 2018

Last year, the Texans’ offense was spectacular with Deshaun Watson on the field. The Texans scored more than 30 points a game with DW4 healthy. He threw 19 touchdowns during that time. But the Texans’ offense was unsustainable. The success of it was driven by Watson’s touchdown rate. A touchdown rate that he will probably never match for his entire career. He was one of eighteen quarterbacks in the history of the game to have a touchdown rate of 9.0% and one of eight quarterbacks since 1990 to have a touchdown rate of 8.0%. Houston’s offense in 2018 couldn’t reasonably be thought to duplicate what it did in 2017.

As such, your frontal lobes should be concerned about the future and this upcoming Texans’ season. If Houston didn’t improve the roster enough, or if it didn’t add enough layers to its offense, the 2018 season could be a disappointment. 2018 would be a drive home through traffic after last year’s meteor shower. Yet suddenly, during the league meetings yesterday, Bill O’Brien allayed these fears. The Texans are installing a new offense for Deshaun Watson. The football team in Houston is doing something smart.

Chris Wesseling of NFL.com reported from a video that Jordan Palmer did for NFL Network’s Up To The Minute Live:

“Why put in an entirely different offense? He really told me everybody saw what we did with Deshaun this past season,” Palmer explained on Wednesday’s edition of Up to the Minute Live. “They’re changing things and it’s not even completely put into place yet. They’re still putting it all together.

”And he said the teaching portion of this is going to be the challenge because of Deshaun’s specific skill set that is so different and so lethal at the same time. ... But they are changing things up dramatically on the offensive side of the ball.”

Of course the reason has nothing to do with sustainability. This is still the NFL, where numbers are cute and film and FOOTBAWL still rule. This time, the football reason is simple: Defenses are going to adjust to what the Texans and Watson did last year. They’ll be ready for it this season. Underneath that are the numbers aligning along with it.

Changing the offense to account for that adjustment is a good thing. Bill O’Brien is doing the right thing.