Deshaun Watson’s Houston success may not translate to Browns stardom

Why Bill O’Brien deserves some credit for Watson’s success

Was the Patriots’ success due to Tom Brady or Bill Belichick? Opinions differ, and occasionally someone suggests that Josh McDaniels might be a good play caller, but almost no one thinks that Bill O’Brien had anything to do with winning football games in New England.

He was just a placeholder for McDaniels while he was out flirting with Tim Tebow in Denver. However, the 2011 Patriots were known as the offense that morphed into a new offense each week to find the weakness of opposing defenses. For example, in the playoffs against Denver, the game they played tight end Aaron Hernandez at running back, and he produced 61 rushing yards in five attempts (12.2 yards per carry), 116 yards from scrimmage with one rushing TD and another receiving TD.

Upon coming to Houston, O’Brien turned around a 2-4 Texans team, finishing 9-7 in 2014. Case Keenum went 2-0 on that team, incidentally, with Ryan Fitzpatrick doing the heavy lifting at 7-7. What’s truly weird is that every year O’Brien had at least one quarterback who had either played for the Browns or would later play for them.

In 2015 they won the AFC South, with Brian Hoyer going 5-4 and Brandon Weeden going 1-0 as part of a quarterback by committee. In 2016, they won again with Brock Osweiler going 8-6, followed by the Watson years.

Coming out of college, a number of analysts were scared by Watson’s alarming tendency to throw interceptions: 17 in his senior year, after throwing 13 in his junior year. Now, on the plus side, he quarterbacked Clemson to one of the most phenomenal games in college football history, so for at least one game when it counted he was flawless.

But there were reasons he slid all the way down to 12th overall. Namely, people weren’t sure whether the option stuff would translate to the NFL level. One interpretation is that O’Brien found a way to make the offense work for Watson, surrounding him with top receiving talent including D’Andre Hopkins, Will Fuller, Kenny Stills, Brandin Cooks, Randall Cobb, Jordan Akins, and others. That doesn’t mean anyone can plug Watson into a different offense and expect the same results.

It’s one thing to win with Tom Brady. But O’Brien had three winning seasons and two Division Champions with Case Keenum, Brian Hoyer, Brandon Weeden, and Brock Osweiler combining for 16-10 in that stretch. Think about that. Watson went 28-25 and also had two first-place finishes in four years. In other words, the ex-Browns were six games over .500, versus three games over .500 for superstar Watson.

Moreover, now that the Patriots have neither O’Brien nor McDaniels, they stink on offense. Maybe it is not just all about the quarterback. Though some of his trades may have bombed, maybe O’Brien is a coaching genius, for real.