The Deshaun Watson trade rumors aren’t going away, and are a key factor in most prognosticators’ mock drafts.
According to Anthony Treash of Pro Football Focus, the Houston Texans will trade Watson to the Denver Broncos in his scenario. Houston collects the Broncos’ No. 9 overall pick, their 2021 second-round, a 2022 first-round, a 2022 second-rounder, and a 2023 first-round. The Texans basically have double first-rounders for two years starting in 2022.
What do the Texans do with their draft haul from Denver? With their first pick, they address the gaping void at quarterback by selecting Trey Lance from North Dakota State.
As for Houston, they’d be focusing on a full rebuild, and it all starts at the quarterback position. Lance is a high-risk but high-reward prospect to commence that rebuild with. Put simply, Lance’s physical tools are bananas. He’s got a rocket for an arm and has elite athleticism that adds a lot of value to the ground game. But at the same time, he is glaringly inaccurate.
Lance played in just one game this year, as COVID-19 caused the FCS to postpone its season. In that showcase game, we saw exactly the same traits from 2019: incredible mobility but glaring inaccuracy. He carried the ball 15 times (13 designed, two scrambles) and put up six explosive runs of 10-plus yards, forcing nine broken tackles along the way. However, just 28.6% of Lance’s passes were deemed accurate in the outing.
The Texans also end up with the Broncos’ 40th overall pick and take Northwestern cornerback Greg Newsome.
One of the problems in taking Lance is he hasn’t seen much playing time in the last year, which means he could either learn on the fly at the expense of the Texans’ won-loss column, or he sits behind a veteran, also at the expense of the Texans’ won-loss column. Either way, Houston would go from a franchise quarterback to the new Maurice Clarett.
