Houston Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson and Kansas City Chiefs Patrick Mahomes are historical outliers. Both, at the age of 24, are bonafide NFL stars and high-tier quarterbacks. Both are yet to play two full seasons of NFL play.
For Watson, quick success in the NFL comes from many places. He gets to through to DeAndre Hopkins and Will Fuller, for example. And, he, as well as Mahomes, are physically gifted athletes with mindsets trained to win.
However, technology and a younger generation of coaches — such as his personal quarterback coach, Quincy Avery — deserve their fair share of credit, in Watson’s eyes.
“Technology is awesome, and the coaching staffs that are in the younger generation is teaching — even myself — but teaching younger quarterbacks about defenses and how to read coverages,” Watson told reporters Wednesday. “If you have that right coach that can teach you about the knowledge of the game and put you around situations and put you through situations before you get in live situations, it really helps.”
Young aspiring pro quarterbacks have luxuries their grandfathers didn’t have. Want to learn about Cover 2? That’s three clicks away. What about diagnosing proper leverage? That’s four.
“Back then, like I said, the technology wasn’t as sharp, so now you can get on YouTube and watch live games and see what the defense is doing and kind of talk with your coaches and watch film,” said Watson. “Back then there wasn’t too much of that. If you have, it you have it, if not you just don’t.”
While Watson learned with the help of the internet, those striving to be the next up may be learning from his now-famed press conferences. Nonetheless, Watson and Mahomes will get to show off their new-age understanding of football on Sunday, in Kansas City, at 12:00 p.m. CT.
