How would the Houston Texans perform if they had Your Tagovailoa as their center in the first season with new coach David Culley?
According to Mark Schofield of the Touchdown Wire, the former Miami Dolphins chosen in the first round will come to the AFC South club as part of their predictions for the 2021 quarterback carousel.
From a defender’s perspective, landing with a team that seeks a long-term approach to becoming competitive is probably the ideal situation. As we saw last year, Tagovailoa struggled to acclimate to life in the NFL. There was a tension between what the attack needed to do to win the games and what the attack could do with Tagovailoa in the center. This led to some defeats, Tagovailoa being removed from the games by Ryan Fitzpatrick and a franchise between what could be and what he wanted to be.
That would not be the case in Houston, where Tagovailoa could be part of a young nucleus that is being built around him and the assets acquired as part of a Watson deal. If, hypothetically, Texans acquire the pair of Miami choices in the first round in this draft, this is an immediate injection of talent. (For example, at the Touchdown Wire Mock Draft 2.0 this deal was really closed, and the Texans were able to draft Ja’Marr Chase in third place, and Texas EDGE Joseph Ossai at 18 to pair up with JJ Watt in front of his defender .
As it stands now, Texans don’t choose until 67.
Tagovailoa, like Deshaun Watson, comes from a winning program and is a quality human being off the field. The trials that Tagovailoa will face are the same that Watson has already conquered: can he be a quarterback in the franchise? The old Alabama product produced a 6-3 record and a passer rating of 87.1, but the Dolphins had a stellar defense and finished 10-6. The Texans had Watson, not much else, and dropped to 4-12.
Any move away from Watson is a setback. Only time reveals whether that step backwards generates any forward momentum.