Watson Shows Touch is Not Just For Short Throws

On most Thursdays FirstDown PlayBook brings you a special treat here on the Coaches Community website. We feature a breakdown of personnel and technique provided by our friends over at The Scouting Academy who are our go to experts in this field.

Think through your time watching football over the years. How many picks on crossing  routes have you seen where the QB just never saw the defender and threw the ball right to him?

However, when your quarterback can operate at a high level and process the entire picture, he can recognize and work in between these defenders. This can open up the entire field and allow him to pick apart a defense.

Here’s Deshaun Watson displaying excellent awareness of the whole picture. New England is playing a “robber” defense here. There’s an extra free defender reading Watson and attempting to make a play underneath.

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Watson recognizes the coverage. He knows the alignment of the defender and the route combination the Texans have coming. Watson can then time up the throw to hit the soft spot behind the robber. Watson throws the correct ball here, giving it touch with lots of arc on his throw. He drops it in behind the defender and hits his receiver in stride in a place where the Man defender can’t make a play either.

Kudos to Watson for using film study and lots of game reps to get to the point where he recognized what can be a challenging coverage easily. This allowed him to time out the throw perfectly for a huge gain.