What You Need to Know:

• The only reason anyone is still interested in Watson – and likely the only reason he remains NFL-employed – is that he’s really good at football.
• Fantasy wise, he has led the position in points per game as a 2017 rookie, then ranked 5th, 4th and 6th in that category.
• Watson sits tied with Aaron Rodgers for 2nd in career passer rating among active QBs (behind only Patrick Mahomes). He’s 1st among active QBs in yards per pass attempt, 1st in completion rate, tied for 2nd in yards per completion and 4th in passing-TD rate.
• Last time he took the field (2020), Watson led the NFL in passing yards and yards per attempt, delivered career highs in completion rate and passer rating and a career low in INT rate.
• He did so for a Houston offense that lost Will Fuller for 5 games and saw no one else besides Brandin Cooks reach 50 targets. The crew that caught multiple TD passes from a guy who cracked 6% TD rate for the 2nd time in 4 years:
  
  • Fuller
  • Cooks
  • Darren Fells
  • Randall Cobb
  • Keke Coutee?
  • David Johnson
  • Pharaoh Brown
• Watson sports a career 9.4 yard average depth of target. That would have ranked 5th last year among 35 QBs with at least 200 dropbacks, according to Pro Football Focus.
• He did finish tied for 3rd in that category in 2020 and #1 in 2017, with finishes of 10th and 12th in between.
• Watson’s downfield tendency should match up well with a pass-catching corps expected to feature Amari Cooper and Donovan Peoples-Jones on the outside, with Anthony Schwartz and rookie David Bell competing in the slot.
• DPJ sported the 4th-deepest ADOT last season of any WR with at least 40 targets. Cooper ranked in the top half of the position as well and registered 2 of his 3 largest ADOTs over the past 3 seasons. (That sandwiched a career low in the year that saw Dak Prescott go down in Week 5.)
• Of course, all of the football stuff could be rendered moot when/if the NFL finally suspends Watson. As of this writing, the QB has 24 women suing him for sexual assault and misconduct. The most recent addition came in the 1st week of June and was reportedly a name Watson’s lawyer hadn’t previously heard about.

Draft Sharks Bottom Line:

The bottom line here is that Watson’s fantasy outlook depends entirely on what the league decides to do. If the NFL continues to wait on what seems like inevitable discipline, then expect the talent to take over and make Watson a top-12 performer – with upside into the top 3. A suspension, on the other hand, looks like it could be a year or more. The closer we get to the season without action, the more likely it seems that Watson will play.