SB Nation Reacts: Fans think Deshaun Watson would have bigger impact on new team than Russell Wilson

Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across the NFL. Each week, we send out questions to the most plugged-in Seattle Seahawks fans and fans across the country. Sign up here to join Reacts.

Hey we’ve got more offseason SB Nation Reacts for you! This week we’re talking about the Houston Texans with a sprinkling of Seattle Seahawks. Two of the names that have dominated the NFL offseason already both played for the Houston Texans last season and both plan on changing that in the coming year. However, fans feel very different about what those players can do for a new team.

After asking for, and being released from the Texans, J. J. Watt signed with the Arizona Cardinals and reunited with DeAndre Hopkins, who got traded to Arizona thanks to Bill O’Brien’s incompetence. But according to the most recent SB Nation Reacts survey, the addition of the former Defensive Player of the Year doesn’t automatically make the Cardinals a Super Bowl contender.

Earlier in the offseason, only 49 percent of fans said Watt was still an elite defensive player. I mean it’s hard to disagree on the contender front. Watt could be reborn in Arizona but I don’t look at the Cardinals and think “they’re just another pass rusher away from being a title contender.” I don’t believe it gets mentioned enough that Arizona’s offense was a major reason for their collapse from 6-3 to 8-8 and out of the playoffs.

Fans feel a bit better about Watt’s former teammate, Deshaun Watson. The Texans’ quarterback has demanded a trade, but is yet to be dealt and the Texans don’t have to deal him. Meanwhile, Russell Wilson’s future with the Seattle Seahawks is no longer 100% certain due to all of the trade talk and that list of teams his agent said Wilson would waive his no-trade clause for. Hard to believe that four years after Watson and Wilson’s epic duel in Seattle we’d be talking about them this way.

When fans were asked which of the two Pro Bowl quarterbacks would make a bigger impact on a new team, a slight majority believe it would be Watson.

Despite the favorable comparison, fans aren’t convinced Watson is enough on his own to put a team over the top. In February, only 24 percent of fans said Watson would automatically make a team a Super Bowl contender. Presumably because many of the logical trade destinations for him would be on already awful teams.

But Watson vs. Wilson? That’s interesting. Wilson has been brilliant since he entered the league and I think most would consider him to be a better quarterback than Watson, but Wilson is 32 and Deshaun is just 25. I would assume “bigger impact” and the ambiguity of it all is looking at Watson having long-term success whereas there’s hardly a guarantee of Wilson’s game aging gracefully into his late 30s.

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