{"id":83122,"date":"2020-03-20T07:49:46","date_gmt":"2020-03-20T11:49:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonprofootball.com\/?p=83122"},"modified":"2026-03-24T20:08:48","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T00:08:48","slug":"deshaun-watson-start-new-england-patriots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2020\/03\/20\/deshaun-watson-start-new-england-patriots\/","title":{"rendered":"Vegas Thinks Deshaun Watson Will Start for New England Patriots in 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprofootball.com\/nfl-teams\/patriots\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">New England Patriots<\/a> don\u2019t have a sure thing at quarterback in 2020, but that might change in 2021. According to oddsmakers in Vegas, current <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprofootball.com\/nfl-teams\/texans\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Houston Texans<\/a> starting quarterback <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/W\/WatsDe00.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Deshaun Watson<\/a><\/strong> is the favorite to start for New England in the 2021 season. Watson is one of the best young quarterbacks in the league and should keep the Patriots competitive for the next decade, assuming they can get their hands on him.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Deshaun Watson the Favorite to Start for New England Patriots<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The current favorites for the 2021 starting position is as follows:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Deshaun Watson +300<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/S\/StidJa00.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jarrett Stidham<\/a> +500<\/li>\n<li>Trevor Lawrence +500<\/li>\n<li>Kyle Trask +700<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/P\/PresDa01.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dak Prescott<\/a> +900<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Obviously, the odds aren\u2019t great for any single player, but it\u2019s interesting that Watson tops the list. Watson is currently entering the fourth year of a five-year rookie deal, and Houston could theoretically use the franchise tag to keep him under team control for years to come. However, head coach and acting general manager <strong>Bill O\u2019Brien<\/strong> has made quite a few head-scratching decisions since earning complete control of the franchise.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this week, O\u2019Brien sent <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/H\/HopkDe00.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">DeAndre Hopkins<\/a><\/strong> to the Arizona Cardinals for essentially nothing and had some troubling comments emerge in the wake of the move. This was far from O\u2019Brien\u2019s only questionable move since taking over the roster. Basically, if anyone\u2019s dumb enough to trade away a young franchise quarterback entering the prime of his career, it\u2019s Bill O\u2019Brien.<\/p>\n<p>As for the other favorites, Jarrett Stidham is currently atop New England\u2019s depth chart, and the 2019 fourth-rounder could keep the job if he performs well in 2020. Trevor Lawrence is the top collegiate quarterback in the nation, and the Patriots would need to intentionally lose games to secure his services. Kyle Trask is currently the starting quarterback for the Florida Gators. He projects as a first-round quarterback but isn&#8217;t on the same level as Lawrence. Dak Prescott is the Dallas Cowboys starting quarterback, and <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/search\/search.fcgi?pid=JoneJe23,JoneJe22&amp;search=Jerry+Jones&amp;utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jerry Jones<\/a><\/strong> seems reluctant to hand him a long-term deal.<\/p>\n<p>Main photo:<br \/>\n<a id=\"26Q38K4KQl1O7FhgNkJITw\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1192171891\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'26Q38K4KQl1O7FhgNkJITw',sig:'eDFiZGyyWSMboii7nVqxNY3VqyNTJLl14RkTCflnmLo=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1192171891',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Houston Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson is currently the favorite to start for the New England Patriots in 2021, according to Vegas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2376,"featured_media":83123,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,54,14],"tags":[302,1483,61,114,4068,889,6253,38,40,6249],"class_list":["post-83122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-patriots","category-editorials","category-texans","tag-dak-prescott","tag-deshaun-watson","tag-football","tag-houston-texans","tag-jarrett-stidham","tag-jerry-jones","tag-kyle-trask","tag-new-england-patriots","tag-nfl","tag-trevor-lawrence"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2376"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83122"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":270196,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83122\/revisions\/270196"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}