{"id":92067,"date":"2020-07-31T17:51:41","date_gmt":"2020-07-31T21:51:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonprofootball.com\/?p=92067"},"modified":"2021-03-14T15:17:47","modified_gmt":"2021-03-14T19:17:47","slug":"faces-of-the-2020-houston-texans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2020\/07\/31\/faces-of-the-2020-houston-texans\/","title":{"rendered":"Faces of the 2020 Houston Texans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The year 2020 has brought much change in the football world and beyond, but the <a href=\"http:\/\/lastwordonprofootball.com\/nfl-teams\/texans\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Houston Texans<\/a> front office may have taken the cake for the most questionable of off-seasons. Houston traded star receiver <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 <a href=\"http:\/\/lastwordonprofootball.com\/nfl-teams\/cardinals\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Arizona Cardinals<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprofootball.com\/2020\/04\/09\/houston-texans-trade-for-brandin-cooks\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">acquired<\/a> <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/C\/CookBr00.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Brandin Cooks<\/a><\/strong> from the <a href=\"http:\/\/lastwordonprofootball.com\/nfl-teams\/rams\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Los Angeles Rams<\/a>. While the Hopkins deal netted them some draft capital, it led to a significant downgrade at the receiver position. In turn, it left young 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> searching for new targets. The defensive side of the ball stood pat, led by the perennial superstar and do-gooder, <strong>J.J. Watt<\/strong>. This article will outline the three players that constitute the faces of a revamped Houston Texans roster.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Faces of the 2020 Houston Texans<\/strong><\/h2>\n<h3>On-Field Terror and Off-Field Saint: J.J. Watt<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When you think of the Texans, you think of J.J. Watt, and as such, he is the first &#8220;Face&#8221; of the 2020 Houston Texans. On and off the field, Watt has been elite every year. He\u2019s a three-time Defensive Player of the Year and won the Walter Payton Man of the Year Award in 2017. It could certainly be argued that there has never been a player with such a potent combination of on-field talent and off-field philanthropy, and it has endeared him to the Houston fanbase. Watt is a worthy leader for this franchise.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>The Future: Deshaun Watson<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Beyond Watt, <strong>Deshaun Watson<\/strong> is clearly the second face of the 2020 Houston Texans. Going into his fourth year, Watson has shown signs of absolute brilliance but has been unable to get his Texans over the hump in the postseason, never advancing past the Divisional Round. Much of that cannot be blamed on Watson, though. He has been surrounded by an abysmal offensive line and questionable coaching throughout his career. Nevertheless, Watson has shown signs of being a top-five quarterback and is a worthy face of the Texans franchise.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>A Void to Fill at Receiver: Who Steps up?<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The third face of the 2020 Houston Texans is not as readily apparent as the first two. With Hopkins shipped to Arizona, who steps up? Is it <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/C\/CookBr00.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Brandin Cooks<\/a>? Probably not. While Cooks has been consistently above average throughout his six-year career, he has never had the makings of a true number one receiver. He comes into Houston having never been &#8220;the guy&#8221; and it remains to be seen whether he can rise to the occasion.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The true third face of the franchise is <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/F\/FullWi01.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Will Fuller<\/a><\/strong>. Fuller was overshadowed by <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> throughout his entire career, but when healthy, and when targeted, Fuller has put together some <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">massive<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> games. In Week 5 of this past year, he had a whopping 14 catches for 217 yards. It is clear that Fuller is full of potential, and 2020 will be his year to take his rightful place as the face of the franchise.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a id=\"yXGVAAdOSStG7wer7GqOUg\" class=\"gie-single\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1197555213\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\" 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:'yXGVAAdOSStG7wer7GqOUg',sig:'TDCpootZ7yM24bJJGiwpfyXF4DwMYPeF8G6_7sKDSwc=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1197555213',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>LWOPF is analyzing which three players can be classified as the faces of their respective NFL teams and here, the 2020 Houston Texans are the focus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3482,"featured_media":92318,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_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":[54,14],"tags":[6366,1210,582,1483,202,520],"class_list":["post-92067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editorials","category-texans","tag-2020-nfl-season","tag-bill-obrien","tag-deandre-hopkins","tag-deshaun-watson","tag-j-j-watt","tag-will-fuller"],"modified_by":"David Latham, Managing Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92067","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\/3482"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92067\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}