Super Bowl LV Should Convince San Francisco 49ers To Make Deshaun Watson Push

With the dust having settled on Super Bowl LV, teams now preparing to retool their rosters this offseason in the hope of contending for a Lombardi Trophy in 2021 will have taken lessons from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ rout of the Kansas City Chiefs. There are two different ways the San Francisco 49ers’ brass might have looked at last week’s blowout, and the line of thinking they take could influence a potential pursuit of Deshaun Watson.

Head coach Kyle Shanahan might have watched with frustration as the Buccaneers crushed the Chiefs through the same gameplan the Niners almost prevailed with a year ago, swarming Patrick Mahomes with a ferocious pass rush while playing complementary football and not putting too much on the quarterback.

Indeed, had the 2019 49ers faced the same banged-up Kansas City offensive line the Bucs met, San Francisco likely would have prevailed emphatically.

Shanahan could have taken the Bucs’ win as affirmation that he does not need a massive upgrade at quarterback to get the Niners back in contention for a Super Bowl.

However, before Tom Brady’s Super Bowl MVP performance, 49ers general manager John Lynch said he is “haunted” by not selecting Mahomes in the first round of the 2017 draft — per Cam Inman of The San Jose Mercury News — having attended his spectacular pro day as a “smokescreen”.

The Niners should learn their lesson from that mistake and take what they witnessed from the Bucs as confirmation of the need to improve on Garoppolo this offseason.

Had Garoppolo ran the Niners offense with the same efficiency in Super Bowl LIV that Brady did last Sunday – particularly in the first half – San Francisco might already have its sixth Super Bowl title. While Brady’s performance wasn’t spectacular, it illustrated the difference between the two.

With the game on the line, Garoppolo could not make the throws necessary to secure a championship for the 49ers. Brady was never put in a position where the game was on the line, but he was decisive and accurate in making the required throws to get the Bucs in a commanding position at halftime.

The Niners had the opportunity to sign Brady last offseason and passed. That chance is gone, but there is a clear window for the 49ers to land a significant upgrade under center this time around by adding a quarterback who performed at a comparable level to both Mahomes and Brady in 2020 with a substantially worse supporting cast.

A report from ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler on Friday indicated the Niners are on the list of teams Watson is “intrigued by” as he seeks to force an exit from the Houston Texans.

Leading the league in both passing yards (4,823) and yards per attempt (8.9) in 2020, Watson finished fifth in Football Outsiders‘ Defense-adjusted Yards Above Replacement, behind Mahomes in first and Brady in third.

He was also fifth in Ben Baldwin’s Expected Points Added + Completion Percentage Over Expectation composite metric (EPA + CPOE), sandwiching Mahomes in fourth and Brady in sixth.

Since his rookie season in 2017, Watson is fifth in EPA + CPOE. Mahomes is first with Brady seventh and Garoppolo eighth.

On the surface there may not appear to be a huge difference between Watson and Garoppolo.

Yet the fact Watson has consistently performed at the level of a top-five quarterback with a bad offensive line that allowed him to be sacked a league-high 62 times in 2018 and a defense that ranks 29th in EPA per play allowed since 2017—with his best season coming after losing DeAndre Hopkins in an explicable trade—is illustrative of how high his ceiling could be playing in Shanahan’s quarterback-friendly offense.

The 49ers may be reticent to pay the exorbitant price it will take to prise Watson from a franchise that has made no secret of their desire not to trade him.

But for a team as well-positioned to contend as the Niners are, that reticence should give way to excitement at the potential returns on that huge investment in Watson’s services.

Quarterback was partially what held the 49ers back in Super Bowl LIV and the Bucs’ triumph this year showed them what they can be with a superior quarterback to Garoppolo running the offense.

The price will be historically steep, however, if the 49ers want to avoid being continually restricted by the limits of their quarterback, they should channel the aggressiveness that brought the Bucs long-awaited success and pay what is necessary to acquire a quarterback who can turn them into a perennial contender.