Patriots: Jakobi Meyers destroyed JJ Watt on Damien Harris TD
By Adam Weinrib
New England Patriots WR Jakobi Meyers is a prototypical wideout who can block, too, and he brutalized JJ Watt on Damien Harris’ touchdown.
Patriots RB Damien Harris has had one heck of an emergence in 2020, but his latest feat of strength wouldn’t have been possible without the fundamentals of one of his teammates.
We’ve seen wide receiver Jakobi Meyers emerge in recent weeks as the Pats’ No. 1 option with Julian Edelman on the shelf and N’Keal Harry continuing to battle injuries and ineffectiveness. He revealed a new wrinkle to his game on Sunday, proving that he’s been taking Bill Belichick’s blocking lessons to heart.
Meyers showed on Sunday that he doesn’t disconnect from the play when his number isn’t called. In fact, without his pancake block on beastly defender JJ Watt, Harris doesn’t waltz into the end zone to give the Patriots the 7-0 advantage here.
Want to see it from a different and clearer angle? Of course you do.
Meyers laid the wood on Watt, who is just about the last pass rusher most wide receivers want to mess with.
There was a lot of out-of-character stuff from Watt on this drive, clearly made uncomfortable by all the Patriots’ versatility.
First, we saw him called to double-team Rex Burkhead, of all people, the type of matchup you wouldn’t have schemed for in your wildest dreams. Then, Meyers shattered him, and the 6-5, 288 pound Watt was forced to reckon with the reality that he was erased from a scoring play by a 6-2, 200 pound undrafted player whose job…isn’t necessarily to even do this.
Tough scene.
The 2-7 Texans are attempting to be a thorn in the side of a Patriots team looking to get back to .500 this week, and so far, their best efforts aren’t cutting it. Watt’s the No. 1 challenge on this defense after all, and he’ll probably be embarrassed for the rest of the game. Works for us.