The Houston Texans finish the regular season with plenty of positive momentum heading into the offseason, as they were right in the thick of the playoff race until the very end, going 9-7 in Bill O’Brien‘s first season at the helm. Despite not having a true franchise quarterback, the Texans exceeded all expectations, and it’s a big reason why J.J. Watt is one of the front-runners for the MVP award this year. At the very least, Watt should share the award with Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, since it’s understandably difficult to compare the impact a 3-4 DE and a QB have on their respective teams.

1. Watt by the numbers

While it is difficult to compare Watt’s impact and Rodgers’s impact in 2014, it isn’t difficult to see that Watt is the most dominant player at any position in the NFL. I know it’s early, but I think Watt will go down as the most dominant player in history, and he’s the first player to record multiple 20-sack seasons. After being robbed of the Defensive Player of the Year award last season since his numbers weren’t good enough (it also wasn’t his fault that the Texans were 2-14), Watt is a lock for that award this season.

Watt finished the season with 78 tackles, 20.5 sacks, five fumbles recovered, four fumbles forced, ten passes defended, a safety, and two touchdown recoveries. He was also the clear leader in QB hits and tackles for loss at the defensive end position (4-3 or 3-4) with 46 and 26 of each, and those are both astounding numbers. His ability to get after the passer, catch touchdown passes, make hustle plays, and shut down the running game make him the best defensive player of the game.

Not only does he work harder than anyone else, but he’s also stronger and more explosive than the players he lines up against. The most important trait, though, is his intelligence, because he knows how to use his hands, how to gain leverage, and how to take smarter angles to the ball-carrier and quarterback, thus allowing him to finish off so many plays.

The Texans were one of the best teams in the NFL at intercepting passes with 20 on the season, and they also allowed just 4.0 yards per carry and 5.9 net yards per attempt. With 19.2 points allowed per game, the Texans fielded one of the NFL’s best ten defenses, and those numbers are more than enough to show Watt’s impact on this team. Kareem Jackson and Johnathan Joseph form an excellent cornerback duo, but the Texans don’t have another true star on defense outside of J.J. Watt.

Those 20 interceptions (third-best in the league) came from a team that didn’t have a single player with over three picks, which makes me believe that the picks were as a result of pressure. Watt had 20.5 sacks and 46 QB hits, and that’s a ridiculous amount of pressure; Whitney Mercilus was the only other player on the team with more than ten QB hits.

Advanced Football Analytics keeps track of two interesting stats that I like to use when discussing MVP candidates, and they are WPA and EPA, which keep track of win probability added and expected points added. Watt had a 3.21 WPA and a 108.6 EPA, which are both incredibly high numbers. How impressive are they? Quarterbacks inherently have an advantage in WPA and EPA, since these are stats that only take into account plays that can be tracked by statistics (they don’t account for things like “pressures” or “diverting running plays”). Even so, only six quarterbacks had a higher WPA than Watt and only nine had higher EPAs, and that’s something that cannot be taken lightly.

2. Ryan Fitzpatrick a reliable backup

It’s anyone’s guess as to what the Houston Texans do at the quarterback position next season, but every team pairs up a young QB with a veteran stopgap. That veteran almost has to be Ryan Fitzpatrick, who is busy recovering from a fractured tibia that he suffered back in Week 15. Although most of his stats were accrued in garbage time, Fitzpatrick still did an excellent job as the team’s game manager with 17 touchdowns, eight picks, a credible 63.5% completion percentage, and an excellent eight yards per attempt.

He was one of the most efficient quarterbacks in the league this season, as he did a fantastic job of distributing the ball to his talented skill position players. It’s exactly what you’d like to see from an experienced QB managing the offense, as he let DeAndre Hopkins, Andre Johnson, and Arian Foster do the lifting. I wouldn’t expect a 90+ QB Rating from Fitzpatrick if he plays next season, but the Houston Texans can feel safe knowing that they have one of the league’s best backup quarterbacks on their roster.

3. Andre Johnson has a down year

Andre Johnson finished yet another season with strong numbers, hauling in 85 passes for 936 yards and three touchdowns, but it was clearly a down year by his standards. Even the counting stats were off of his usual pace, and even though he finished this season with a monster performance, the underrated DeAndre Hopkins might just be the Texans new No. 1 guy going forward. Losing out to someone as talented as Hopkins isn’t an issue, though, and Johnson is still an excellent receiver who can dominate most of the cornerbacks that stand in his way.

That said, Texans quarterbacks had a QB Rating about 14 points lower, per Pro Football Focus, when targeting the veteran, and Johnson also had nine drops. All of his numbers were lower than Hopkins’s, and I wonder if Johnson is becoming less valuable than his $16.1 million cap hit. After being disgruntled in the offseason after the Houston Texans failed to address the quarterback position to the franchise icon’s liking, Johnson has now bought into his successful head coach, and the fact that he’s willing to take a paycut is huge for this team. If they can get that done, then they might finally be able to add a big upgrade at free safety.

4. Standout cornerbacks

While Watt deserves all the love he’s getting, the unsung heroes on the Texans defense on a national scale are their cornerbacks, and most of that praise should go to young CB Kareem Jackson, who is quietly turning into a shutdown corner. Joseph is still a solid starter in this league, but Jackson has taken over as the Texans best player at the position. Per PFF, Jackson allowed a QB Rating of just 74.1 in coverage, as quarterbacks completed less than 60% of their passes when targeting Jackson and averaged a mediocre 10.7 yards per reception.

Jackson has shown time after time that he can line up anywhere (in the slot, on the right, or on the left), and he’s a big reason why the Texans were one of the best teams in the league in coverage, especially on deep throws. Kendrick Lewis isn’t a true free safety and is one of the slowest players at the position, but he’s had it easy with Jackson and Joseph in front of him.

In case you were wondering, Joseph has been just as solid, though it is easier to burn the veteran CB, who allowed more yards per reception and touchdowns than his younger counterpart. That said, QBs only had an 83.8 QB Rating when throwing it into the former Cincinnati Bengals star, and he impressively held the opposition to just a 58.1% catch rate. Jackson showed some nice ball skills with nine passes defended, but his main job was to shut down his receivers; it was Joseph who led the team with 11 PDs.

5. Hoping for a bounce-back from Brian Cushing

Brian Cushing used to be one of the team’s most important players, as the do-it-all inside linebacker was a real force against the run and knew how to make plays as a blitzer. He’s still a key leader on defense and showed off his blitzing prowess by racking up QB hits, but he looked very rusty against the run in his first full season after playing in just 12 combined games in 2012 and 2013 due to injury. Well, we can only hope Cushing’s disappointing season was due to rust and not decline as a result of his injuries, because he didn’t look like his usual self out there.

72 tackles isn’t what we’ve come to expect from an ILB of Cushing’s caliber, and he was only in the middle-of-the-pack in PFF’s “Run Stop%”, meaning that he didn’t make enough impact plays against the run when he was out there. With 12 missed tackles, Cushing made too many mistakes in comparison to the plays that he did make, so that will have to improve. That said, he made a regular impact in the passing game, as only four other ILBs/MLBs had more pressure than Cushing, who was efficient when blitzing. There’s no doubt that he has plenty of talent, and there’s plenty of hope that he’ll be able to get back on track in 2015 after a disappointing 2014 season.