When Houston traded up 13 spots on Thursday night to get Clemson quarterback Deshaun Watson, it was a no-brainer.

The consensus was Watson is the missing piece the Texans, who gave up its first-round pick in the 2018 NFL Draft to do it, need to get over the hump and become a serious Super Bowl contender in an AFC that has been dominated by quarterbacks named Brady, Manning and Roethlisberger the last 13 years.

Watson has been a part of a Clemson offense that has been dominating the ACC and college football for the better part of the last half decade. The Texans already have former Tiger great Deandre Hopkins, who is an All-Pro wide receiver for them, so they know what they are getting with Watson, who won 32 games and a national championship in his three-year Clemson career.

The Texans also know what they are getting in fourth-round pick Carlos Watkins. The Tigers’ former defensive tackle joins his former Clemson teammate, D.J. Reader, who the Texans took in the 2016 draft, on the defensive line.

The two have been a part of a Clemson defensive front that has helped the Tigers lead the national in tackles for loss in each of the last four seasons.

“Clemson has obviously done a great job,” said Texans head coach Bill O’Brien to the Houston media on Saturday. “I think we talked about them obviously with Deshaun and obviously Hop (Deandre Hopkins), but defensively, they do a good job, too. Over the last two or three years, and even before that, they have been very athletic up front.”

Houston is definitely getting an athlete in Watkins. Last year, the First-Team All-American led the Tigers with 10.5 sacks, setting a new single-season sack record for a defensive tackle. He also tied a team-high 13.5 sacks and had 82 tackles overall from his nose tackle position.

Watkins is expected to play the nose tackle position with the Texans as well.

“I played it a lot this past year,” Watkins said to the Houston media on a conference call on Saturday. “I actually played nose a majority of the time. I definitely can take on that transition.”

Watkins was also credited with four pass breakups at the line of scrimmage. The 6-foot-3, 300-pound defensive tackle showed his athleticism on multiple occasions in his career, including in 2015 against App State when he dropped back in coverage, picked off a pass and ran it in 15 yards for a touchdown.

“This guy, he is a guy we feel can come in here with a lot of hard work, and good coaching here, he can fill a couple of different roles for us,” O’Brien said. “He can play on the inside in a couple of different packages for us.”

O’Brien said they were excited to see Watkins sitting there at pick 142 in the fourth round on Saturday.

“He makes a lot of plays behind the line of scrimmage. He has a bunch of TFLs and sacks,” the Houston coach said. “He is an instinctive player, and we think he gives us, for lack of a better term, some juice on the inside in a competitive way.”

Watkins said he is excited to reunite with Reader on the defensive front as well as begin his pro career with Watson as his quarterback.

“It’s really a blessing,” he said. “Getting to play with them again is really a blessing. We can do a lot of great things.”

—Photo Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports