The last time J.J. Watt and Blaine Gabbert spent quality time together they were sport fishing in the Gulf off the coast near St. Petersburg, Fla. Although Gabbert, by Watt's own admission, was much more skilled with a rod and reel, it was Watt who hauled in a 180-pound tarpon.
"Unbelievable," Watt said. "It was one of the coolest experiences I've ever had. Blaine wasn't better that day. I won that day."
Sunday, the Texans' rookie defensive end hopes to win again, this time by getting his hook into a 233-pound Jaguar - a guy named Gabbert, as it happens. Jacksonville's rookie quarterback will be the hunted and Watt the hunter when the two first-round draft choices square off for the first of what could be many meetings at Reliant Stadium.
Watt said they'll chat afterward, but "we're in the season now, in the same division, so during the game it's strictly business."
What Watt might not have found funny is the Texans' record against rookie quarterbacks. Since Gary Kubiak became the head coach, they've lost five of seven to first-year starters. Kubiak's Texans fell to Vince Young twice in 2006, Joe Flacco in 2008 and Mark Sanchez in 2009 before Tim Tebow pulled out one of his by-the-seat-of-his-pants comebacks at their expense last season in Denver.
The only two rookies the Kubiak-era Texans have beaten are Keith Null, then with the St. Louis Rams, and the Tennessee Titans' Rusty Smith, neither of whom has yet to win an NFL game he started. Null, in fact, is unemployed.
The Texans' strange trend, Kubiak said, is all the evidence anyone needs to realize the team can't take Gabbert lightly, no matter how unsure of himself he has looked at times.
"The more he plays, the more confidence he's going to gain," Kubiak said. "I think their offensive coordinator (Dirk Koetter) does an excellent job. He's got a young quarterback he's bringing along the right way, and (Gabbert) has a great running back (Maurice Jones-Drew) behind him who's going to get the ball a bunch.
"He can move around. He can make big plays. I'm very impressed with the young man. I got a chance to spend a lot of time with him (at the combine). Very impressive guy."
Watt and Gabbert share the same agent, Tom Condon, so they trained together in Scottsdale, Ariz. Texans rookie outside linebacker Brooks Reed also got to know Gabbert during the pre-combine sessions there. Gabbert calls Watt and Reed "really good guys, two of my buds," and they respond in kind.
They appreciate the former Missouri Tiger as a football player, too, recognizing the kind of challenge a big, mobile quarterback presents, even if he's only 22.
While Gabbert may lack Tebow's aura, at 6-5 he's more of the prototypical NFL quarterback. A superb athlete, Gabbert also is intelligent enough to know what he doesn't know as he learns the NFL ropes on the fly. He has made just five starts after coach Jack Del Rio concluded veteran journeyman Luke McCown, who threw four interceptions in three quarters of a 32-3 loss to the New York Jets in the second week of the season, wasn't going to lead the Jaguars anywhere.
Gabbert's major weapon, of course, at this early stage of his development is Jones-Drew. The Texans' best chance to flummox Gabbert is to frustrate Jones-Drew first. Jacksonville upset Baltimore on Monday without scoring a touchdown, but the AFC's leading rusher - 677 yards, 4.6 per carry - moved the chains often enough for Josh Scobee to nail four field goals in a tedious 12-7 slugfest.
Jones-Drew has picked up 34 first downs for the Jaguars, 30 of them coming on the ground.
"Our first goal," Watt said, "is to stop Jones-Drew, to keep him under 100 yards."
Gabbert went for 5-for-6 with a 52-yard completion in mopup duty against the Jets, but he has been erratic since, completing only 64 of his 137 passes. (He's the only starter league-wide under 50 percent on the season.) But he showed remarkable poise and grit against the Ravens' ill-tempered NFL-best defense.
The previous two weeks, Gabbert confronted the Nos. 2 and 3defenses in Cincinnati and Pittsburgh. As much improved as the Texans' defense may be under Wade Phillips, it won't present any stiffer challenge than Gabbert already has seen.
Phillips dismissed the suggestion he always keeps something special up his sleeve to confound rookies.
"You have to play each quarterback with your strengths and what you think you can do," he said. "But, if there's a limitation they have, you try to attack it."
Lack of experience is Gabbert's only obvious limitation. But that's a big one, at least in theory.
"We want to put the game in (Gabbert's) hands," Watt said. "Coming to the NFL and starting as a rookie at that position isn't the easiest thing to do. We've got to rattle him, put pressure on him. We've got to put the game in his hands and try to make him beat us."
dale.robertson@chron.com twitter.com/sportywineguy
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