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Daily Thread 10-1-2020

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Practice report for Wednesday. JJ is off the injury list.

Texans vs. Vikings Wednesday injury report: DE Charles Omenihu did not participate
By Mark Lane, TexansWire

Excerpt from the article: Defensive end Charles Omenihu did not participate with a knee injury. Inside linebacker Zach Cunningham (groin), fullback Cullen Gillaspia (concussion), defensive tackle P.J. Hall (groin), running back Duke Johnson (ankle), and inside linebacker Peter Kalambayi (hamstring) were limited participants in practice.

Visit the link above to view the practice report for the Vikings.

J.J. Watt off Texans’ injury report
By Charean Williams, PFT

Texans defensive end J.J. Watt is off the team’s injury report.

He had a hip injury that limited leading up to the Week Two game against the Ravens and was limited last Wednesday with a groin injury. Watt has not had an injury designation, though, and has played 92 percent of the defensive snaps.

Watt, 31, has played all 16 games only once the past four seasons. That came in 2018 when he made 16 sacks.

Daily Thread 9-30-2020

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Jerry Jones pretends he’s calling the shots instead of his son and Will McClay; pours honey into the ears of Cowboys fans. The General tweets one thing and then another, in either an epic crawfish or a follow-up clarification of some sort.

Earl Thomas Watch: Texans ‘On Hold,’ Cowboys Jerry ‘On Top Of It’
By Mike Fisher, SI.com

Excerpt from the article: Cowboys owner Jerry Jones appeared on 105.3 The Fan to re-open ever-so-slightly the possibility of Thomas landing in his long-preferred destination of Dallas.

“I am aware that Thomas is out there, No. 1,” Jones said. “No. 2, I also am interested at this juncture of improving this team now, right now.

“And, so, you’d assume that I’m right on top of and I am. We are. And what we’re doing will be gauged by that. I know our fans don’t expect to know the details of what might be going on relative to this issue because it’s potentially very competitive and it’s also dependent on our evaluation and just how much we want to act on it. We’re very on top of this and very on top of doing anything we can do to help us the next game and for the rest of the season.”

3:12 p.m.:

13 minutes later at 3:25 p.m.:

And then an hour later he tweets this:

What? Definitive, absolute certainty in the 1st and 2nd tweet. In the 3rd tweet it’s just a dead issue “this week” and “they haven’t closed the door on him…” What happened in an hour that has him backing away from his original statement? If he misunderstood his source, why not own up to it. Did someone with the Texans org contact him to clarify, and if so then why not simply share that bit of info with followers. Why make two one-sentence tweets when the 2nd tweet could’ve been added into the 1st tweet. There’s just a sloppy handling of this by McClain, which affects credibility.

Nine minutes later, this tweet from Schefter, which McClain retweeted:

8:22 p.m., detective McClain still on the case:

Occam’s razor is the principle that, of two explanations that account for all the facts, the simpler one is more likely to be correct. In what world would a fake excuse be given to the player’s agent, and remember said agent also represents Deshaun Watson, when the NFL offices could easily take umbrage with that fake excuse and call it out as being bunk? That would be a helluva’ risk to take, wouldn’t it?

Here’s what we know: Lots of fines for HCs who aren’t wearing a mask on the sideline. Texans-Vikings game and Titans-Steelers game possibly postponed due to positive tests. Raiders catching heat for a social event indoors and photos of many people not wearing masks. And, according to this tweet the NFL asked teams to review procedures for bringing in new players in light of the Titans COVID-19 cases. What if the Texans were just…being cautious and not wanting to potentially have a COVID-related P.R. snafu on their hands, and decided to hold off and figure out how to bring him in and not run afoul of the League Office?

Who knows how this all shakes out. Either the agent was told an outright fib, or the Texans got cold feet and stretched the truth a bit in a game of semantics to deflect or engineer a plausible excuse to rescind the workout invitation, or the Texans explanation to the agent is on the up and up. Still have yet to see any of the NFL media big fish report anything to the contrary regarding the last tweet up above. McClain is doing twitter gymnastics, and Jerry Jones is swooping in like he’s informing fans that he’s on top of this and baiting Cowboys fans into a false hope. 2020 stays weird.

On Clint Stoerner & The Show, they had McClain as a guest and they were asking him why this is happening. At the end of the segment McClain says he plans to ask O’Brien about the situation in what I think McClain said is a Wednesday’s presser. Let’s see how that goes. /GrabsPopcorn

Annnd at 1:11 a.m right as I’m headed to bed, I was surfing twitter (one last time!) and Aaron Wilson posts this. Is “it will all work out in the end” meaning with the Texans or with another team?

Daily Dread 9-29-2020

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Earl Thomas news. Casual glance at Texans cap space present AND future. I might be totally wrong on this, because math was never my best subject in school, but it doesn’t. look. good.

As Texans reportedly pursue Earl Thomas, here’s why the Cowboys never made a play for him
By Charles Robinson, Yahoo Sports

Yahoo Sports writer Charles Robinson provides a robust article outlining why the Cowboys never brought Earl Thomas into the fold. Despite the Texans clearly showing interest in Thomas, especially with poor play and now an injury to A.J. Moore, the article is an ice-cold bucket of sobering analysis thrown directly onto this particular hot topic.

I encourage everyone to follow the link and read the article in its entirety as I have intentionally left out A LOT of Robinson’s commentary here. The article goes into great detail. But before the excerpts to his article, I did a dumb thing by peeking at Texans 2021 projected cap space numbers (Spotrac.com) so I’m leading off with my thoughts first and then Robinson’s article about E.T. who I now hope does NOT come home.

Are the 0-3 woes enough to throw more money at the Safety position when a) Texans Free Safety Eric Murray is an almost un-droppable player with a whopping $10.75 million dead cap hit in 2020 and a $6.5 million dead cap hit in 2021, and b) Houston has roughly $9 million in 2020 cap space that would surely be nearly completely consumed by even a 1-year contract for Thomas who c) has had a myriad of troubles on and off the field?

It’s possible that Bill O’Brien has painted himself into a tight corner with the Eric Murray contract, as well as a few other contracts such as Whitney Mercilus and Nick Martin (more on that in a bit). There is no GOOD solution here when it comes to Murray/Thomas. And it’s doubtful any team would trade even a paltry 7th rounder for Eric Murray considering the bloated and performance deficient contract a team would absorb by doing so. There is no good solution here.

Lastly, in 2021, the Texans have 38 players under contract and are currently projected at roughly $6.9 million over the projected salary-cap limit of $175 million. Let me repeat: Houston is projected to be $7m OVER the cap with only 38 players under contract for 2021. 15 more are needed for a 53-man roster. Notables: Watt at $17.5m and no dead cap hit. Cooks due $12m in salary but zero dead cap hit. David Johnson a $9m cap hit with only a $2.1m dead cap hit (a $7m “savings” if cut). Those 3 players represent the largest savings available, amounting to around $36.5m – $6.9m (currently over) = about $30m in space for 2021 to spend on 15 more players (avg. of $2m per player) to round out a 53-man roster (and this doesn’t account for cap hits for 2021 Texans rookie Draft class, either).

There are other players Houston can cut and save money on the cap, such as McKinney ($7m savings if cut), Nick Martin ($6.25m savings if cut), Kelemete ($5.5m savings if cut), Brandon Dunn ($3.25m savings if cut), and Fells around $1.3m savings if cut, amounting to around $23.3m but you have to find players to replace those players.

So we wanna’ talk about moving on from BoB? OK. Who out there wants to be a HC or a GM for a team in this predicament, especially with no Round 1 and Round 2 pick in 2021? If a GM wants a real challenge, he has a great “opportunity” in Houston. It seems inevitable that both Cooks ($0 dead cap hit) and Fuller (a 2021 FA, by the way) will be gone, as well as David Johnson at the rate he’s playing thus far. It’s plausible that Watt would be a cap casualty, as well, though there are trade possibilities I suppose (He’s a 2022 FA). Of note: Mrs. Watt now plays for Chicago. Chicago is about a 3-hour drive from Green Bay, and vice versa. However, Chicago has like $1m in projected 2021 cap space and Packers only about $4m.

So here’s some stuff about Earl Thomas. I’m headed to the E.R. to have my stomach pumped from all the Clorox I just drank after doing even a casual look at the cap problems and inherent roster construction “challenges” facing this team in 2021. Sure, why not. Bring him in. FML.

Excerpts from the Robinson article on Earl Thomas:

It’s worth considering why Dallas had consternation that Houston apparently didn’t. I reached out to handful of sources with insight on how Thomas arrived at this point — three games into an NFL season and needing a bit of a lifeline from the Texans. More to the point, why was Dallas so reticent to roll the dice on a player who has previously made it clear he wanted to play for the franchise?

The answer wasn’t one thing. It was outlined through sources familiar with Thomas’ end in Seattle and Baltimore, two franchises that were content to move forward without him. That is a word that should be underscored here. Content.

Despite boasting considerable talent, Thomas was shown the door by two franchises that pride themselves on being able to handle mercurial players. Thomas wore out his welcome in both places. And the problems arose from essentially three issues.

Among them …

On-field reliability

In Seattle, despite Thomas’ considerable coverage skills — and they were certainly elite during his Seahawks tenure — he also had a penchant for occasionally freelancing that put stress on the back end of the scheme.

Locker room chemistry

As one Ravens source pointed out, this was a franchise that made it work with guys like Steve Smith, Anquan Boldin and Marcus Peters. They could be a handful as personalities, but they ultimately established immense respect rather than rubbing teammates the wrong way.

That never happened with Thomas. Then during 2020 training camp, he punched Chuck Clark, who has a reputation as a humble, hard-working and very popular teammate. That was the last straw as far as some Ravens players were concerned.

Off-field trust

His Seahawks run — despite an unceremonious end that led to him flipping off his own sideline — wasn’t marred by a lot of trust issues. But the Ravens? It went south fast.

The first major blow: Baltimore’s brain trust was furious about having no advance warning about a highly publicized domestic incident between Thomas and his wife, which mushroomed when TMZ printed the salacious details and left the Ravens scrambling to catch up.

The Ravens also were upset that Thomas chose his social media accounts as an avenue to try and sweep the incident away, rather than relying on silence and guidance from the franchise.

That wasn’t the only significant breach.

A second, and ultimately relationship-ending, issue developed at a critical moment when Baltimore was deciding whether the situation with Thomas could be salvaged following his fight with Clark.

That was when Thomas posted parts of practice film on his social media pages, which the team considered a massive slap in the face. Some in the organization knew at that moment that there would be no turning back. Even Thomas’ limited supporters acknowledged internally that it was time to leave him behind.

 

Daily Thread 9-28-2020

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JJ Watt is frustrated with the Texans run defense after 3 weeks. Three reasons why Texans are winless this season. Upcoming: Houston and Minnesota battle in week 4 to break a 3-game losing streak.

DE J.J. Watt frustrated with Texans’ run defense after 3 weeks
By Mark Lane, TexansWire

Excerpt from article: “I don’t know why we can play the run well early on and not finish it,” Watt told reporters after the 28-21 loss to Pittsburgh. “So, I need to get that answer so we can figure it out. We have to — I mean, whether we’re not playing our gaps because — I don’t know what it is, but we got to figure it out. You’re going to lose football games and we are losing football games, and we need to win.

The problem puzzles Watt because they excel at all other aspects of stopping the run. However, when teams run to the outside, they find their yards.

“We got a sudden edge, we got to get hands to the ball, and we make the plays,” said Watt. “We’re just giving up runs around edge like it was easy. We can’t do that. We cannot do that.”

Here are 3 reasons on why the Texans are winless this season
By click2Houston.com

Excerpt from the article: After some improvement to the sack total in 2019 vs. 2018, the Texans are again trending backward in that category.

In 2018, Watson was sacked 62 times. In 2019, the improved offensive line gave up 44 sacks. However, through the first three games, Watson has been sacked 13 times, leaving the Texans on pace to give up roughly 69 sacks this season.

The Texans just paid Watson $160 million. They need to protect their quarterback. Outside of Tunsil, the line has struggled to keep Watson upright. It looks like this could be a problem all season, but the Texans return the whole 2019 line.

Daily Thread 9-26-2020: Weekend Discussion

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If watching weekend football is in your plans, visit https://506sports.com/ for college and NFL broadcast schedules and coverage maps. Have a great weekend. Thread schedule is posted below.

https://506sports.com/

Schedule for the weekend:

Weekend Thread posts Saturday morning at 5:00 a.m. CT

Pregame Thread posts Sunday morning at 5:00 a.m. CT

1st Quarter Thread posts Sunday morning at 11:45 a.m. CT (kickoff is noon CT on CBS)

2nd Qtr., 3rd Qtr., and 4th Qtr. threads post with roughly 2 minutes to play in the previous Quarter. An Overtime Thread will post if needed.

All game threads, Pregame Thread included, stay open all day/night. This is allows folks to linger and finish up or even go back to conversations in those threads.

Postgame Thread posts a few minutes after the end of the game.

Late Games Thread will post pretty quickly after the Postgame Thread.

SNF Thread will post at 7:00 p.m. (kickoff is 7:20 p.m. CT on NBC).

Daily Thread 9-24-2020

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See what they’re saying in Steeler territory. Also: The Good Morning Football crew discusses the matchup, with Brandt boldly and confidently choosing the Texans over the Steelers.

Texans coping with DeAndre Hopkins’ absence same way Steelers are moving on from Antonio Brown
By Tim Benz, TribLive.com

Excerpt from the article: This team had a generational talent at wide receiver who was suddenly traded during the offseason. Now that franchise is trying to figure out if any of the other receivers on the roster are capable of being a legit No.1 target.

No, I’m not flashing back to the 2019 Pittsburgh Steelers, after dealing Antonio Brown to the Raiders. I’m looking at the 2020 Houston Texans after sending DeAndre Hopkins to Arizona.

Without Hopkins, Houston is 0-2 to start 2020. The Texans come to Heinz Field Sunday. So far, some of their pass catchers have flashed. But they are looking for one to be a true lead option for quarterback Deshaun Watson.

Seem familiar, Pittsburgh? It should. We watched the Steelers receiving corps go through those challenges without Brown around to draw defensive attention last year.

(video) Brandt: Why Texans will beat Steelers in Week 3
By Good Morning Football

The “Good Morning Football” crew discusses whether the Houston Texan and Pittsburgh Steelers more evenly matched than their records indicate.

Daily Thread 9-23-2020

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Take a look at Stephen Forsha’s analysis of where each AFCS team stands through 2 weeks of play. Is it too early to think about WR prospects in the 2021 Draft? Eric Edholm provides commentary on the topic.

Houston Texans Rivals Report: Titans lead AFC South after two weeks
By Stephen Forsha, ToroTimes.com

Excerpt from the article: Looking at the Titans’ win over the Jaguars, Tennessee won by a 33-30 score with the help of a strong scoring first half with a 24-10 lead, but Jacksonville is scrappy and outscored the Titans, 20-9 in the fourth quarter.

Jacksonville is much more dangerous than anyone expected them to be, and Gardner Minshew put the Jaguars on his back offensively and was 30-of-45 for 339 yards passing with three touchdowns and two interceptions. The Jaguars didn’t miss Leonard Fournette either as James Robinson totaled 102 yards on 16 carries for Jacksonville with one touchdown, all while averaging 6.4 yards per carry.

Jacksonville also has D.J. Chalk at wide receiver, and he had four receptions for 84 yards, catching all four targets that went his way.

Nobody expected the Jaguars to defeat the Colts in Week 1 (which they did), but to play within three points of the Titans, that especially wasn’t expected to happen in Week 2.

The article also takes a look at the Colts through 2 weeks of the 2020 NFL season, as well as a brief look at the upcoming Texans vs. Steelers matchup.

NFL draft makeover: Texans must give Deshaun Watson the supporting cast he needs
By Eric Edholm, Yahoo! Sports

Excerpt from the article: The Texans currently have six receivers on their active roster, four more on their practice squad and one (rookie Isaiah Coulter) on injured reserve. Are any of them clearly part of the big picture going forward?

Coulter deserves a long look, and Cobb’s 2021 cap hit anchors him to the team another year, but Fuller and Stills are free agents-to-be. There will be notable change at this spot next season.

Could the 2021 NFL draft provide answers? That’s the hope, although lacking first- and second-round choices clearly limits the team’s firepower.

Early-round prospect

Louisville WR Tutu Atwell

As it stands now, the Texans won’t pick until Round 3. They also have two picks in Round 4, one in Round 5 and two more in Round 6, along with their own seventh-rounder. They are not projected to receive any compensatory picks.

Daily Thread 9-22-2020

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Some betting odds on Texans vs. Steelers (be sure to click the link as there is a lot of good commentary in that article!), and a brief but well-balanced Mark Lane article regarding It’s Time To Worry vs. It’s Not Time To Worry.

Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Houston Texans 2020: Prediction, Spread, Odds For NFL Week 3
By Anthony Riccobono, International Business Times

Excerpt from the article: The Steelers are 3.5-point favorites for Sunday’s game, according to the betting odds compiled by OddsShark. The over/under is 45.

Pittsburgh is undefeated with a pair of victories over mediocre opponents. The Steelers beat the New York Giants 26-16 in Week 1, followed by a 26-21 victory over the Denver Broncos, who were forced to play Jeff Driskel at quarterback for most of the Week 2 contest.

Even if Houston is headed for a disappointing season, they should be the best team Pittsburgh has faced, thus far.

Watson hasn’t posted a passer rating of 90.0 or better yet. He’s never gone three straight games without reaching that mark in his NFL career. 

Don’t be surprised if Watson carries Houston to its first win of the season.

Prediction: Houston over Pittsburgh, 23-20

How worried should the Texans be with 0-2?
By Mark Lane, TexansWire.com

This is a short article but packed with some good stuff, so there’s no excerpt. You’ll enjoy choosing to click the link. There’s both sides of the coin: Peter King says it’s not time to worry about being 0-2 (and gives his reasons why), and then there’s a twitter embed (2-minutes of audio/podcast clip) by Jake Asman who says it’s time to worry and here’s why.