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Daily Thread 10-8-2020

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The tweets below were released Wednesday night as the 12-minute pre-recorded interview with Cal McNair was aired during the 6:00 p.m. Texans All Access program on 610 AM radio. Thanks to Z for posting those during last night’s TexansChat “after hours” discussion thread.

You can listen to the interview here, as well. I think it’s required listening. I tried to transcribe the audio using the Voice to Text in the Edit menu of Google Doc but it wasn’t working well. If anyone would like to take the audio and transcribe it using an app or software or whatever, send it to me via the Contact form (top right of the main menu of the TexansChat site) and I will post it for those who prefer reading instead of listening.

Daily Thread 10-7-2020

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Some names for GM, according to Mark Schofield. Albert Breer thinks and senses BoB didn’t ask for/push for the GM role. Colin Cowherd with an idea for Houston to clear cap space and regain draft capital at the same time.

Who are the best candidates to be the Texans’ next general manager?

Mark Schofield of TouchdownWire has brief write-ups for Texans GM candidates. The list includes the following:

  • Nick Caserio, director of player personnel, New England Patriots
  • Duke Tobin, director of player personnel, Cincinnati Bengals
  • Doug Williams, senior vice president of player development, Washington Football Team
  • Louis Riddick, analyst, ESPN
  • Scott Pioli, former general manager, Kansas City Chiefs

Albert Breer With Quite The Tweet. Albert’s Source: Himself

“One thing I think…” and “My sense is…” Are we sure it’s others out there who are getting something wrong? I said there’d be noise, and here it is.

Colin Cowherd: Clear Cap Space and Regain Draft Capital by Trading JJ Watt

If you click to listen, he lists potential trade partners for Houston. Do you hate the idea altogether? Do you hate it but would be understanding if it happened? Do you think it has to be done?

Daily Thread 10-6-2020

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RAC is the Texans interim HC. There’s an endless buffet of analysis and commentary pieces on the world wide web. I’ll attempt to list a few. Feel free to add into the comments section things you find out there.z

BoB is Out, Easterby Remains. For How Long? And in What Role?

Jack Easterby bio on HoustonTexans.com
(pay attention to the 2nd sentence of the 4th paragraph)

A question emerges about Jack Easterby’s NFL biography
Meaningless oversight. That’s the Texans’ official response to an inquiry by ProFootballTalk. Maybe there’s some semantics at play, i.e. “Assistant TO the director of football operations” isn’t the same as “Assistant Director of Football Operations.” Is this PFT being sharky, or is there something there worth some criticism of the Texans organization and/or Easterby?

Patriots.com Spotlight on Jack Easterby (Nov. 2018 article)
At Newberry College in South Carolina, Easterby captained the basketball and golf teams while majoring in sports management. Upon graduation in 2005, he landed a job with Jacksonville Jaguars football operations. Working mainly on salary cap matters, he quickly realized it didn’t suit him. So, he enrolled at Erskine and Liberty Theological Seminaries.

“Just really wanted to learn more about Scripture and how to apply things more specifically to everyday life,” he explains. “I love people. I love Microsoft Excel, but not that much. I felt like I was called to go back and build relationships.”

OMB Notes: Houston 12-year veteran numbers guy, Chris Olsen, was elevated to interim GM on June 7, 2019, after Brian Gaine was fired and then Olsen was fired January 19, 2020.

According to a Sept. 12, 2020, HoustonChronicle.com article that factored in Watson’s new deal: 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. The NFL and NFL Players Association could come up with a higher cap figure depending on how bad a hit they take in terms of lost revenue this year.

Report: Bill O’Brien lost the team after Texans’ 33-16 loss to the Ravens

Former Houston Texans coach Bill O’Brien may have lost the team after the club’s 33-16 loss to the Baltimore Ravens in Week 2.
According to Dianna Russini of ESPN, the offense was frustrated with the lack of production through the first two weeks, even resulting in what Russini referred to as a “verbal blowup” in practice.

Watson’s Mentor A Key Piece To HC Search?

Read the replies in the 2nd tweet below. Multiple people replying with what I’ve read in the past (last year) that Reid calls the plays and Bienemy relays the call into Mahomes’ helmet. An issue I have with Quincy is he cuts people down to size about their lack of knowledge, and yet he’s connected to Watson and many other players throughout NCAA and NFL…and doesn’t know if Bienemy is calling the plays or not, or he’s stating he’s right and asking people to tell him he’s wrong. That’s a detail you ought to know by now, it’s not EB’s 1st game on the sideline.

Daily Thread 10-5-2020

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Run game bad, run defense bad, takeaways = 0 (again), another loss, “we have to be better”…it’s just another week, same story for the Houston Texans. The 1-3 Jaguars visit NRG next Sunday.

Houston Texans vs. Minnesota Vikings game recap: Everything we know
By Mark Lane, TexansWire

Excerpt from the article: The Texans gave up 162 yards rushing on the ground along with three rushing touchdowns. Returner DeAndre Carter also fumbled a punt return with 1:18 in the first quarter. Quarterback Deshaun Watson took three sacks. Houston’s run game produced just 96 rushing yards. The Texans did not produce a takeaway for the fourth straight game.

Texans say they must “keep fighting” to get in win column
By Drew Dougherty, HoustonTexans.com

Excerpt from the article: Following the defeat, several Texans described what they must do to climb out of the depths.

“We’ve just got to keep fighting, keep pushing forward, and that’s it,” quarterback Deshaun Watson said. “But for me personally, I’m not going to let it take my joy. I’m going to continue to live life, continue to work my ass off, continue to come in here every day and play football.”

For the fourth straight game, the Texans also lost the turnover battle. They’ve now turned it over five times in 2020, without recording a takeaway in that same span.

Houston hosts the Jaguars next Sunday at Noon CT. Jacksonville fell to 1-3 Sunday after losing, 33-25, at Cincinnati.

Daily Thread 10-3-2020: Weekend Discussion

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Remember to check 506sports.com for football broadcast schedules and coverage maps. Pregame Thread posts Sunday morning at 5:00 a.m. CT and the 1st Quarter Thread posts Sunday morning at 11:45 a.m. CT (kickoff is noon CT on Fox).

In this 1979 segment for PM Magazine, co-host John Walls profiles the woman responsible for feeding the Houston Oilers during summer training camp. Beginning in 1978, the Oilers held their preseason training camp at Angelo State University in San Angelo. Campus kitchen staff consequently prepared meals for the 70-player team as well as any summer students. In her interview, cook Wilma Bradley talks about her work schedule and the special preferences of certain players, including the “Tyler Rose,” Earl Campbell. PM Magazine was a local news and entertainment television program broadcast on Beaumont’s KFDM-TV in from late 1970s to the mid-1980s. This segment aired on September 3, 1979 and August 11, 1980.

The content above can be found at https://texasarchive.org/2017_00504?utm_source=Social&utm_medium=Twitter&utm_campaign=TikTok

Follow Texas Archive of the Moving Image (TAMI) on twitter at https://twitter.com/texasarchive (@texasarchive) for cool videos that show Texas life and culture spanning many generations.

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.