Houston Texans Thread 2018 Vol. Destroy & Rebuild - Preseason

The Texans made it official, placing defensive end J.J. Watt on injured reserve along with outside linebacker Whitney Mercilus.

A three-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year, Watt broke his leg and had surgery. He'll need six to nine months to recover.

Mercilus tore his pectoral.

Meanwhile, the Texans announced their previously reported deals for outside linebacker Lamarr Houston and defensive end Kendall Langford.

They also signed rookie offensive guard Dorian Johnson to the active roster off the Arizona Cardinals' practice squad. - CHRON
 
HTownsOwn84 said:
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The Houston Texans made some minor roster moves prior to their week six game against the Cleveland Browns.
Almost two weeks ago, the Houston Texans signed safety Marcus Cromartie to their 53-man roster.

Cromartie is the cousin of NFL cornerbacks Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie and Antonio Cromartie.

Unfortunately Marcus Cromartie’s time in Houston didn’t last very long, after being active for only one game and not recording a single stat.

Aaron Wilson of the Houston Chronicle reported on Saturday that the Texans released Cromartie and have signed safety Kurtis Drummond from their practice squad to their 53-man roster.
 
these injuries are brutal, but damn Ricky got one with Deshaun. Hopefully this makes our future moves more clear. OL, TE, LB, CB and we gonna be straight
 
With Deshaun Watson, The Texans Don't Have to Wait For the Next Big Thing

In no other sport are the important victories more consolidated among a handful of blue bloods than college football, which makes Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney’s run with Deshaun Watson at quarterback the more remarkable. Together, the two of them went 34-4 in games Watson started, lost to Alabama in one scintillating national title game and knocked off Alabama in another the following postseason.

The two went to the mountaintop together, so when Deshaun Watson was drafted by the Houston Texans last April, I wasn’t surprised when Swinney gushed about his three-year starter to me on my radio show. “You can’t measure what [Deshaun] has,” said Swinney. “This guy is an unbelievable winner. What he has you just can’t coach it. He has this mindset and this poise that, well, you know it when you see it and it’s hard to describe, but he’s got it. And now Houston’s got it. I can’t wait to see them hold that trophy up because it’s coming. Get ready for it, it’s coming.”

“Wait, what?” I thought. “Is he saying what I think he is saying? Hell, promising what I think he is promising?” One question later, Swinney doubled down on his star pupil.

“Yeah, I think Houston just won a Super Bowl,” said Swinney, matter of factly. “I don’t know if it’s this year, next year or the next but it’s coming.”

Houston’s reaction — mine, my cohost’s, our listeners’ — ranged anywhere from muted enthusiasm to admitted eye rolling. Sure, Swinney and Watson had shared that magical, victorious trophy embrace at the collegiate level, but did this guy realize this is the Lombardi Trophy he is promising? Moreover, did he realize that he was promising it to a sports-scarred city who’d employed more quarterbacks than stadium workers over the last three years?

Yet, now here we are, five starts into Deshaun Watson’s NFL career, a starting gig he seized 30 minutes into his rookie season — 30 minutes too late, if you ask every Texan fan — and the Texans rookie quarterback has done something perhaps more remarkable than slaying Nick Saban and Alabama.

He’s made this city forget about the mile-long list of signal calling scrubs that have come and gone since 2014. Miraculously, Deshaun Watson has even made us all able to laugh about the 12-month debacle that was Brock Osweiler’s existence here. Yeah, maybe this Dabo Swinney fella knew what he was talking about.

Amazingly, in a year’s time, the Texans have gone from a cautionary tale in overspending on a free agent quarterback to a case study in the transformative power of a transcendent rookie quarterback. Remarkably, it was just a year ago last week that Texan fans had actually reached at least a tepid comfort with Osweiler as their quarterback, after he led the Texans to a 26-23 comeback victory in overtime against the Indianapolis Colts in Week 6.

However, over the next three months, Brock Osweiler would single handedly turn this acceptance into a vomit-inducing rejection. For every back-breaking interception, and there were many, Osweiler had a story, and every story led to completely vapid, unfulfilled promises from the quarterback that things would get fixed. After a benching in Week 15, and a shouting match with Bill O’Brien in the locker room in Week 17, the writing was on the wall. Osweiler had to go, so Texans general manager Rick Smith traded him to Cleveland along with the Texans’ 2018 second round pick, just so someone else would pay Osweiler’s $16 million guaranteed salary for 2017. Yes, Osweiler was so pathetic that he was traded with a draft pick, not for a draft pick.

Fortunately, Smith had a plan to dig out from Brock Bottom, an expensive plan, but ultimately a franchise-altering plan. As mentioned earlier, the Texans used their 2018 second round pick to essentially pay Cleveland to take Osweiler off their hands, but it’s their 2018 first round pick that would land their long-term fix, as Smith traded that pick, once again with Cleveland, to move up to the twelfth overall spot in the 2017 NFL Draft to take Watson.

O’Brien knew from the first time he met Watson that the rookie had elite traits. “I knew pretty early on that this guy was a special young man and a good football player,” O’Brien said. “From the time I met him at the combine, just getting to know him here, watching him operate around here, he is what you see.”

What we’ve seen is perhaps the most meteoric rise of a rookie quarterback in league history. Since taking over at halftime of the Jacksonville game in Week 1, Watson has thrown a league-high 15 touchdown passes, matching Osweiler’s total for the entire 2016 season. He has three games with three or more touchdown passes, making him the only rookie in league history to do that in his first six games.

No other rookie quarterback has done it more than once in his first six games. He’s already won an AFC Offensive Player of the Week Award, and as of week seven, he was a 10 to 1 shot to win the NFL’s MVP Award, fourth best odds of any player in the league.

However, those accomplishments, while impressive, are mere data compared to the emotional equity Watson’s brought to the building, to his teammates and to this city. Watson’s versatility and athleticism has coaxed out a creative side to Bill O’Brien’s play calling and decision making that has essentially restored the “QB guru” reputation with which the head coach arrived three years ago.

“It’s definitely been fun.” O’Brien said, when asked about drawing up plays to take advantage of Watson’s unique skills. “It’s been a collaborative effort with the offensive staff. Deshaun’s done a good job, every time you look at him, you say ‘He’s a rookie, but he’s a smart guy.’ He’s intelligent, he has a great memory. He’s able to retain things that happened in the first quarter to help us succeed in the fourth quarter. It’s been a lot of fun to coach him.”

There was a time not all that long ago that losing J.J. Watt for the season would have been considered the worst non-hurricane natural disaster in the city of Houston. Yet with Watt (and outside linebacker Whitney Mercilus) going out for the season injured in Week 5, the presence and poise of Watson still brings hope, enough hope for Houstonians to pack the stadium every Sunday and enough hope in the wagering community that the Texans are still favored to win the AFC South.

“I’m just a confident person, regardless of what other people say,” Watson said, smiling. “At this level and with this game, you have to be confident. If you don’t have any confidence in yourself, you will get exposed or you won’t be able to play to your potential. Just trust in me and let me do it and see what I got.”

Above and beyond all of the Watson-generated moments that have led to the Texans going from literally the least productive to the most productive offense in the NFL in less than a year’s time, it’s surreal to consider that, in both the short-term and long-term, the Houston Texans may have gone from the worst quarterback situation in the league to the most envious.

That aging group of quarterbacks drafted before 2005, guys like Eli Manning, Philip Rivers, Carson Palmer and Ben Roethlisberger, are finally showing their age. Many of the young lions that were supposed to be the next generation can’t stay healthy. Marcus Mariota and Derek Carr finished last season on injured reserve, and have already missed games this season. Andrew Luck hasn’t played a down. Aaron Rodgers, no young lion, but perhaps the best quarterback in football, is now done for the year with a broken collarbone.

So with all that said, if you ask yourself “Which teams have a starting quarterback that can win them a game right now, can win them a game in this post season, can win them a game in five years, and can win them a game in ten years?” How many teams have quarterbacks that check all of those boxes? Because the teams who can, by definition, have the best quarterback situations in the league, and make no mistake, Deshaun Watson checks all of those boxes for the Houston Texans.

The list of teams that join the Texans on that list is not long — certainly, Philadelphia with Carson Wentz, Dallas with Dak Prescott, Seattle with Russell Wilson, and depending on how you feel about Jimmy Garoppolo eventually taking over for Tom Brady, maybe New England. It’s a short list, and amazingly, after 15 seasons, the Texans are on it.

Thus far, the Deshaun Watson Experience has taken the city to a higher place. His acquisition, arrival and ascent is the nexus of desperation, guts, and creativity. The Brock Osweiler debacle forced Rick Smith out of his comfort zone, trading up in the first round of the draft, something he’d never done before as a GM, to finally solve this franchise’s quarterback crisis. Similarly, Deshaun Watson’s other worldly skill set forced O’Brien out of his perceived coaching comfort zone, eschewing the normal “pocket passer” stuff for a playbook that looks a lot more like Clemson’s than New England’s, with a ton of shotgun and zone read concepts.

In some weird karmic way, maybe the football gods made us endure Brock Osweiler for a year, so we would appreciate the arrival of Deshaun Watson even more, and maybe that Dabo Swinney guy wasn’t that crazy, after all.

“The reason I play football is because I love the game, I love the sport, I love the friendships and everything that comes with it,” Watson said. “But at the same time, just giving people – not just for the city I play for and the teams that I played for before, but just people all around the world, just to be able to give them hope and courage to be able to fulfill their dreams. You can do it by having fun, and you don’t have to listen to what all the naysayers are saying. You just go out there, have fun and do it at a high level, and you can impact the world.”

Or, at the very least, a city desperately in need of an impact. - HOUSTON PRESS
 
The Texans activated three-time Pro Bowl left offensive tackle Duane Brown in advance of Sunday's game against the Seattle Seahawks, cutting former starter Kendall Lamm.

Brown ended a six-time contract holdout Monday and was reinstated from the reserve-did not report list. Brown lost $3.8 million in game checks.

Brown practiced all week and is preparing to start against the Seahawks. He passed the conditioning test and is in good shape.

Brown's contract dispute remains unresolved. He's due $6.1 million in salary for the remainder of this season and $9.75 million next year.

Lamm started the season opener, but struggled and was replaced by Chris Clark. - CHRON
 
If McNair gets Donald Sterling'd out of the organization,
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Houston Texans owner Bob McNair met with players to discuss, express regret over 'inmates' comment
Houston Texans owner Bob McNair met with Texans players Saturday morning, a day after his comments referring to NFL players as “inmates” became public.

McNair was quoted in an ESPN Outside the Linesstory saying, “We can’t have inmates running the prison,” in a meeting with other owners about players’ national anthem protests.

"I know they were upset," McNair said, according to Mark Berman of Fox26 and the Houston Chronicle. "I wanted to answer their questions. I told them if I had it to do over again I wouldn't use that expression."

Bob McNair after meeting with his players: "I know they were upset. I wanted to answer their questions. I told them if I had to do it over again I wouldn't use that expression."

— Mark Berman (@MarkBermanFox26) October 28, 2017
Bob McNair: "I met with the players. I let them know that number 1, the last thing I want to be is a distraction to the team.If any of the players were offended by what was reported,I'm sorry about that & I apologized to them for that. We need to just work together going forward"

— Mark Berman (@MarkBermanFox26) October 28, 2017
McNair issued an apology Friday, and again reiterated his stance Saturday via a public statement.

“As I said yesterday, I was not referring to our players when I made a very regretful comment during the owners meetings last week," McNair said in the statement released by the team. "I was referring to the relationship between the league office and team owners and how they have been making significant strategic decisions affecting our league without adequate input from ownership over the past few years.

"I am truly sorry to the players for how this has impacted them and the perception that it has created of me which could not be further from the truth. Our focus going forward, personally and as an organization, will be towards making meaningful progress regarding the social issues that mean so much to our players and our community.”

DeAndre Hopkins and D’Onta Foreman did not practice Friday because of the insensitive remarks, according to reports. Coach Bill O’Brien characterized Hopkins’ absence as a “personal day.”

According to ESPN, a Texans player said that the team will meet Saturday night to “discuss a demonstration” for Sunday’s game at the Seattle Seahawks. All Texans players were expected to travel with the team, according to the Chronicle. - USA TODAY
 
Bill O'Brien Does Not Have the Guts to Be a Great NFL Head Coach

Bill O'Brien, for the second time this year, had a road victory against a top Super Bowl contender in his grasp, but instead had his sphincter tighten up. Fortune favors the bold, and O’Brien has been anything but in two key moments.

First, it was at New England, where Houston had a 4th and 1 at the New England 18 with 2:26 left, already up by 2. O’Brien opted for the safe call, the field goal, to go up by 5. But against Tom Brady, on the road, that’s not the safe call. You try to go win the game, by getting a first down, draining time down, and leaving little opportunity for Brady heroics. Rumor has it that O’Brien used to coach Brady, but apparently he was unaware of this.

O’Brien didn’t learn from that error, and today, in another shootout, he coached as if he didn’t actually have a game-changing quarterback, some major questions on the back end of the secondary, and no J.J. Watt.

Make no mistake, Houston should have won today at Seattle. The players, after protesting their own owner, left it all on the field. The head coach, on the other hand, puckered up again. Houston ran twice on the first two downs, to set up 3rd and 4. Seattle had one timeout left, just inside the two minute warning.

Rather than give Watson any chance to make a play, O’Brien again called a run straight up the middle with Lamar Miller, against a defense overplaying the run. You go down winning this game on third down with Watson. And he’s the perfect quarterback for this situation, because you can go with a play that gives him a pass/run option, where he gets some quick reads and then tries to make a play with his feet if it doesn’t come open.

O’Brien punted again. You don’t win Super Bowls by meekly giving the ball back to the likes of Tom Brady and Russell Wilson at moments of decision. Houston has more problems than just the players and their views of the owner. - thebiglead
 
O'Brien, Vrabel, and the secondary should be embarrassed for the way they left the offense out to dry. This could have been a game to propel the Texans going forward, and now it's just a moral victory and wasted stats. Crennel needs to be back on the sidelines and Vrabel should have a clipboard and headset standing next to him.
 
It’s funny how we had like 4 years of elite defense and no QB. And now we have a QB and the defense is trash. That ending hurt though kinda a lose lose. If you pass and it’s incomplete everyone says why didn’t you just run the clock out. You run for it and don’t get it everyone says why didn’t you give Deshaun a chance to win. At the end of the day if the defense can’t stop them from scoring a touchdown with that little time on the clock and no timeouts, running on third and not getting the first down isint our biggest problem
 
our defense has had some tough injuries, and we already knew our secondary was suspect. We talked about this when we let Bouye walk. Funny enough, the secondary made that pick the drive before after getting torched all game. I thought that was the play we needed to secure the W, but obviously not. Our defense is trash, but it was kind of predictable.

I won't micro-analyze OB's decision on that one play, but these rushed handoffs out of a shotgun formation with an already struggling line on 3rd and short to medium are not the business at any point in the game. And Watson is clearly a high level playmaker, so he needs to trust him to do that more on 3rd and short/medium. OR if you're gonna run, take your time, stack up, and run at them up the gut - with a big back, like Foreman.
 
Good look. I haven't kept up with Lane for a couple years now, but I'm gonna assume he's still better than all our corners?
 
bonafide hustla said:
Good look. I haven't kept up with Lane for a couple years now, but I'm gonna assume he's still better than all our corners?
Click to expand...

He's good when he's on his game, but has had some injuries and been benched. I'd say at the very least, he's better than every one not named JJoe (when JJoe isn't sucking).
 
PFF has lane graded at like 103 of 113. He got benched for a 3rd round rookie and played 6 snaps against us even when earl Thomas got hurt.... so yeah he will fit right in
 




I get familiarity with Bill O'Brien, and I understand that Deshaun's injury happened so close to the next game and you practically have to rush to get ready, but if Kaepernick isn't signed heading into next week, this season is a wrap. You need a QB that resembles Watson as close as possible, and Kap is literally the lone guy out there. This is terrible news.
 
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