Seems national media is laying groundwork to walk back Houston Texans predictions
WALKING IT BACK
18 April
Everyone is talking about the Texans! Composite Getty Image.
How quickly things can change in a year. Just last April, Texans fans were on the edge of their seats hoping the organization would land their franchise quarterback in the NFL Draft.
Fast-forward to 2024 and the state of the Texans franchise is almost unrecognizable. NBC Sports' Mike Florio is making statements about how the NFL must love the Texans because they are the proof that any team can turn their franchise around in one year. Which makes the NFL Draft look even more important. Draft picks give fanbases hope, and unlike baseball and to some extent basketball, many of the top picks start right away.
More Texans love
Other national media members like Colin Cowherd are creating segments about which teams could be the 2025 version of the Texans. In fact, Cowherd praised the Texans last week for reaching out to him two years ago for information about Notre Dame safety Kyle Hamilton.
Post-free agency he picked the Texans to miss the playoffs, but it seems like he's rethinking his prediction.
Counterpoint
Some in the media have their concerns about the Texans trade for Stefon Diggs. Ross Tucker was a guest of the Rich Eisen Show and questioned if wiping the remaining years off of Diggs' contract was a good idea.
First, he thought trading a 2025 second-round pick was too much to give up for a player on a one-year deal. But his second point made us stop and think. He compared this situation to something he experienced in his playing career. He's worried that if Diggs isn't getting enough targets and production in a contract year, he might become a problem.
And the Texans have plenty of weapons to spread the ball to this year with Nico Collins, Diggs, Tank Dell, Dalton Schultz, Noah Brown, Robert Woods, Joe Mixon…you get the point.
So we did a little digging into the numbers. There's a scenario in which the Texans could have two receivers go over one thousand yards.
Everybody eats!
We can just look around the league and see that both the Eagles (AJ Brown, DeVonta Smith) and Dolphins (Tyreek Hill, Jaylen Waddle) did it in 2022 and 2023. The Bengals (Ja'Marr Chase, Tee Higgins) also had two receivers go over a thousand yards in 2021 and 2022.
CJ Stroud averaged 274 passing yards per game in 2023, if we multiply that number by seventeen games that puts CJ at 4,658 yards. Nico Collins had 1,297 yards in 15 games last season, and Stefon Diggs recorded 1,183 receiving yards. So that would leave 2.178 yards for the other pass catchers in the offense.
While it's unlikely Tank Dell gets to one thousand if everyone stays healthy, he could get fairly close. Stroud doesn't throw to his running backs all that often, and the Texans should have Dell, Diggs, and Collins together on the field more than fifty percent of the time.
Don't count him out
Texans quarterback CJ Stroud met with the Houston media this week and talked about the team's wide receiver room, which now includes Stefon Diggs.
One of the other names he brought up was receiver John Metchie III. Stroud said he's looking good in workouts, so he could be another mouth to feed in the Houston offense.
And considering how the season finished in Baltimore for the Texans, having too many receivers is a good problem to have. If we only look at the wide receivers and eliminate tight ends and running backs from the conversation, the picture becomes very clear. Collins led the wide receivers with 5 catches for 68 yards. Which receiver came in second, you ask? Robert Woods with 1 catch for 6 yards.
Bring on the receivers!
Don't miss the video above for the full discussion about Diggs, the Texans' new-look offense, and how they are being perceived by the media.
Here's everything you need to know ahead of Tigers-Astros Wild Card Series matchup
Sep 29, 2024, 11:48 pm
So it’s A.J. Hinch managing the team that will try to eliminate the Astros in the best-of-three Wild Card Series that opens Tuesday at Minute Maid Park. That’s certainly a notable storyline as Hinch battles tactically with his former bench coach Joe Espada, in facing the franchise he managed to the 2017 World Series Championship, and the franchise that fired him 26 months later after Hinch’s complicity in the Astros’ cheating scandal came to light.
As covered in the most recent column, momentum means nothing heading into this series. That’s a good thing because the Tigers stormed down the stretch with a 31-11 record before pretty much no-showing their last two games against the laughingstock White Sox after Friday night celebrating securing their first playoff spot since 2014. Had the Tigers won one of them the Astros would be playing the Kansas City Royals. Oh well. It’s not like the Royals would have been a significantly easier opponent, if easier at all.
Tarik Skubal vs. Framber Valdez
Apart from Yordan Alvarez’s sprained knee rendering dubious his ability to perform entering the postseason, the biggest “uh oh” for the Astros going into the shortest of playoff series is facing Tigers’ ace Tarik Skubal in game one. With due credit to the brilliant season of Guardians’ closer Emmanuel Clase, any American League Cy Young vote for any one other than Skubal is stupid. He went 18-4, leading the AL in earned run average at 2.39, and in strikeouts with 228 in 192 innings pitched. MLB hit just .201 with a puny OPS of .558 vs. Skubal this season. Among other things, 18-4 means he’s beatable. The Astros gave Skubal one of his four losses, putting up four earned runs in six and one-third innings. The Astros won that game 4-0, with Hunter Brown throwing seven shutout innings in his hometown. Which raises another point. Skubal could be outstanding Tuesday yet have Framber Valdez outpitch him.
It will feel like if the Astros beat Skubal in game one the series is over. That is a foolhardy concept. Of course the Tigers could win games two and three.
Brown will go for the Astros in game two, and if there is a decisive game three Thursday the ball goes to Yusei Kikuchi. Ronel Blanco looms as a multi-inning bullpen threat in one game of the series. If a reliever is needed before getting to the back end of Bryan Abreu, Ryan Pressly, and Josh Hader, Blanco is the best pitcher available and a better option than Hector Neris or anyone else.
The Tigers' game two starter would have been Jack Flaherty, except they dealt him to the Dodgers at the trade deadline. That’s another fact that makes the Tigers’ surge amazing. Second season man Reese Olson probably goes for the Tigers in game two. Brown rates a huge edge over him though in one game, as ever, you never know. If a game three, Hinch likely starts John Brieske, but with a short leash. An X-factor at Hinch’s disposal at least once in the series is Jackson Jobe, considered by many the best starting pitching prospect yet to start in the Majors. The Tigers called up Jobe for his big league debut the final week of the regular season. The 22-year-old righthander with a 101 miles-per-hour fastball pitched in four innings over two games. He gave up one hit and no runs.
Not so fast!
Reading much into Tigers’ season-long statistics is done at one’s own risk. The Tigers awoke August 11 at 55-63. They have since played as if a mostly different team. A handful of points…
Shortstop Javier Baez’s season-ending back injury was a Tiger blessing because Hinch couldn’t play him anymore. Baez has been sub-pathetic since the Tigers moronically gave him a six year 140 million dollar contract after Carlos Correa said “no thanks” to Detroit’s 10 year 275 million dollar offer after the 2021 season. It’s not as if anyone is confusing replacement Trey Sweeney with Alan Trammell, but his play has been much better than the rotting corpse production Baez was giving. The Tigers got Sweeney in the Flaherty deal with the Dodgers and called him August 16.
Oh, Sweeney is cousins with actress Sydney Sweeney. Think anyone will have eyes out for her Tuesday?
The Tigers’ other middle infielder is also a rookie. They gave the second base job to Colt Keith out of spring training and he looked utterly overmatched the first month-plus of the season. Over his first 30 games Keith hit .152 with an impossibly feeble .399 OPS. Well, he figured out stuff. From May 6 forward Keith has been a better player than Jose Altuve.
The Astros start lefty Valdez in game one and if a game three fellow lefty Kikuchi. The Tigers' two best offensive players bat left-handed…and poorly vs. southpaws. 24-year-old Tiger All-Star Riley Greene is a stud. But vs. lefties he hit just .213 with a .693 OPS. Kerry Carpenter has by far the Tigers’ best batting rate stats. Thing is, he hardly even plays against lefties. Carpenter has a .930 OPS overall. Against lefties: three for 28 (.107 average) with 10 strikeouts. Does Hinch try him against Valdez and/or Kikuchi?
No big upset is possible in a best-of-three. Of course the Astros are favored. Rightfully so given their pedigree coupled with the Tigers’ inexperience, and the Astros are the home team in every game. But the Tigers won 86 games to the Astros’ 88, and the AL Central was a better division than the West. The Cleveland Guardians await the winner for the start of a best-of-five American League Division Series Saturday.
Be sure to watch the video above for our full breakdown of Astros vs.Tigers!
*Catch our weekly Stone Cold ‘Stros podcast. Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and I discuss varied Astros topics. The first post for the week generally goes up Monday afternoon (second part released Tuesday). There will be extra editions during the postseason. Find all via The SportsMap HOU YouTube channel or listen to episodes in their entirety at Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
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