THE PALLILOG
Here are some massive chain reactions that start from the outcome of Texans-Jaguars
Nov 22, 2023, 4:20 pm
THE PALLILOG
Should the Texans beat the Jaguars for a second time, they sweep the season series and take over first place in the AFC South. Raise your hands if back in early September you had this as a likely scenario. Hands down liars! With six more games to play after Sunday it’s not as if the Texans clinch the division with a win, but it clearly positions them to take the division and go from last to first as the Jaguars did from 2021 to last season. Among the Texans’ final six games, only Cleveland is an opponent currently with a winning record. The Broncos have won four in a row to enter the wild card race at 5-5, but that game is in Houston. Then the Texans play at the offensively impotent Jets and the dead in the water Titans. The Deshaun Watson-less Browns are here Christmas Eve before the Texans get their second game with the Titans, ahead of the season finale at the presently 5-5 Colts. That is a very favorable schedule. With a win over the Jags Sunday, the Texans finishing 11-6 becomes very plausible. That would force the Jaguars to win five of their final six games, which include playing at Cleveland and a home date vs. the Ravens. Jacksonville’s other four games project as wins: home games vs. the no-Joe Burrow Bengals and the horrible Panthers, road games at Tampa Bay and Tennessee.
On the flip side, if the Jaguars come here and win Sunday, they come relatively close to putting away the division. The Jags’ would leave with a two game lead, and a split with the Texans would give the Jacksonville the tiebreaker via better divisional record, unless they somehow lose at Tennessee in their season finale.
Beating the Jags again doesn’t figure to be as easy as it turned out to be for the Texans in Florida back in September. The Texans won 37-17 despite being outgained 404 yards to 366. After getting out to a 17-0 lead, the Texans saw Jacksonville draw within 17-10 with 4:35 to go in the third quarter. Then Andrew Beck shockingly rumbled 85 yards for a touchdown on a kickoff return. Thereafter the outcome was never in doubt. The Texans were turnover-free in the game, the Jaguars coughed it up twice. With C.J. Stroud coming off of a three interceptions game you know taking care of the ball is a point of re-emphasis this week.
The Jaguars are a perfect 4-0 on the road, one of the road games being a road trip not a true road game. They beat the Buffalo Bills in London.
If C.J Stroud opted to take the rest of the season off, he’d still have the NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year award just about sewn up. Fellow freshman Texan Tank Dell is in the hunt for runner-up. The dynamic 165 pound former Houston Cougar has six touchdown catches. That equals the rookie TD haul total of Andre Johnson and DeAndre Hopkins combined. Johnson had four TD grabs as a rookie in 2003, Hopkins just two as a rook in 2013. Dell is on pace for 10 touchdown catches. The schedule being 17 games now impacts this stuff of course, but Dell missed the Saints game while in concussion protocol. In the Super Bowl era, only nine first year wide receivers have cracked double digits in TD receptions. Randy Moss blew away the field with his epic 17 TD catch rookie season with the Minnesota Vikings in 1998. Next with 13 are Ja’Marr Chase two years go with the Bengals and the begoggled John Jefferson with the Chargers in 1978. Odell Beckham and Mike Evans caught 12 apiece as rookies, Mike Williams 11. Calvin Ridley, Daryl Turner, and Sammy White each snared 10. White did it in a 14 game schedule.
Rams rookie fifth round pick Puka Nacua is Dell’s chief competition for rookie wideout of the year. Nacua is on pace for a whopping 117 receptions for more than 1500 yards.
A Thanksgiving-related note/quasi prediction. If the Texans ultimately finish second in the division, here’s a guess that they play at the Arlington Cowboys Turkey Day 2024. The Texans next season will play a game at the NFC East team that finishes in its division this year in the same place the Texans do theirs. The Cowboys are going to be second behind Philadelphia in the NFC East. C.J. Stroud’s arrival means no more zero nationally televised games for the Texans. A Texans-Cowboys holiday tilt makes sense. The Texans have played two Thanksgiving Day games, both at Detroit.
Looking for more Texans coverage?
Texans on Tap is the weekly Texan-centric podcast I am part of alongside Brandon Strange and Josh Jordan. On our regular schedule a first video segment goes up Monday on the SportsMapTexans YouTube channel.
There's no denying that this year's World Series champs (LA Dodgers) have some serious firepower on their roster. And one of the ways they were able to assemble such a talented team involved players like Shohei Ohtani being willing to differ their money.
Just this week, there was some speculation that the Yankees could do something similar when restructuring Gerrit Cole's contract, that would allow them more flexibility in the present.
The Yankees ended up calling Cole's bluff about opting out, and no adjustment was made to the contract.
But this situation got us thinking, would the Astros consider a tactic like this to maximize the roster? At this point, it doesn't seem all that likely. Just last year, the team handed out a $95 million contract to Josh Hader, without any differed money.
The other factor that also has to come into play is the tax threshold. The organization would have to give the okay to go over it again in order to make a splash signing this offseason. Which unfortunately does not sound like the plan right now when listening to GM Dana Brown at the Winter Meetings.
Astros pitcher hires a new agent
Now that MLB free agency is in full swing, most of the attention moving forward will be focused on players like Alex Bregman, Pete Alonso, and Juan Soto.
But for Astros fans, there might be someone else to keep an eye on this offseason and next. Starting pitcher Hunter Brown quietly hired super agent Scott Boras recently.
With Brown still another season away from his first year of arbitration, he should be with the Astros for the foreseeable future.
However, the hiring of Boras does raise some interesting questions. Why make the move now? Certainly, Brown could use some more cash, as he's set to make less than a million in 2025.
Perhaps Brown wants to land some HEB commercials to fatten his wallet. And if Bregman does leave the team in free agency, a spot will open up for another player, in theory. And three of the players in the HEB ads are represented by Boras (Jose Altuve, Lance McCullers Jr. and Bregman).
Jeremy Pena has been stacking cash from Taquerias Arandas for several years now, maybe Brown would like an opportunity to do an endorsement similar to that.
I say all this half kidding, but Brown does look like the future ace of this staff, and I'm sure there are plenty of advertisers that would have interest in Hunter.
There is another element that could have initiated the hiring of Boras. Would Brown be willing to sign an extension early with the Astros similar to the deal the team made with Cristian Javier?
Their situations are actually pretty comparable, except Javier was one year further into his career (3 years of MLB service time) and eligible for arbitration before agreeing to the extension.
If Brown was heading into arbitration this offseason, it wouldn't be surprising at all for the Astros to be considering a long-term deal with him that buys up all his arbitration years. The 'Stros love these types of contract extensions. We've seen them do it with Bregman, the aforementioned Javier, and others.
One of the main differences though between Brown and Javier is their rookie year numbers. Brown only pitched 20.1 innings in his first season (2022). While Javier pitched 54.1 innings his rookie year. However, his rookie season was in 2020, so Javier completed a full year of service time despite the shortened season. Whereas Brown didn't get called up until September 2022.
Another difference is performance. Javier never posted an ERA over 3.55 in his first three seasons. As opposed to Brown, who had a disastrous year in 2023. He made 29 starts, recording an ERA over 5.
It wasn't until May of 2024 that Brown started using his two-seam fastball with great success and becoming one of the most dominant pitchers in the American League.
The Astros had a bigger sample size to judge Javier. However, if Brown has another quality season in 2025, Houston and Brown should definitely be having conversations about an extension. Especially with Framber Valdez being in the final year of his contract in 2025. Hunter could be the unquestioned ace one year from now.
Still, though, there are some concerns with handing out these early extensions. For example, if the Astros had it to do over again, would they still extend Javier?
After receiving his extension before the 2023 season, he went on to post the highest ERA of his career (4.56), and then blew out his elbow in May 2024.
And if we're going by Luis Garcia's recovery timeline from Tommy John surgery, we may not see Javier pitch at all in 2025.
So even with a sample size of three terrific seasons, the Javier extension looks like a miss with the benefit of hindsight. It will be interesting to see if that deal impacts Dana Brown's decision-making going forward.
Especially since Javier was Dana's first big contract extension as the Astros GM.
Be sure to watch the video as we discuss how the Astros can get the most out of their roster, the pros and cons of signing Hunter Brown early, and much more!
*Catch our weekly Stone Cold ‘Stros podcasts. Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and Charlie Pallilo discuss varied Astros topics. The post for the week generally goes up Monday afternoon. 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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