STOOTS ON TEXANS
11 observations you need to know about from Houston Texans training camp
Aug 17, 2022, 1:52 pm
Rookie guard and first round pick, Kenyon Green, returned to practice. Photo via: Cody Stoots.
The Houston Texans had a lighter practice ahead of preseason game two. Here are 11 observations from the workout.
1. Lovie Smith explained the team treated this practice like they would a Friday in a normal NFL game week. There wasn’t nearly as much full-speed work as there have been at previous workouts. It was mostly a simulation of game scenarios with mixed and matched depth.
2. The third preseason game is when you can expect to see the most playing time from players who will start week one for the Texans. There will be quite the layoff between the final preseason game and the season opener, so the team doesn’t have to be as cautious as in previous years.
3. Lovie Smith did say there is a chance the team will play a few more players and play some players longer than the preseason opener. This would include the potential for Derek Stingley to make his preseason debut.
4. Kenyon Green returned to practice. The first-round pick didn’t do a lot of work, but Lovie Smith said he was a full return. Smith said yesterday on Sirius radio, Green had been dealing with a concussion. It was a light day so nothing too exciting to glean from Green’s return.
5. Lovie Smith still feels confident in Green, despite the injury setback. He mentioned the rookie offensive lineman still needs to play, but he’s made good progress. This bodes well for his chances to overtake Max Scharping or Justin McCray for the starting job.
6. Pharaoh Brown has a hamstring injury. The tight end impressed in training camp plenty, but the roster is short on tight end help. I still believe there could be another tight end addition to this roster, especially if Brown’s injury lingers.
7. It would be nice to see Teagan Quitoriano play a lot in the preseason. The rookie was behind starting training camp with an injury and has practiced a little more recently. With his draft pick investment, he has an inside track on a roster spot. A few reps with Davis Mills and Kyle Allen on Friday might do him well.
8. Nico Collins had a nice play in one of the livelier reps. Collins snagged a ball in tight coverage ripping it down for a reception. He is alone in tier two of the pass catchers on the team. Brandin Cooks is alone in tier one. All the other wideouts are tier three.
9. Desmond King is a great depth piece for this team. King has the versatility to play inside and outside. I am not sure how much he plays cornerback unless there is an injury, but he is a factor in the return game as well.
10. Derek Stingley was all over a pass to Brandin Cooks in the red zone. Cooks was owning Stingley early in camp, but I would say the rookie has earned his fair share of wins in recent weeks.
11. The second preseason game brings a few more opportunities for playing time, and hopefully some wideout clarity with Kyle Allen playing. Also, let’s see if Dameon Pierce can impress again.
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NFL officials were heavily scrutinized for some of the flags they threw in the four divisional round games that saw the Chiefs, Bills, Eagles and Commanders advance to next weekend's conference championships.
Yet, it was one play that didn't draw a flag that could prove a most consequential non-call if the NFL decides to join the NBA and NHL in seriously cracking down on floppers, as ESPN broadcaster Troy Aikman suggested during the Texans-Chiefs game.
NFL players can be penalized for the big umbrella “unsportsmanlike conduct" infraction, but there isn't an official rule against flopping, and Aikman urged the league to address that during one of his several conversations with Joe Buck over the officiating in the Chiefs' 23-14 victory.
On the same possession where he benefited from his late slide that caused two Texans players to crash into each other, drawing a widely panned unnecessary roughness flag, Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes appeared to try to deke referee Clay Martin's officiating crew into throwing another flag to aid Kansas City's drive, which ended with a touchdown that put the Chiefs up by eight in the fourth quarter.
Scrambling to his left, Mahomes pulled up just as he went out of bounds. When linebacker Henry To'oTo'o tapped him, Mahomes threw himself dramatically to the ground but failed to fool the officials — or impress Aikman, the Hall of Fame quarterback who earlier took umbrage at the roughing-the-passer call against Houston.
“He’s trying to draw the penalty. Rather than just run out of bounds, he slows down," Aikman protested. "And that’s been the frustration, and I get it. I understand it. That’s been the frustration for these defensive players around the league.”
Earlier in the drive, Aikman said he “could not disagree" more with the roughing penalty called on To'oTo'o and defensive tackle Folorunso Fatukasi, who smashed into each other and made incidental contact with Mahomes, who was underneath them after his late slide.
When Martin announced the penalty, Aikman interjected, “Oh, come on!”
“He’s a runner. I could not disagree with that one more, and he barely gets hit,” Aikman said, noting that Mahomes shouldn't have been afforded the extra protections provided quarterbacks in the pocket once he started running on the play. “That’s the second (questionable) penalty now that’s been called against the Texans. … It was a late flag, and it was Clay Martin who threw it.”
“They’ve gotta address it in the offseason,” Aikman added.
ESPN's rules analyst Russell Yurk concurred that no flag should have been thrown on the play.
After the game, Texans coach DeMeco Ryans suggested that his team expected the Chiefs to benefit from the officiating: “We knew going into today it was us versus everybody. And when I say everybody, it's everybody.”
Yurk also disagreed with a roughing-the-passer flag on Texans pass rusher Will Anderson Jr. in the first quarter that erased a three-and-out by Kansas City, which went on to score a field goal on that drive: “It looked like that first contact was to the upper chest area. I didn’t see anything there that supported a foul,” Yurk said.
Martin, the referee, told a pool reporter after the game that on the Anderson penalty, “I had forcible contact the face mask area,” and on the To'oTo'o infraction, when the quarterback slides, “he is considered defenseless. The onus is on the defender. I had forcible contact there to the hairline, to the helmet.”
Walt Anderson, the longtime NFL senior vice president of officiating who moved into a new role as the league's rules analyst and club communications liaison last year, said Sunday that both calls were correct under the current rules.
Anderson said in an appearance Sunday on the NFL Network that it might be up for debate about whether there was forcible contact on the roughing-the-passer flag in the first quarter, but he emphasized that the league's rulebook calls for officials to throw the flag if there's any doubt whether roughing has occurred.
As for the second foul, where Mahomes slid late, Anderson said the two Texans defenders who crashed into each other made incidental contact with Mahomes once he was on the ground, so replay assist couldn't be used in that circumstance to pick up the flag.
Anderson noted that the league's competition committee could revisit either infraction and tweak the rules this offseason.
Aikman, for one, would like to see the league crack down on flopping, as well.