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We’ve now hit the quarter mark of the season so you’ll be flooded with the generic posts about awards like the MVP, Defensive Player of the Year, Offensive Player of the Year, and so many other categories. So, instead of doing stuff you can find on any old website, I thought I would give out some new awards across the NFL for the first four games of the year:
Staying on Brand Award
Players work on things in the off-season and get better. They will add new moves or skill sets to showcase in the regular season. Some coaches will implement new plays or philosophies as they enter another season in the NFL. Bill O’Brien? Well, he’s stayed on brand with his coaching blunders entering year five and that’s pretty darn impressive. It seems like every young coach (McVay and Vrabel) in the game has talked about having somebody on staff that helps them with timeouts, challenges, etc., but not Bill. Bill is staying on brand and doesn’t care what you think about it because it’s not his job.
Runner-up: The Steelers horrible defense. We’re about two games away from Pouncey commenting on it.
I’ll Watch Your Game Award
Look, the Browns legit could be 4-0 right now. I know the "what if" game is horrible to play and you can’t assume anything in the NFL, but a decent kicker could have won games for the Browns. I’m not just saying this because of Hard Knocks, but this Browns team is hella fun to watch with Baker at QB. On Sunday I was more upset at the Texans going to overtime because it was eating into the Browns vs Raiders game. Baker has the ‘IT’ factor and I’ll enjoy it as much as I can before he is injured like every mobile QB ever in the history of the NFL.
Runner-up: Oakland Raiders. If you thought Texans football is bad, try the Raiders! It’ll give you a new appreciation for what we watch every Sunday here in Houston.
This Is For You, Roger! Award
We all have that one coworker that sucks up to the boss and does things where it’s only for his advancement and nothing else. That one worker in the NFL? The referee(s) that keep calling the horrible roughing the passer penalties against defensive players. Look, I get it, player, sorry QB, safety is important to the league, but some of these calls are just getting stupid. By the way, on Sunday after TY Hilton caught a pass and had a nice gain, he was tackled by McKinney who landed on him with his full weight. No penalty. I get it that it’s football and plays like that will happen, but the NFL sends the wrong message when defensive players aren’t allowed to do it to QBs, but they are to anybody else. I applaud you NFL Referee for staying true to the calls and making sure Roger Goodell notices how you’re protecting the league.
Runner-up: Clay Matthews on every sack. His is more out of spite, “THIS IS FOR YOU, ROGER! SCREW YOU!”.
You Make NFL Broadcasts Fun To Watch Award
I know our editor Fred Faour mutes games when he watches them, but this is the anti-Fred Muting Games Award. Monday Night Football is the go-to when we want to hate on a broadcast crew, but Booger McFarland has been awesome so far as the field analyst on MNF. His insight and passion for the sport has been tremendous so far in the season.
Runner-Up: Tony Romo. Yes, he’s still good in his second season.
Creepy Sports Media Award
EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US WIN THIS AWARD FOR ALWAYS BRINGING UP SEAN MCVAY’S GIRLFRIEND WHEN WE TALK ABOUT HIS TEAM. STOP IT! WE HAVE TO STOP MAKING CREEPY COMMENTS WHEN WE SEE ATTRACTIVE WOMEN.
Runner-up: Raheel Ramzanali for his weird fascination with Sean McVay.
The Echo Chamber Award
Ties are never fun. In fact, the NFL might have a problem with ties this season, but you know what sucks more than a tie? A FREAKING LOSS. Coaches always say how hard it is to win in the NFL, but they always forget to say how easy it is to lose because of a bad decision. I know the media echo chamber right now is all about how ballsy and manly Frank Reich is for going for it on fourth down in OT from his own side of the field, but please let’s stop it. I know him backing his decision after the game really helped start this whole. “Frank’s right, guys!” discussion, but you have to consider the best case and worst case in every major decision. Reich’s decision was the ultimate fail because with that much time left and an offense that you’d slowed down, you could’ve avoided a loss, but instead you gave the Texans life and they ended you.
Runner-up: Aaron Rodgers week 1 performance. Yeah he played on a bum knee, but he’s still playing on it and maybe it wasn’t that crazy of an injury after all? It was an unreal performance and honestly you expect nothing less from A-Aron, but the folklore like retelling of that game is going to be so bad in a few years because people will forget that he didn’t miss any time with the knee.
Y'all Are Such Haters Award
This goes to all the people that thought Mike Vrabel was going to be a horrible head coach because he was the coordinator of a defense that had major injuries to every position group last year. The Texans were bad last year and the defense took a major stepback after Vrabel became the coordinator and in spite of all of that, teams still wanted to make him as head coach. Vrabel has now beaten two of the final four teams left from last year’s playoffs (including the champs, duh!) and his team has no quit in them. Props to him!
Runner-up: Everyone that was rooting for FitzMagic to fail so you could tell people that you knew this was a fluke the entire time. Yes, he is now back to being a journeyman QB, but the amount of people rooting against him was weird. If anything, we should all be rooting for the underdog to succeed.
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After finishing up with the Guardians the Astros have a rather important series for early May with the Seattle Mariners heading to town for the weekend. While it’s still too early to be an absolute must-win series for the Astros, losing the series to drop seven or eight games off the division lead would make successfully defending their American League West title that much more unlikely.
Since their own stumble out of the gate to a 6-10 record the Mariners have been racking up series wins, including one this week over the Atlanta Braves. The M’s offense is largely Mmm Mmm Bad, but their pitching is sensational. In 18 games after the 6-10 start, the Mariners gave up five runs in a game once. In the other 17 games they only gave up four runs once. Over the 18 games their starting pitchers gave up 18 earned runs total with a 1.44 earned run average. That’s absurd. Coming into the season Seattle’s starting rotation was clearly better on paper than those of the Astros and Texas Rangers, and it has crystal clearly played out as such into the second month of the schedule.
While it’s natural to focus on and fret over one’s own team's woes when they are plentiful as they have been for the Astros, a reminder that not all grass is greener elsewhere. Alex Bregman has been awful so far. So has young Mariners’ superstar Julio Rodriguez. A meager four extra base hits over his first 30 games were all Julio produced down at the ballyard. That the Mariners are well ahead of the Astros with J-Rod significantly underperforming is good news for Seattle.
Caratini comes through!
So it turns out the Astros are allowed to have a Puerto Rican-born catcher who can hit a little bit. Victor Caratini’s pedigree is not that of a quality offensive player, but he has swung the bat well thus far in his limited playing time and provided the most exciting moment of the Astros’ season with his two-out two-run 10th inning game winning home run Tuesday night. I grant that one could certainly say “Hey! Ronel Blanco finishing off his no-hitter has been the most exciting moment.” I opt for the suddenness of Caratini’s blow turning near defeat into instant victory for a team that has been lousy overall to this point. Frittering away a game the Astros had led 8-3 would have been another blow. Instead, to the Victor belong the spoils.
Pudge Rodriguez is the greatest native Puerto Rican catcher, but he was no longer a good hitter when with the Astros for the majority of the 2009 season. Then there’s Martin Maldonado.
Maldonado’s hitting stats with the Astros look Mike Piazza-ian compared to what Jose Abreu was doing this season. Finally, mercifully for all, Abreu is off the roster as he accepts a stint at rookie-level ball in Florida to see if he can perform baseball-CPR on his swing and career. Until or unless he proves otherwise, Abreu is washed up and at some point the Astros will have to accept it and swallow whatever is left on his contract that runs through next season. For now Abreu makes over $120,000 per game to not be on the roster. At his level of performance, that’s a better deal than paying him that money to be on the roster.
Abreu’s seven hits in 71 at bats for an .099 batting average with a .269 OPS is a humiliating stat line. In 2018 George Springer went to sleep the night of June 13 batting .293 after going hitless in his last four at bats in a 13-5 Astros’ win over Oakland. At the time no one could have ever envisioned that Springer had started a deep, deep funk which would have him endure a nightmarish six for 78 stretch at the plate (.077 batting average). Springer then hit .293 the rest of the season.
Abreu’s exile opened the door for Joey Loperfido to begin his Major League career. Very cool for Loperfido to smack a two-run single in his first game. He also struck out twice. Loperfido will amass whiffs by the bushel, he had 37 strikeouts in 101 at bats at AAA Sugar Land. Still, if he can hit .225 with some walks mixed in (he drew 16 with the Space Cowboys) and deliver some of his obvious power (13 homers in 25 games for the ex-Skeeters) that’s an upgrade over Abreu/Jon Singleton, as well as over Jake Meyers and the awful showing Chas McCormick has posted so far. Frankly, it seems unwise that the Astros only had Loperfido play seven games at first base in the minors this year. If McCormick doesn’t pick it up soon and with Meyers displaying limited offensive upside, the next guy worth a call-up is outfielder Pedro Leon. In January 2021 the Astros gave Leon four million dollars to sign out of Cuba and called him a “rapid mover to the Major Leagues.” Well…
Over his first three minor league seasons Leon flashed tools but definitely underwhelmed. He has been substantially better so far this year. He turns 26 May 28. Just maybe the Astros offense could be the cause of fewer Ls with Loperfido at first and Leon in center field.
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) via YouTube: stone cold stros - YouTube with the complete audio available via Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.