Jonathan Joseph had a big grade last week. Bob Levey/Getty Images
Pro Football Focus grades each individual player's performance and assigns them a grade. All 32 teams use Pro Football Focus.
Each week we will take a look at some of the good and bad from the Texans and a look at the upcoming opponent as well. They also do great fantasy analysis and draft coverage as well. You can join Pro Football Focus here.
Johnathan Joseph - 92.3 Defensive Grade
Besting his season-best from last week Joseph jumped up 12 points for his new season-best defensive grade. He allowed just four catches on 10 attempts for 51 yards. He, of course, had the game-winning score for the Texans as well. Joseph had a history of knocking off the rust a few weeks into the season.
Deshaun Watson - 32.4 Offensive Grade
His worse game since New England. He only had one scramble in this game which could be him taking care of himself but that is part of an element of his successfulness as a quarterback. Two interceptions hurt the grade and with Jacksonville coming up this isn't the time to be struggling to throw the ball.
Zach Cunningham - 90.7 Defensive Grade
This is by far his best game of the season. He had 12 tackles to go along with just two yards allowed when he was targeted by the opposing offense. Cunningham is warming up with his two best grades of the season the past two weeks and with a team that will have to run the ball to keep Bortles from hurting them he could clean up again.
Julie'n Davenport - 21.8 Pass Blocking Grade
This was not a good one for Davenport after he was decent the week before. He allowed nine total pressures resulting in three sacks. With Jacksonville's furious pass rush coming up, they're the sixth best according to PFF, Davenport is going to have to get a lot better in a hurry.
Blake Bortles - 70.3 Offensive Grade (Season)
He is the 20th best quarterback when it comes to grading out regular starters in the league. He's coming off his worst yardage performance of the season as the Cowboys stuffed the Jaguars offense at every turn. He's tied for the league lead in interceptions with eight, five of them in the past two weeks. He's the third most in quarterback scrambles though so the Texans need to keep an eye out for him bailing himself out.
Jacksonville Jaguars - 68.3 Coverage Grade (Season)
This is startling when you consider they were the second best in the league last season with 93.9 coverage grade. I was shocked when I saw them 17th in the league in coverage grade. Jalen Ramsey and A.J. Bouye are having huge down years so far compared to their normal production. Safety Barry Church is playing the worst he has played in three years. They have just three interceptions after finishing second last year with 21 total. There are some holes to be taken advantage of for sure. Their pass rush is down too, they are sixth so far this year, but that is only a slight drop off from last year when they were the best compared to the coverage drop off.
As always, you can join Pro Football Focus here.
It’s been an excellent weeklong stretch of games for the Astros tempered by the news of yet another season-ending injury to a starting pitcher. To get the bad news out of the way, it comes as no surprise that Ronel Blanco needs Tommy John surgery and is done until at least the middle of next season. While Blanco had not been nearly as good through nine 2025 starts as he was last season, he was still taking his regular return and on average getting into the sixth inning. Blanco turns 32 years old at the end of August. He’s not even salary arbitration-eligible until 2027. That last fact may be good news for him. The Astros will likely keep Blanco next year in hopes he can contribute in the second half of the season, since they will pay him barely the Major League minimum salary ($780,000 next year) That’s in contrast to Jose Urquidy, who in the midst of his salary arbitration years would have cost about three and a half million dollars to keep, so the Astros non-tendered him.
With Blanco joining Hayden Wesneski in the “See you next year! Hopefully.” club, it struck me as interesting that the Astros let Lance McCullers throw 102 pitches in his Wednesday outing vs. the Athletics. That’s eleven more than he had thrown in any of his prior four starts. McCullers holding up physically would be a huge boost, but the two essentials in the Astros’ rotation are Framber Valdez and Hunter Brown. Framber has settled in to the tune of a 1.93 earned run average over his last four starts. Brown’s season ERA is 2.00. Brown has had five days of rest before all eleven of his starts this season. This Sunday is Brown’s presently next scheduled outing. He would work on four days of rest if on the mound Sunday against the Rays.
Taking the last two games from the Mariners was huge (for the second half of May anyway). Keeping the good times rolling by sweeping the two-game miniseries from the A’s was less significant but still nice. Maybe not quite nice enough to have Frank “The Tank” from the movie Old School belting out “We’re going streaking!!!” but it did give the Astros their first four game winning streak of the season. They still have not lost more than three straight.
On a heater!
Speaking of streaking, time for annual mention of one of my all-time favorite baseball factoids. The 1916 New York Giants hold the MLB record for the longest win streak with an incredible 26 in a row. Earlier in the season the Giants ripped off 17 in a row. Combine the two streaks and that’s 43-0! The 1916 New York Giants finished in fourth place. In all their other games the Giants went 43-66. The American League’s longest ever winning streak is of fairly recent vintage. The 2007 Cleveland Indians won 22 straight. There have been only two other winning streaks since 1900 of at least 20 games. The 1935 Chicago Cubs won 21 straight. The Art Howe-managed 2002 Oakland A’s won 20 in a row, and were the inspiration for the movie Moneyball. The Astros have three 12 game winning streaks as the longest in their history.
Expect the unexpected
Tuesday’s win over the A’s brought the Astros to the one-third completed point of the regular season. Isaac Paredes was definitely their best offensive player to that milepost. His “on pace for” numbers were the best on the ballclub 33 home runs and 93 runs batted in. Paredes also led in runs scored with 29. The last Astro to lead the team in all three of those categories was Alex Bregman who did it in both 2018 and 2019. That Bregman was clearly a better player than this Paredes, but Isaac healthy and making “only” 6.625 million dollars this season is a heck of a lot better value than Bregman at 40 mil for the Red Sox, especially given that while Bregman was off to a sensational start for Boston, he’s now out for at least a month with a quad injury.
Hunter Brown is on pace to win 20 games. The last Astro to get there was Gerrit Cole on the last day of the 2019 regular season. The day before that Justin Verlander won his 21st game.
The Cleveland Guardians’ bullpen was awesome last season, by far the best in the league with four relievers who each pitched in at least 74 games posting ERAs of 1.92 or lower, headlined by closer Emmanuel Clase’s microscopic 0.61. One-third of the way through this season for the Astros: Bryan Abreu sat at 1.90, Steven Okert 1.82, Josh Hader 1.57, Bryan King 1.52.
For Astro-centric conversation, join Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and me for the Stone Cold ‘Stros podcast which drops each Monday afternoon, with an additional episode now on Thursday. Click here to catch!
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