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.
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A lockout appears unavoidable! Photo via: Wiki Commons.
Looming over baseball is a likely lockout in December 2026, a possible management push for a salary cap and perhaps lost regular-season games for the first time since 1995.
“No one’s talking about it, but we all know that they’re going to lock us out for it, and then we’re going to miss time,” New York Mets All-Star first baseman Pete Alonso said Monday at the All-Star Game. “We’re definitely going to fight to not have a salary cap and the league’s obviously not going to like that.”
Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred and some owners have cited payroll disparity as a problem, while at the same time MLB is working to address a revenue decline from regional sports networks. Unlike the NFL, NBA and NHL, baseball has never had a salary cap because its players staunchly oppose one.
Despite higher levels of luxury tax that started in 2022, the World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets have pushed payrolls to record levels. The last small-market MLB club to win a World Series was the Kansas City Royals in 2015.
After signing outfielder Juan Soto to a record $765 million contract, New York opened this season with an industry-high $326 million payroll, nearly five times Miami’s $69 million, according to Major League Baseball’s figures. Using luxury tax payrolls, based on average annual values that account for future commitments and include benefits, the Dodgers were first at $400 million and on track to owe a record luxury tax of about $151 million — shattering the previous tax record of $103 million set by Los Angeles last year.
“When I talk to the players, I don’t try to convince them that a salary cap system would be a good thing,” Manfred told the Baseball Writers’ Association of America on Tuesday. “I identify a problem in the media business and explain to them that owners need to change to address that problem. I then identify a second problem that we need to work together and that is that there are fans in a lot of our markets who feel like we have a competitive balance problem.”
Baseball’s collective bargaining agreement expires Dec. 1, 2026, and management lockouts have become the norm, which shifts the start of a stoppage to the offseason. During the last negotiations, the sides reached a five-year deal on March 10 after a 99-day lockout, salvaging a 162-game 2022 season.
“A cap is not about a partnership. A cap isn’t about growing the game,” union head Tony Clark said Tuesday. “A cap is about franchise values and profits. ... A salary cap historically has limited contract guarantees associated with it, literally pits one player against another and is often what we share with players as the definitive non-competitive system. It doesn’t reward excellence. It undermines it from an organizational standpoint. That’s why this is not about competitive balance. It’s not about a fair versus not. This is institutionalized collusion.”
The union’s opposition to a cap has paved the way for record-breaking salaries for star players. Soto’s deal is believed to be the richest in pro sports history, eclipsing Shohei Ohtani’s $700 million deal with the Dodgers signed a year earlier. By comparison, the biggest guaranteed contract in the NFL is $250 million for Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen.
Manfred cites that 10% of players earn 72% of salaries.
“I never use the word `salary’ within one of `cap,’” he said. “What I do say to them is in addressing this competitive issue that’s real we should think about whether this system is the perfect system from a players’ perspective.”
A management salary cap proposal could contain a salary floor and a guaranteed percentage of revenue to players. Baseball players have endured nine work stoppages, including a 7 1/2-month strike in 1994-95 that fought off a cap proposal.
Agent Scott Boras likens a cap plan to attracting kids to a “gingerbread house.”
“We’ve heard it for 20 years. It’s almost like the childhood fable,” he said. “This very traditional, same approach is not something that would lead the younger players to the gingerbread house.”