The Friday Stoots Six-Pack previews the 2019 Texans biggest storylines
Watt and Watson among best Texans storylines
Sep 6, 2019, 1:57 am
The Friday Stoots Six-Pack previews the 2019 Texans biggest storylines
Each Friday we will have the Stoots Six-Pack to get you through the workday and into the football weekend. If you missed the Big 12 report or any of my other writings you can find those here.
Today we use movies to describe the Texans storylines for this season. (NSFW language in some of the clips)
"I'm here to win games and provide for this team as much as I can."
— Houston Texans (@HoustonTexans) September 5, 2019
Hear from LT Laremy Tunsil. pic.twitter.com/0frzg7HOYX
Laremy Tunsil said all the right things.
"We don't want Deshaun to get touched 62 times."
Now he just has to do all the right things. This will be a perennial storyline for the next 48 regular season games and any potential playoff games. Tunsil will be compared and contrasted against hundreds of draft picks in the next few years. He will get a HUGE contract.
None of that matters if he balls out. If he plays well then nothing about his addition to the team matters. Not the picks or the big contract. Just be the Kevin Coster to Deshaun Watson's Whitney Houston.
(I wanted to put Whitney Houston singing "I Will Always Love You" but I thought that would be weird if someone didn't know that was from the movie.)
"Do you want to go sack Drew Brees in the Superdome?"
J.J. Watt and Whitney Mercilus are much smarter than Brennan and Dale but they are the sack brothers. The only two players that should be trusted or expected to rush the passer on a consistent basis. They have to have a huge year because there is nobody else to rely on at this point. Sure, others will get chances, but Watt and Mercilus will be leaned on.
If they can recapture the success of 2015 where they combined for 29.5 sacks the Texans should be able to piece together a few more sacks to account for the loss of Jadeveon Clowney.
Will Fuller has an potential replacement for his skills on the roster now. He's staring down potentially not getting a new deal and playing out his rookie deal. He's down, but he ain't out. He's. Not. Leaving.
Fuller has to be awesome this year for himself and for the Texans to finally reach their offensive potential. The Texans averaged 270 yards through the air in games Fuller played. They averaged 211 passing yards in games he didn't play. I'm not a big time stock trader but I can see the value in the Will Fuller stock here!
This is a pseudo make-or-break year for Fuller. He has to stay healthy. He has to play. And if he does? The Texans are going to be more dangerous than a guy selling you penny stocks promising big returns.
I feel like Johnathan Joseph is Martin Lawrence here. He could be out, and some might say should. But he's in it for life. Bradley Roby is the smooth and athletic Will Smith aka Mike Lowrey. Mike is a little wild, and does his own thing sometimes and he's running around and gets it done. Lawrence's Marcus Burnett doesn't move as well but he's way more level headed and helps get it done. (I'm pretty damn excited about this movie.)
These two defensive backs are keys to the secondary. I'm not worried about the safety position with Tashaun Gipson and Justin Reid. Even Jahleel Addae provides some key depth there. But the two starting corners are the key.
Joseph is 22 passes defensed from the all-time mark. He had 13 last year but he could easily climb into sole position of third place. He played pretty dang well last year. He had a slow start but Joseph ended up with the 15th best overall Pro Football Focus grade at cornerback and the 16th best coverage grade. If he starts fast, the Texans might be ok.
Bradley Roby took a one-year prove it deal and he may end up with the tougher assignments from time to time. He's a freak athlete and people I talked in Denver feel like there is still something there. Roby has to be good early as well as it doesn't appear rookie Lonnie Johnson is ready to roll right now. He will be soon, and could contribute down the road but it is Roby's task for now.
Let's be clear, Tytus Howard is not Tommy Callahan Jr. but I love Tommy Boy and I liked Tytus Boy for a movie-ish name so bear with me while I fit into this analogy like Farley fit into his clothes.
All eyes were on Tommy when he went out to sell those brakes. All eyes are on Tytus as he goes out there to play left guard. Ultimately, there was something there with Tommy and it took a little rough patch to get it out. By the end, Tommy saved the day and sold a lot of brakes. By the end, Tytus will pancake some fools and protect Deshaun Watson.
Howard is already seen as a failure by national media. This is a silly way to look at it. Drafting a starter in the first round on the offensive line is a huge win for the Texans. He ended up not being the left tackle and likely never will be. But if he is the left guard in 2019 and the right tackle after that or heck if he sticks at guard that's a huge success. Just like Tommy Boy was in the end.
I'm going to be honest, I have never seen this movie. But, the title was awesome and the internet loves it.
Bill O'Brien runs the show now. All the roster stuff is primarily behind him. The building is done. He has to get to coaching and making it happen on offense. He has to operate at a high level in key situations. Any of his previous issues with the clock or challenges and people will immediately point to too much being on his plate.
O'Brien will likely still call plays so with the increased talent on the offense can he maximize it? We have seen Watson and company at his best, and that was with a shaky offensive line. O'Brien improved it and now he needs to do the most he can with it. And his quarterback needs to do the most too.
Nothing, and I mean nothing, above matters if Deshaun Watson isn't good. Not the plays from O'Brien, the sacks from Watt or Tunsil and Howard blocking. When Watson gets the chance to be great, be great and see where the Texans go. They're sixth on this list but the biggest storyline this season.
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.