The first day of practice had me worried. But yesterday's second practice looked a lot better.

DeAndre Hokins ended his holdout and J.J. Watt was seen in street clothes hanging out with the fans most of the time. Hopkins said his focus is on having a big year and helping the Texans reach Super Bowl 51 inside that building (he pointed towards NRG Stadium from the practice field), and he's not going to hold out as a distraction. Although technically he did hold out for half a day. LOL

J.J. Watt told everybody not to worry. He'll be ready to play Week 1 versus the Bears on September 11.

Watt was even joking around that he may play a few series in the final preseason game against the Dallas Cowboys, just to get some game action, on September 1. But then Bill O'Brien walked over and cut him off during the interview and said, "We will save this monster for the Bears. He won't play versus Dallas in the preseason!"

Brock Osweiler looked good slinging the ball around to Hopkins, Will Fuller, Braxton Miller and Jaelen Strong yesterday.
The timing seems to be quite good so far for the limited time these guys have been together. But everybody looks good in training camp.

Kurt Warner from the NFL Network was at the Texans practice covering the team and he had a lot of praise for Brock Osweiler. The Hall of Famer did say that Brock has a lot of growing to still do, mentioning his lack of NFL starts and how he's still an unknown around the league. But Kurt Warner believes that Brock Osweiler can become special and has elite potential once he fully understands his leadership role. Just a lack of experience right now but that can be accelerated with a phenomenal playmaker like DeAndre Hopkins.

Undoubtedly, Kurt Warner was asked about the great speed the 2016 Texans have at wide receiver with DeAndre Hopkins, Will Fuller and Braxton Miller. And if it compared to that special "greatest show on turf" that the 1999 Rams had with Isaac Bruce, Tory Holt and Az-Zahir Hakeem. And Warner smiled and said, "If I were still young enough to play in this league with that tremendously fast group I'd be doing back flips all the time. I would love to throw the ball to these guys and put up Playstation type numbers again. I definitely think Brock has a chance to succeed here in Houston"

Warner even said don't let the fact that Will Fuller and Braxton Miller are rookies lessen your expectations. Mentioning that the great Tory Holt was a rookie on that 1999 Rams team that won the Super Bowl. Producing nearly 800 yards receiving and 6 TDs. Warner said that rookie wide receivers still have the ability to make big plays, and it's all about Brock Osweiler developing trust in those two speedsters.

I'm just ready for September 11 when the Texans host the Bears during Week 1 of the 2016 season.
Until then it's all sexy talk. All fun and games mostly. I'm ready for the Brock Osweiler era to begin!!

DeAndre Hopkins has caught regular-season passes from eight different quarterbacks in his brief NFL career.
ESPN.com had an article this morning showing his production with each of the quarterbacks he has played with.

DOES IT MATTER WHO PLAYS QB IN HOUSTON?



Apparently not to DeAndre Hopkins, who seems to catch everything in sight regardless. ESPN Stats & Info breaks it down.

LOL, what's a little funny about that Tom Savage stat. I think it was a 53-yard pass to Hopkins.
And then on the next play he had gotten hurt and left the game. Savage is always injured.

Brock Osweiler will become the ninth quarterback to throw DeAndre Hopkins a regular-season pass.
Let's hope he's the one that sticks around for a very long time. Into the next decade and beyond.

Adam Schein from CBS Sports: One of the few national guys that I enjoy listening to.



Randy Moss was at the Texans practice yesterday hanging out with DeAndre Hopkins.
I wish we could make Randy Moss ten years younger and he could play on the opposite side. LOL



The Texans play at San Francisco on Sunday Night. 7 PM Eastern.
The NFL Network will air it Nationally. I'll watch it locally on ABC-13.

Even though the Texans had won 24-13 at San Francisco, I was very disappointed with what I had seen from the first-team offense and defense against the 49ers in that first preseason game. They weren't able to consistently move the ball for first downs on offense. I didn't really want to discuss it or make a big deal out of a worthless preseason game.

It is what it is. I don't think anybody should be wasting time discussing these preseason games but I will for a minute or two.

Brock Osweiler was 4-for-7 passing and he looked a little timid on some of his "under pressure throws" to our rookie wideouts. He was only in there for the first quarter but he was sacked once and didn't sustain any long drives. It was three and out before punting on two of our first three series. Our pass protection has to greatly improve. We ended up giving up three sacks total in the game (Savage was sacked twice).

And DeAndre Hopkins only played two series (no catches) so it wasn't like our offense was trying to wow anybody. But I don't feel like the 49ers have a good starting defense and we struggled to move the chains on them. I felt like we should have came out a lot more effectively on offense but instead we looked pretty bad.

Granted, that was to be expected running a basic offense (vanilla plays) but I would have liked to have seen Brock Osweiler have some more success. He didn't really throw the ball deep or utilize a no-huddle offense. There wasn't any big-pressure situations for him. This game felt more like a scrimmage than a preseason game. I felt our tempo offensively was that of a bad zombie-like movie. Guys were just moving way too damn slow on offense and our offensive line was pretty bad.

The starting defense looked sloppy all around. Poor tackling and a weak secondary, but we had several starters not playing, including J.J. Watt and Jadeveon Clowney. I think Blaine Gabbert is a horrible quarterback and our defense made him look really good. I'm actually shocked the 49ers didn't score two or three Touchdowns on us in the first half. They had a red zone fumble and another fumble near midfield (two turnovers) costing them some more points.

I was expecting to see more out of Brock Osweiler, Lamar Miller, Will Fuller and Braxton Miller (he played alright).
Our young guys will improve with more reps and playing time. Jaelen Strong is looking a lot better than he did last year.

Our starting offense has a lot of work to do before the regular-season opener on September 11 against the Chicago Bears.

A couple of bright spots: Undrafted rookie tight end, Stephen Anderson out of California, had a nice Touchdown catch. That kid looks like a red zone difference maker because he can create separation in tight spaces. He will make the team if we carry three tight ends.

And undrafted rookie kicker, Ka'imi Fairbairn out of UCLA, displayed a nice leg, He drilled his only field goal attempt (45-yarder with accuracy and plenty of leg). He has a good chance to beat out Nick Novak for the starting kicker spot, IMO.

I loved it when we signed him because he had won the Lou Groza Award last year as the nation's best kicker.
I'm really shocked a team didn't draft him in the third or fourth round. He went undrafted and that dude can kick!

Overall, all the 24-13 win at San Francisco proved to me is that the Texans have better depth than the 49ers.

I hope to see a better effort from our starters on Saturday Night against the Saints here in Houston. A better test will probably be the third preseason game, when our starters play two or three quarters, against a damn good Arizona Cardinals team. But so far we played a weak 49ers team and our starters failed to impress me.

But all and all I'm trying to remain open minded and relaxed until the regular season starts. Until then nothing really matters. Even if we go 4-0 in the preseason it's worthless and doesn't really do anything worthwhile for us. It doesn't count in the standings. I'm more concerned with our starting offense and defense playing better football.

The Houston Texans have some nice depth at most positions. I would argue this is the deepest team, in all three phases of the game (offense, defense, special teams) that we have ever had since our expansion season in 2002. But the problem is most of that talent is still young and inexperienced.

If we suffer some key injuries this season we can probably still win some games. We're in an okay spot because I remember when we used to have awful depth like some of the bad teams around the league like the San Francisco 49ers have right now.

I think the Texans are in that upper echelon of teams in terms of overall talent. When healthy we should have a top 5 defense and our young offense has the potential to be really quick and explosive. They have to amp up their urgency level several notches though. They looked very slow the other night.

And special teams wise, this may be our best special teams unit in franchise history. I'm definitely excited about our kicking game for the first time ever: Ka'imi Fairbairn is the real deal. He should have gotten drafted but I'm glad he wasn't.

This post was edited by Madmartigan on Aug 16 2016 03:32am

Brock Osweiler had thrown a nice 19-yard "touch pass" into the end zone to the rookie Will Fuller for a Touchdown.
Fuller's speed down the side line is second to none. Even in the red zone (limited space) he's able to create enough separation.

But that's all there is to write about so far. Neither team has done much offensively through the first quarter...

These first two preseason games against the 49ers and Saints, are against bad teams, IMO.
I think the Saints could be a decent 7-9 or 8-8 team this season. They still have an aging Drew Brees at quarterback.

I'm just not sure if the Texans are where they need to be right now. We need to play a good team so I can find out just how much work they have to do to become a legitimate playoff contender. We clearly weren't one last year getting spanked 30-0 by the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC wild-card game. The fact is we had won a bad division and we weren't ready to play with the better teams in the conference.

And obviously without J.J. Watt right now our defense shouldn't be any good. They've looked okay so far forcing some turnovers. But we're definitely giving up too many passing yards. It's the turnovers that have saved us so far against the 49ers and Saints.

Truth be told, I was hoping a bad Saints team would blow us out tonight just so we can have some adversity even in the preseason. You can learn a lot more from losing sometimes and I feel that 24-13 win last week against the 49ers, and a 7-0 lead after the first quarter over the Saints so far tonight, don't really tell the whole story.

There's a false sense that the Texans are playing some good football right now. More like the other team is just bad.
I don't think the Texans are playing well enough to beat a good team yet. LOL. The scoreboard can lie sometimes!

Drew Brees just threw an interception to Johnathan Joseph. The third turnover of the game for the Saints.

We'll see a better test when the Houston Texans host the Arizona Cardinals next Sunday. That will be a nationally televised game on FOX, and the starters should play the entire first half and maybe into the third quarter of that game. And that's going to be against a quality opponent which is what the Texans need right now. I'm tired of seeing them play nothing but bad teams. It's hard to improve when you don't play a good team.

I'm surprised the Saints still have Drew Brees in the game in the second quarter.
The announcers just mentioned that he only completed one pass against the Patriots last week.

He's not looking good tonight. Jadeveon Clowney just sacked Drew Brees with a vicious sack. A 14-yard loss.

Yikes, Brees better not get injured. He's getting lit up right now! And Watt isn't even playing. It's all Clowney and Mercilus.
Drew Brees is an old man now. He can't take big hits like that anymore. Sean Payton is foolish for keeping him in the game.

I think the Saints are a bad team but they could still go 7-9 or 8-8 with Drew Brees.
Without him they'll get the #1 pick in the 2017 NFL Draft.

The Saints just took Drew Brees out of the game. Luke McCown is in the game now.

Good call Mr. Sean Payton.

And ironically, Luke McCown is looking a lot better than Drew Brees did.
The Saints may actually score some points now. Our defense is having a poor series.

We need Super-Watt in there. That Saints offensive line looks weak. We should be dominating it every snap!

This post was edited by Madmartigan on Aug 20 2016 07:07pm

1:28 to 1:34 they show the Brock Osweiler to Will Fuller Touchdown.
That was the only Touchdown in the game: 16-9 Texans win over the Saints.




Will Fuller finished the game with 4 catches for 73 yards receiving and 1 TD.
The other rookie wideout with blazing speed, Braxton Miller, had 3 catches for 33 yards.
It's fun watching the progression of those two guys because they're both playmakers.

The old veteran Nick Novak wants to win the starting job at kicker: He was a perfect 3-for-3 field goals (1-1 extra point), including a 49-yard field goal. He's trying to beat out the 22-year-old rookie with the explosive leg, Ka'imi Fairbairn.

The Houston Texans have never had a healthy kicking competition, EVER, in their 12 years of existing preseason games and training camp. I still think the youngster offers a better future. We should see Ka'imi Fairbairn kick against the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday.

Sunday's Texans versus Cardinals game will be nationally televised on FOX: 4 PM Eastern.
I'm excited to see what we can do against a good team. And our starters will play into the second half.

Also it was nice to see Jadeveon Clowney back on the field and getting some snaps. He had 2 tackles and 1 sack for a 14-yard loss as he chased down Drew Brees. He almost tallied a safety on the play. I'm not sure what Brees was thinking on the play. LOL. Jadeveon Clowney made his presence felt during his limited time on the field. It was his first live game since last December. He still has a lot of work to do but he's on the right track.

Brian Cushing had a strong game at middle linebacker. It looked like the All-Pro Cushing of old.
He only played one quarter but he had 6 solo tackles and one pass deflection (very active).

He's 29 years old but he played in all 16 games last year for the first time in four years.
That was after he came off two serious ACL injuries in back-to-back years. So perhaps Cushing can become a beast again.

If J.J. Watt is able to come back healthy (he's still targeting a Week 1 return versus the Bears) and Jadeveon Clowney and Whitney Mercilus continue to provide a consistently good pass rush, and Brian Cushing is as good as I think he can be, I believe the Houston Texans front seven has a chance to become one of the better ones in the entire league.

Last season Watt (17.5 sacks) and Mercilus (12 sacks) ranked near the top of the NFL as a duo.
And that was with opposing offenses double teaming Watt every other passing down...

So if those two guys have some more help this year the Houston Texans defense could become top 3 in the entire league.

this is the exact reason i did not keep the titans thread going

this is fucking sad

pretty sure more people like ryan than you, which is just sad