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The Houston Texans may not have an enormous fan base like the Dallas Cowboys or the Green Bay Packers, but no one will ever question their fans for not being passionate.
That was on full display recently, as Texans fans came out in droves to rip an NFL analyst for a rather strong take on one of Houston's defenders.
Sam Monson of The 33rd Team was recently discussing the Texans' trade for C.J. Gardner-Johnson and how it will affect their secondary, and he seems to believe that Houston wants to get safety Calen Bullock off of the field.
"He was, however, at the root cause of a lot of terrible plays within that defense, and this theoretically should get him out of the starting lineup," Monson said. "... Did you see the negative reel?"
Every time I listen to non-local analysts discuss the Texans, I’m reminded of how little they truly understand this team. #Texans pic.twitter.com/Q51YKAmWg2
— Evan Cervantes (@evancervantess) March 15, 2025
Not surprisingly, this drew a harsh reaction from the Houston faithful.
I wonder how many Texans games they watched last year. Over/under 1.
— Blake Plaster (@BlakeProperties) March 15, 2025
This guy clearly only remembers 1 play from the Chargers playoff game and that’s it.
— Sean (@_Sean_L) March 15, 2025
Holy horrible take... clearly didn't watch the team play
— Currysauce (@ICurrysauc3I) March 15, 2025
Bullock definitely had an impressive overall showing as a rookie, racking up 54 tackles, five interceptions and 11 passes defended.
However, one would be remiss to ignore Monson's overarching point: Bullock did have some issues in coverage this past year.
The 21-year-old registered a paltry 43.9 coverage grade over at Pro Football Focus, and there is no question that he gambled quite a bit in the secondary, which did result in some big plays.
Now, saying that the Texans need to get him off the field is probably a bit of an overstep. Bullock is incredibly young and clearly has immense potential, so there is no reason to believe that he can't improve next season.
More must-reads:
- Cowboys WR CeeDee Lamb sends strong message after tempers flare at training camp
- Commanders' Jayden Daniels discusses Terry McLaurin's holdout amid contract dispute
- The 'Single-season sack leaders by NFL team' quiz
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Tua Tagovailoa addresses relationship with Tyreek Hill after controversial comments
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Jaxson Dart had worst start imaginable at Giants training camp
The New York Giants officially opened training camp on Wednesday, and the good news for Jaxson Dart was that the rookie had nowhere to go but up after his first play of practice. Dart’s very first pass of 11-on-11 drills was intercepted by third-year cornerback Nic Jones. Dart stared his receiver down the entire way, and Jones showed the former Ole Miss star why doing so in the NFL is never a good idea. The whistle blew after the interception, but Jones would have taken it the other way for a touchdown had the play been live. Like any rookie quarterback, Dart is going to make plenty more mistakes in training camp. Brian Daboll and the Giants’ coaching staff will be more interested in how Dart bounces back from them. The Giants traded up to select Dart in the first round and are very high on his ability. They plan to bring him along slowly, which Daboll seemed to reiterate again on Wednesday. Dart led the SEC with 4,279 passing yards last season. He threw 29 touchdown passes and is known for having a strong arm, but throwing windows get significantly tighter in the NFL. Dart will learn that as he gains more experience.
Titans act quickly, replace retiring veteran
A day after watching their free-agent pass-rushing addition Lorenzo Carter announce his retirement, the Titans have moved on a body to replace him. According to Jordan Schultz of Fox Sports, Tennessee is signing veteran outside linebacker Jihad Ward. The Titans had been hoping that Carter’s veteran starting experience would help improve a defensive unit that tied for third-worst in the NFL in team sacks with only 32. Losing leading sack-getter Harold Landry this offseason — they released him when they were unable to find a suitable trade partner for him — didn’t help much in that regard, and Carter bowing out before training camp even started made the team’s job of improving that much more difficult. Ward’s never exactly been a world-beater, but his recent production is not all that far off from Carter’s. Both are on the larger size for defensive ends, as well, so Ward is a curiously fitting replacement for Carter coming in. Where Ward brings a bit more potential, though, is his ability to learn new systems. Whereas Carter had only played for two teams before signing with Tennessee, the Titans will be Ward’s eighth franchise, and he’ll just need a stint in Houston now to check the entire AFC South off his list. A second-round pick in 2016, Ward never quite lived up to his draft stock. The 13 games he started in his rookie campaign were the most in any season of his career, and they didn’t result in a single sack. After a left foot injury held him out of 10 contests in his second season, the Raiders traded Ward to Dallas, but the team waived him in final roster cuts. He landed on the Colts practice squad but was signed to the active roster a little over a week later. In six games of play, Ward recorded three sacks, but an ankle injury ended his season. Indianapolis re-signed him based on the potential he showed but ended up releasing him four games into the season. Over the next three seasons, Ward spent time coming off the bench for the Ravens and Jaguars, but in 2022, Ward signed with the Giants and earned a starting role on the defense. In two seasons with New York, Ward started 20 of 34 contests recording eight sacks, 12 tackles for loss, and 22 quarterback hits. He spent last season with the Vikings. He only made two starts while appearing in every game, and though he only recorded one sack, he was constantly getting to the passer with a career-high 14 quarterback hits. The starters for Tennessee will still be Arden Key and Dre’Mont Jones, and the team will still mainly be relying on Key, Jones and Jeffrey Simmons for their sack numbers, but Ward isn’t a decent depth piece to a defense that needs it. At worst, he’s a pretty perfect plug-and-play in lieu of Carter.
Five reasons the NHL's new 84-game schedule is a bad idea
“The NHL schedule is just too short!” said no one ever. In early July, the NHL and NHL Players’ Association ratified a four-year extension to their collective bargaining agreement through September 2030. The deal was rightfully praised as a win for the sport. After decades of bad blood and the lingering threat of labor stoppages, an extension — that kicks in for the 2026-27 season — arriving more than a year early speaks volumes on the health of the players’ relationship with the league. Amid the good vibes, it was easy to discount one small change with potentially significant consequences: an increase from 82 to 84 games in the NHL’s regular season. We’re diving into the league’s new schedule and considering the unforeseen impact of adding more games to a packed calendar. Here are five key reasons this subtle shift is an ill-timed cash grab by hockey’s power brokers. History of the schedule Before we get into the future schedule, it’s important to understand the league’s past. The visual below shows the maximum number of combined games a team has potentially been able to play across the regular season and postseason since expansion. Forcing more games out of the talent is far from a new idea. With the exception of abbreviated lockout and pandemic calendars — excluded above — the NHL’s schedule length had been the same since the mid-1990s. Teams currently play 82 regular-season games, while the Stanley Cup finalists can play another 28 if their four best-of-seven series go the maximum. That’s 110. The league briefly dabbled with an 84-game season schedule in 1992-93 and 1993-94 where teams played a pair of neutral-site games to serve as feelers for future expansion. It didn’t stick. For 30 years, everyone seemed to agree — the season was long enough. 82 games wedged into six-plus months and four grueling playoff rounds was plenty. Plus preseason games, All-Star weekends, and international events. Every cent had been squeezed, every sweat drop had been left on the ice. Until now… ✅ Arguments for Change Prior to picking apart the new 84-game version, the reasons supporting the additional games deserve their day in court. And there are reasons, sort of. It balances the schedule. 84 games ensures each team plays its division rivals exactly four times. Argument against: Ah, competitive balance. It’s a nice idea. But let’s be serious. If anyone had the slightest interest in fairness, the current playoff format would be scrapped. The NHL’s division-based bracket often features first-round series between elite teams. The format doesn’t reseed either, leading to easier postseason paths for weaker teams. We can’t pretend a balanced schedule matters. The preseason has been reduced by two games. You may be screaming that this is all noise as the new CBA has offset the preseason by two games — a net-zero change in game count. Argument against: Established veterans mostly sit out the exhibition calendar anyway, reluctantly drawing in for two or three low-intensity games to appease fans and shake off rust. Two intra-division games tacked onto the schedule don’t offset meaningless autumn skates that top players mostly watch from home. There is money to be made. Money is the only (real) reason for adding to the schedule. Two extra divisional matches sell more tickets, TV ads and draft beer. The owners and players share equally in any new hockey-related revenue. Argument against: Sure, 84 regular-season games generates more dollars than 82 games. So would 86 games. Or 100 games. A postseason play-in round would create “must-watch” games too. But where does this line of thinking end? Everyone signed off on the change. While we’re not privy to the details on whether scheduling was a contentious issue, both the NHL and NHLPA bilaterally agreed from negotiations. Argument against: The NFL added one game in 2021 to create a 17-game schedule. Many players still hate it. There’s now buzz of an 18th game. While money talks, sometimes leadership needs to save the players from themselves. ❌ Why 84 games is a bad idea The new CBA had its chance to prove to us more games is good for hockey. It hasn’t. Let’s get down to why this money-driven move shouldn’t have gone forward. 1. Players are finally getting healthier. While missed games aren’t a perfect measure to weigh frequency and severity of injury, it’s a reasonable proxy for player health. Enter NHL Injury Viz, which houses 25 years of player injury and illness data. I’ve normalized games missed by season for schedule length and team count over the past quarter-century, and the results are fascinating. From the visual, we can see that games missed have now dropped below pre-pandemic levels. Given the data counts injuries and illnesses that players actually miss games from, we can’t say that every single physical issue is factored. But we can conclude that in 2024-25, NHL players missed the fewest relative number of games in at least 23 years. In a league where players missing “only” 6,641 games is a positive trend, cramming in a few more tough matchups to juice a percentage point of revenue feels wrong. 2. We are wearing out our biggest superstars. No one is going to cry for Connor McDavid. He’s 28 years old and has earned just shy of $100 million in his 10-year career before endorsements. His next deal could push him near $20 million per season given the rising salary cap. Two more games shouldn’t wreck a finely tuned athlete. But consider his last two years. On top of the preseason schedule, McDavid faced 164 regular-season games (missed 21 due to injury), the midseason 4 Nations Face-off (scored the winning goal), plus two All-Star weekends (designed and won the 2025 skills event). He’s also played an additional 53 games of nasty postseason hockey with fewer than 90 days off each summer. That’s more than 230 game days in 21 months. While international best-on-best hockey is great for all of us, McDavid will fly to Italy and back for another six Olympic contests in February 2026. This compresses the NHL season further, resulting in 13 back-to-back outings for the Oilers, who have a famously exhausting travel schedule. With international play now slated as part of the league’s bi-annual calendar, do we need to drain the top guys further? 3. Load management is inevitable — if it hasn’t already started. Hockey fans famously chirp their basketball-loving pals about NBA talent skipping games. Hockey players would never sit out to rest. Well, we might test that theory soon. Every sport has a tipping point. In an NHL where 10 of 16 playoff teams can usually sleepwalk to the postseason, someone is going to implement the obvious benefit of load management. It may have crept in late last season… McDavid missed eight games in April with a lower-body injury. With a playoff spot secured, he was not rushed back, coasting to his 100th point in the season finale against the lowly San Jose Sharks. Leon Draisaitl, with the Rocket Richard Trophy locked, missed Edmonton’s final seven games with an undisclosed injury. He was fit enough to play the Oilers’ first playoff game, logging two points in 22:02. After leading NHL forwards in average ice time (22:47), reigning MVP Nathan MacKinnon sat the final three games with an undisclosed injury. It may have cost him the scoring title — he lost by five points to Nikita Kucherov — but ensured MacKinnon was well-rested for the postseason. While these might not be random Tuesdays in January, three of the league’s biggest stars may have quietly started a trend last spring. They were good with recovering slowly for the greater good. Goaltenders are already ahead of the curve to maximize performance — only five started 60 games last year. Will these two extra games, combined with a recurring international slate, finally push sport science in hockey to its inevitable conclusion? 4. The NHL product will get watered down. Logically, the longer the season, the less important each game becomes. The new CBA is effectively telling us that by adding to the calendar. It’s not good for entertainment purposes. Here’s why: Even if players don’t sit out, there is another consequence … they just don’t play as hard (gasp). Again, it’s two games. But we all know that feeling when you see your favorite team play the first minute of its first April playoff game. The elevated speed and physicality on that opening dump in where you lean toward the TV and nod at your buddy? This is what we give up with more games. Like you or I, athletes only have so much to give in a week, a month or a year. With ongoing talk of further expansion, more teams spread out talent. More games spread out intensity, further diluting the product. 5. The cap is already rising significantly. In the last decade, when the salary cap rose modestly — or not at all during the pandemic years — adding games to the schedule was a defendable lever to pull. Wealthy owners and athletes or not, things were ugly in the not-too-distant past. When would fans return to arenas? How much escrow were the players facing? Would league economics ever get back on track? While many dollars were lost from COVID, the rising salary cap tells a story of a league confident in economic resurgence. The cap ceiling is set to rise 29% from this past season by 2027-28. We saw the first signs of player compensation boosts in July as teams and player agents stickhandled their new reality. While free agents always get paid, they were paid this offseason given the generous cap space. Adding to the schedule as the cap quickly climbs feels like missing the forest through the trees. Conclusion: Adding two games to the calendar may not bring mass injuries, load management and a tired product overnight. But tipping points are difficult to identify in the moment. The new schedule also messes with recordkeeping and milestones, among other statistical issues. Much-needed labor peace is a win for anyone in hockey, yet even the biggest superfan would have to admit the season runs excessively long. At best, the NHL and NHLPA have taken a shortsighted risk. At worst, it could deliver a host of negative, unintended consequences.
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