Texans morning huddle: Watt is hungry, Rice isn’t coming
By Randy Gurzi
The Houston Texans are only one day away from making their 2015 preseason debut at home against the San Francisco 49ers. Football is about to be in full swing yet again Texans fans! It is a great feeling, one that can only be celebrated by catching up on all things related to Texans football! Enjoy today’s morning huddle;
Bacon-wrapped chicken? Texans’ J.J. Watt eats around 9,000 calories to fuel – by Tania Ganguli of ESPN
"His speed was right, his form was right, and J.J. Watt being J.J. Watt, he wouldn’t let himself mentally quit on a workout he knew he could do.Watt’s body lagged behind his mind, though. Having trained the Houston Texans defensive end since high school, Brad Arnett noticed something was wrong during that workout back in February. Watt also noticed. He knew his body well enough to know it just didn’t feel right.“My body was grabbing for something that wasn’t there,” Watt said. “It was trying to fuel itself with no fuel.”What was missing? Fat. Cheat days. Tasty things.If he ate eight chicken breasts in one meal, Arnett suggested he wrap three of them in bacon. Daily. That meant adding mashed sweet potatoes, more pasta, fish, olive oil and coconut oil in his cooking and avocados.“I started crushing avocados,” Watt said.His calorie count rose to somewhere between 6,000 and 9,000 calories per day, depending on how active he was each day. Watt opted to keep his own meal plan a secret, but it would take about 50 slices of bacon, 20 chicken breasts and 13 whole avocados to reach 9,000 calories."
Texans owner Bob McNair lukewarm on idea of signing Ray Rice – by Tania Ganguli of ESPN
"Despite having lost star running back Arian Foster for several weeks because of an injury, Texans owner Bob McNair indicated he would still be hesitant to sign free-agent running back Ray Rice.“I think I’d want to talk with our players, and I don’t know that that’s something that they would like,” McNair said Thursday. “We want people that fit in our locker room. As I said, it’s all about teamwork. And look, we’ve got four good running backs. I don’t know that he’s as good as any of the four we’ve got. I don’t see anybody else trying to sign him, so I think that’s a pretty good indication of where he stands.”Rice has not played in the NFL since the 2013 season, when he rushed for 660 yards on 214 carries in 15 games. He missed the entire 2014 season once the Baltimore Ravens released him after video surfaced of him punching his then-fiancee and now wife, Janay Palmer, in an elevator.McNair emphasizes character on his team — the Texans have had only one arrest in the past five seasons. In the past, McNair has said there is some room for judgment calls, but he has a zero-tolerance policy for players who abuse women.“We don’t expect people to be perfect,” McNair told ESPN.com in March. “But we don’t want people that are going to be abusing other people and are undisciplined.”"
O’Brien, Texans work on “situational football” – by Drew Dougherty of HoustonTexans.com
"Thursday’s practice was different, and not just because it was inside.The Texans spent the morning working on ‘situational football’.In the air-conditioned Houston Methodist Training Center, head coach Bill O’Brien and the team went through the day’s work a little differently.“Working more situational football, trying to help these guys understand the situation of the gamebetter, trying to help our coaching staff continue to be on the same page in the different situations of the game,” O’Brien said.Instead of going through the normal regiment of practice, O’Brien would put the offense, defense and special teams in situations they don’t typically experience.He’d call out a down, distance, and clock time, and the unit would have to react. Sometimes it meant stopping the clock. Other times, depending on the situation, it meant taking two shots at the end zone with a limited amount of time to execute plays.“Coach loves that, coach loves situational football,” receiver Cecil Shorts, III said. “That is what football is. There will be a lot of situations that come up in a game that he wants us to be ready for it so we were doing this even in OTA’s and stuff like that. It’s no surprise.”"
DeAngelo Hall takes spat with Hopkins to Twitter, loses again – by Zac Jackson of ProFootballTalk.com
"One of the highlights of the first episode of Hard Knocks: Houston Texans was a scene from the Texans-Redskins joint practices in Richmond showing Texans wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins and Redskins cornerback DeAngelo Hall coming nose to nose while exchanging pleasantries before being shoved away by teammates.Later, the cameras caught Hopkins and Hall going one-on-one in a football setting. Hall slipped while backpedaling and didn’t get up. Hopkins turned, caught the pass and turned a routine play into a celebratory moment when he noticed Hall was still on the ground.Hall was injured on the play and didn’t return to action. Hopkins — and several nearby Texans teammates — let Hall hear about it, yelling things about broken ankles and shattered pride and generally touching on what a nice gentleman Hall was.The incidents making the cut of a national TV series left Hall with a bruised ego in addition to the strained groin muscle he apparently suffered on the play.Thursday morning, Hall tweeted: “When the highlight of your career is catching a 10 yd pass on a DB while he slips and you feel like you did something. #SadDayInFootball.”Hopkins jabbed back via his Twitter account 25 minutes later: “Hope treatment going well.”The referee should stop this fight."