San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Players past and present discuss rebuild
An airplane roared overhead. Whitney Mercilus paused until the echoes died within the Fleming Middle School courtyard, managing another unexpected disruption while he gripped the podium and tried to detail charity effort plans for which he’d no longer be easily present.
“As you know, I’ve been released,” the former Texans defensive end said, moments before a Tuesday ribbon cutting for a renovated kitchen for kids with disabilities. “So things are up in the air. Thank you for being with me as far as reading off my notes.”
Mercilus stepped inside the classroom. Cut the ribbon. Smiled as a line of children wound through island tables topped with bowls, rolling pins and spatulas.
This was the kind of day Mecilus said his mentors warned him about — the kind of day that reminds him the NFL is a business, that no matter his tenure, his salary size, his closeness to the community, his name was always destined to end up a blip on the league’s transaction wire.
But Mercilus can’t say he didn’t see this coming. First-year general manager Nick Caserio restructured the former 2012 first-round pick’s four-year, $54 million contract in March, which made his final two years voidable and essentially scheduled him to become a free agent after this season.
Mercilus started in the first two games then was relegated to a reserve role. His snap count share diminished 21 percent by Sunday’s 31-3 loss to the Colts. On Monday, Mercilus sat down with Caserio and coach David Culley and hashed out a mutual parting of ways: Mercilus could pursue playing for a contender; the Texans could focus on their younger, cheaper linemen.
The move can be viewed as a microcosm of what’s happening on Kirby Drive, a process that has intensified after five straight losses. On the same day Mercilus was released, the Texans cut 33-year-old return specialist Andre Roberts, whose punt (4.1) and kickoff (21.4) return averages were on pace to be his lowest in 10 years.
Culley denied the Texans are shifting focus to younger players overall. The franchise still employs one of the NFL’s oldest rosters, and Roberts, a former All-Pro, was one of the veterans
Caserio signed in the offseason to help instill a culture of competitiveness.
But cutting ties early with a respected player like Mercilus, whose 10 years in Houston warranted a departing press release from Texans chairman & CEO Cal McNair, is the first in-season signal that the push for an unrealistic playoff berth is over.
The Texans (1-5) arrive in Scottsdale, Ariz., 17-point underdogs to the Cardinals (6-0), and are at risk of losing seven straight games with the Rams (5-1) awaiting the following week.
The Colts and Chiefs sparked postseason runs after 1-5 starts within the last six years, but neither team fielded rookie quarterbacks or lost two games by four touchdowns. The 1970 Bengals remain the only team that recovered from a 1-6 start, and no 1-7 franchise has ever made the playoffs.
“It’s a rebuild phase, honestly,” said Mercilus, who signed with the Packers on Wednesday. “Implementing new cultures, philosophies. Getting who they want, who applies to their system schematically and philosophically as well. That’s what I see. Now, I don’t have their mind in the exact words what they want, as far as they were thinking. But I would say anybody can see that from the outside perspective.”
A painful reunion
J.J. Watt answered the
two questions simply.
When you were making your decision this offseason, because of the new coaching staff, did you get a sense that there would be this much turnover and maybe this is what the Texans’ season would look like this year?
A tilt of the head. A vocal filler.
“Yeah.”
Is that one of the reasons you decided to go somewhere else?
A swallow. A voice.
“Yeah.”
Thursday’s Zoom call with the five-time All-Pro and three-time Defensive Player of the Year whose trademark finger wag symbolized his 10 years of dominance in Houston was strange.
The Cardinals logos on the backdrop fit Watt like a Saints fleur-de-lis fit Earl Campbell.
Like a giant “G” fits Mercilus.
Watt and Mercilus share a similar arc. First-round picks in back-to-back years. Catalysts of the Texans’ first playoff berths. Survivors of a dismal 2013 season and key members of the franchise’s resurgence. Veterans who endured 2020’s fallout to eventually be released upon request.
“We were there during the best times the organization’s ever had,” Watt said, “and we’ve also been there for some of the most difficult times the organization’s ever had.”
Watt’s one-word admissions
crackling
didn’t break any news. He, like Mercilus, saw the rebuild coming.
That’s why Watt, whose productivity hasn’t decreased, requested a release in February.
The Texans, for their part, honored it.
“We felt doing the right thing by J.J. was important,” McNair said at the time.
That’s why this reunion is partly painful for Watt. The Cardinals represent what the Texans could have been. He’s once again teammates with DeAndre Hopkins, the three-time All-Pro wide receiver who was the central figure of one of the most lambasted trades in NFL history.
The Hopkins trade was the final stake in the heart of Houston’s AFC South dominance, when former coach and general manager Bill O’Brien exchanged a superstar receiver for a second-round pick, a swap for an earlier fourth-round pick and David Johnson, a pricey running back whose waning productivity proceeded into a 2020 season in which the Texans’ run game ranked second-tolast in the NFL.
O’Brien was fired after an 0-4 start. A year later, Watt, Hopkins and the Cardinals are 6-0, and the Texans’ new regime is still clearing away rubble for reconstruction and struggling to snap a five-game losing streak with sparse crowds at NRG Stadium.
“I would say that that’s one of the toughest parts for me is knowing how unbelievable
that fan base is and knowing how unbelievable that city is and the support that they show for the team when everything’s going great,” Watt said. “And it is, at its peak, a beautiful thing. And I wish that for that city. I know what it’s like, and I hope that someday that can happen again there.”
Coping with the losses
Johnson sat on his backyard swing for two hours sharing his life over the phone with someone he’s still never met.
That the conversation was going so easily surprised Johnson. In his profession, it’s difficult to speak with someone over the phone. He can’t read their expressions. He can’t sense their intentions.
But Johnson decided last year to give talking to a sports psychologist a chance. He’d tried so hard not to bring the negativity of his job home, the constant stress of being measured against a trade he didn’t ask for.
Still, after the losses, after the tolls from hits sustained for hollow yardage, Johnson found himself at home, tired and moody. He’d neglect his toddler son, D.J., who wanted to wrestle or play football or soccer. This persisted until his wife, Meghan, and his agent connected him with Sean-Kelley Quinn, a mental health coach who often works with athletes.
“He helped me a lot getting through everything that was going on last
year,” Johnson said. “Losing. The whole circumstance of the trade and just going through that. Having a new environment, a new team. Having to deal with that. Helping me really just figure out how to control it. How to get through it. How to manage it.”
Quinn’s message was simple, almost cliché: Don’t try to control what you can’t. The height of success and fame doesn’t shield anyone from humanity’s angst. It can intensify it. So, in return, magnify the focus on the present.
“Worry about the day,” Johnson said. “What you’re doing that hour. That minute. That 30 minutes. Warming up. Eating breakfast. Just worry about the moments and make sure that moment is good and not worry so much about the future.”
Johnson no longer holds sessions with Quinn. They spoke briefly earlier this week, just to catch up. Before the offseason, they established the foundation to manage any stress coming his way, any good coming his way.
Johnson is open about his mental health with teammates. He pushes against the fallacy that fighting and grinding and bottling emotions will solve everything.
This Texans season is becoming one that can exacerbate such problems. The team held a playersonly meeting two weeks ago to clamp down on ingame mental mistakes only for them to emerge again in a 31-3 loss against the Colts.
Multiple players have since made calls to action in press conferences, searching for answers and self-accountability in a circumstance that more than likely will test their emotional endurance further.
Johnson now knows how to handle this.
“I can’t control what the owners do, what the GM does,” he said. “I can’t control what Arizona does. Can’t control what everything’s going on with (Mercilus). So, I’ve just got to prepare myself. Learn the plays and get ready for Arizona.”