Stingley makes big step in foot recovery
HOUSTON — There in the glow of another sweltering Texans training camp was a cooling sight: Derek Stingley Jr., the franchise’s No. 3 overall pick, fielding punts casually before the start of the team’s first public practice on Friday morning. Easy step left. Easy step right. A catch. A relaxed gait that offered promise for perhaps Houston’s most famous foot for the next month.
Stingley is expected to be ready for the Sept. 11 season opener against the Colts at NRG Stadium, coach Lovie Smith said Friday. The Texans are easing their rookie cornerback into full-go football as the team’s top firstround pick continues his monthslong return from a Lisfranc surgery on his left foot that cut short nearly the entirety of his final season at LSU.
Limitations remain on Stingley’s practice participation. General manager Nick Caserio and Smith are still calculating how much, if at all, Stingley (among other injured players) will play in the team’s three upcoming preseason games. For now, Stingley participated in most of practice except 11-on-11 team drills, just as he did during offseason workouts.
“He’s healthy,” Smith said. “You see him running around. We had him doing a few plays. He’s got in some plays each day. He’s on schedule.”
Caserio said Stingley’s status hasn’t changed since the Texans drafted him. The team’s sports performance group has been monitoring Stingley since he arrived in Houston, and Caserio said
some of the rookie’s metrics and data are “better than anybody on the team.”
“I wouldn’t say that he’s necessarily in a limited capacity,” Caserio said. “There’s just certain things that he hasn’t experienced yet (physically) that he’s going to have to go through.”
The Texans knew he’d have to recover after missing nearly a year of football, and Stingley partly quelled public concern at LSU’S pro day by running a 4.37-second 40-yard dash ahead of the draft. Stingley repeatedly said he felt “great” during the draft process, but that status won’t be solidly accepted until he finally reaches the field full time.
The rebuilding franchise has good reason to
be overly cautious. Stingley, who will likely be under contract for five seasons, will be the team’s No. 1 cornerback when available. Houston so desperately needed improvement at the position, Smith said shortly after he was promoted from defensive coordinator to head coach, that the Texans couldn’t play the type of football they wanted to play until they upgraded at cornerback.
Stingley is a pivotal part of Smith’s plans to restructure the secondary. The third-time NFL head coach, a defensive-oriented strategist who helped standardize Cover 2 schemes, hinted in the offseason the Texans were “looking forward” to doing “a few things differently” now that they had a
cornerback who could lock down the opponent’s best receiver. Security on one half of the field permits creativity on the rest, and second-round safety Jalen Pitre could range more freely as a hybrid defensive back with the support Stingley can provide.
There weren’t such luxuries last year. Coverage gaffes abounded on a 2021 defense that surrendered the league’s third-highest percentage of explosive pass plays (20-plus yards), according to Sharp Football Analysis. An unstable rotation of cornerbacks couldn’t provide the stability the Texans needed to carry out their various game plans against elite quarterbacks like Josh Allen (Bills), Matthew Stafford (Rams) and Russell Wilson (Seahawks), who
collectively helped outscore the Texans 111-35 in those three losses.
There are more threatening throwers on the 2022 schedule. Wilson again in Week 2 at Denver. Justin Herbert, when the Texans host the Chargers in Week 4. Just go ahead and make that the entire AFC West, which Houston must play this season, including the perennial powerhouse Chiefs and their substantially super signal-caller Patrick Mahomes.
Bottom line: the Texans need Stingley, and they need him healthy. The team has a little over two weeks to gauge the cornerback’s health before the preseason opener Aug. 13 against the Saints at NRG Stadium.
Even if Stingley is fully recovered by then, Caserio and Smith will have to decide how much they’re willing to risk injuring their top pick in an exhibition, versus how much onfield experience Stingley will need to recalibrate the physical and mental demands required to smoothly start in the season opener against the Colts.
The Texans must evaluate their depth at the position in training camp, anyway.
Houston has 10 cornerbacks under contract, and free agent additions Steven Nelson, Fabian Moreau and Kendall Sheffield will be jockeying for a No. 2 corner spot in which Nelson, a six-year primary starter for the Eagles, Steelers and Chiefs, seems to have the upper hand. Fielding two fringe players at once in Stingley’s absence could be fruitful.
Caserio said those training camp workload discussions “are ongoing.” The Texans won’t be practicing in full pads until Monday. Defensive end Jonathan Greenard (foot) and center Justin Britt (knee) are also still battling injuries that nagged them during OTAS. But Smith isn’t concerned about Stingley’s recovery timeline and is confident his cornerback can fulfill the role that will be waiting for him once he’s ready.
“We’re in Day 4 of training camp,” Smith said. “We’ve got plenty of time. Stingley eventually will get there. You can look at video and see he’s an elite athlete, got all the skills you’re looking for in a cornerback. His intellect. His brain. He gets it, just like that. Love where he is.”