TWEETS AND TAKES

Twitter has its character limit and that’s just fine. But sometimes a little more elaboration is called for …

1/4/17 Dale Robertson @sportyWHINEguy Amazing, but you can’t fit the Texans’ 3-season QB progression under BOB in a single tweet with intro. So, here’s the intro ...

1/4/17 Dale Robertson @sportyWHINEguy Fitzy, Mallett, Fitzy, Savage, Keenum, Hoyer, Mallett, Hoyer, Weeden, Yates, Hoyer, Osweiler, Savage, Osweiler. In 3 9-7 seasons. #crazy

My take then: You expect the really bad teams to go through this, but there surely has never been a franchise that finished above .500 three consecutive years — and made the playoffs twice — forced to make 13 changes at the most important position on the football field. The combined body of work has been shockingly unimpressive, to say the least. Ryan Fitzpatrick’s numbers in the 45-21 victory over the Titans in 2014 — 24-for-33, 358 yards, 6 TDs, 0 picks and a 147.5 rating — stick out like a sore thumb. Only Brian Hoyer, with 312 in a 27-20 loss to the Colts in 2015, has also surpassed 300 yards in a game. That’s twice in 49 starts. By comparison, Drew Brees did it 10 times in 2016 and Matt Ryan six. My take now: This year, of course, it has been Tom Savage, Deshaun Watson, Savage, T.J. Yates, Taylor Heinicke and Yates at quarterback. That’s five more changes for a total of 18 in Bill O’Brien’s four years, and the current team can’t even see .500 from where it sits. But there’s a happy asterisk to the current mess. Watson averaged almost 300 yards over his final five starts before his ACL snapped. At least the Texans know they finally have a for-real quarterback in the mix, assuming he returns as the same guy we saw in September and October.

1/17/17 Gil Brandt @Gil_Brandt Hypothetically, wonder what J.J. Watt would be worth in trade market. Texans finished No. 1 on D mostly w/ out him, need help on O. . .

My take then: Bite your tongue, Gil! Then again, hmm ... Except the No. 1 thing is, again, almost a smoke-and-mirrors. The Texans were terrible when it came to causing turnovers until Quintin Demps went on late interception tear and they still finished tied for 26th, ahead of only five teams that won a combined 16 games. Their 17 takeaways were half as many as the defense had forced in 2014, Romeo Crennel’s first season. They also wound up in the bottom quarter of the league in sacks. Watt averaged 15 over his first five seasons, twice as many as Whitney Mercilus’ team-high 7½ in 2016. While the argument can be made that Watt does so much so well that it stifles everyone around him, you take your chances with that. Finally, nobody knows what kind of player Watt will be after a second back surgery and that would seemingly diminish his trade value dramatically. My take now: With Watt making only eight starts these past two seasons, the Texans have forced a scant 33 turnovers in 31 games, which is, again, one fewer than they totaled in the 2014 season alone, when Watt was winning his second NFL Defensive MVP award. If you’re 29th in turnovers (27) and 25th in turnovers forced (16), you should be 4-11. And now we’re left to wonder what kind of player Watt will be coming off a fracture of his tibial plateau. Trading him, however, remains a non-option.

7 Dale Robertson @sportywineguy Got stopped while walking dog yesterday by neighbor who wanted to know if Astros will win World Series. Went out on a limb and said mayb

My take then: There’s no reason why they can’t if Dallas Keuchel comes back strong (see my Texas Sports Nation cover story) and their Murderer’s Row lineup keeps slashing. But, in seven-game postseason series, the best teams over 162 games can stumble quickly. I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it: Just live in the moment and enjoy the process. The daily rhythms of baseball affo us that luxury more than any other sport. Whatever happens in the end, this should be one of the most fondly remembered summers ever for Houston sports fans.

My take now: The conversation with my neighbor during the AllStar break preceded a worrisomely rough patch — the Astros went 12-17 over the next month — but once they got Carlos Correa back from his torn wrist tendon and then landed Justin Verlander, who became a bigger difference-maker than Keuchel, the clouds parted and a World Series would be won in the end. Had I known Verlande was going to finish the season in an Astros uniform, would I have a least gone with a “probably” instead of a “maybe” that evening? I don’t know. At the time, Verlander was 5-7 with a 4.66 ERA for the Tigers. But it turned out he just needed the motivation of a title sho to get back on track.

Case Keenum @casekeenum7 Really excited to officially be a Viking!! #SKOL

My take then: There was no reason for the Rams to keep the form University of Houston star, who started 10 games for the Texans in 2013-14, once Sean Mannion became Jared Goff’s backup late in the 2016 season. LA’s new coach, Sean McVay, must have agreed with the former staff’s assessment of his namesake. In Minnesota Keenum will be reunited with Sam Bradford, a teammate in St. Louis. Bradford, the Vikings’ likely starter with Teddy Bridgewater’s status still unclear following a gruesome knee injury he suffered in an August practice last summer, was himself on injured reserve when Keenum was the Rams’ practice-squad quarterback in 2014 They spent a lot of time studying film together. Keenum, undrafted out of UH in 2012, made 14 starts for the Rams over two seasons in two cities. My take now: Keenum is 11-3 since stepping in for Sam Bradford the Vikings’ quarterback. Only Tom Brady and Ben Roethlisberger, both 12-3 currently and winners of seven Super Bowls between them, will take better records into the postseason. Had Keenum known how incredibly this season was going to play out, he’d have added several more exclamation points to that tweet.

Dale Robertson @sportywineguy

BOB: Texans have to do a better job of coaching and playing. Not #fakenews either. But #Texans right now are broken & probably unfixable

My take then: The “next man up” mantra is a ridiculous cliché. With Watson down, no team in the NFL is missing more star power on both sides of the ball. To pretend that the season still holds promise is to deny the painfully obvious. I mistweeted by using the word “probably.” There’s no probably about it. O’Brien must stick to coachspeak rather than come clean, of course, but I don’t. These next eight weeks are going to be dreadful.

My take now: I did not, however, mistweet when I predicted a dreadful finish to the Texans’ season.

9/25/17 Jonathan Feigen @Jonathan_Feigen D’Antoni said @JHarden13 has dropped 12 pounds from where he was at the start of camp last season.

My take then: If he’d lose the beard, he could drop three or more, too. No, seriously, this is interesting. I never looked at Harden and thought he was chunky. He certainly didn’t play chunky. It will be interesting to see how being lighter affects him as the season wears on. The way he played against San Antonio when the end came so suddenly last spring, he was clearly a spent force. It’s to be hoped his lugging around less of him in the dog days of January and February will keep him fresher next May … and June?

My take now: Through Monday’s Oklahoma City game, Harden was averaging 36.3 minutes per game compared with 36.4 a year ago. But two of his four 40-plus minute games this season have been in the last week with the Rockets banged up and he scored 51 in both of them, so he’s feeling plenty frisky for the moment. Given how easily the Rockets were winning when they were at full strength — nine of the victories during their recent 20-1 run were by 21 or more points — I’m a little surprised Mike D’Antoni didn’t sit him more. But players like to play and Harden is no exception. You hate to mess with a man’s rhythm.