The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Aaron Reiss on JJ Watt and Will Fuller's Availability

Episode Date: December 24, 2019

Aaron Reiss of The Athletic joins Ross and Michael to discuss the return of JJ Watt for the Playoffs

Good news. It's the Matt Thomas show for lunch. Let that boring brown bag lunch rot in the employee refrigerator. Oh, what's that smell? The Matt Thomas Show on Sports Talk 790. Matt Thomas show rolling along without Matt Thomas here on Sports Talk 790. Ross Vireal, Michael Connor with you. And right now, pleased to be joined by Aaron Norese of the Athletic. You can find him on Twitter.

at Aaron, that's A-A-A-R-E-I-S. Aaron, thanks for joining us on Christmas Eve. How are you? I'm good. How are you guys? Pretty good, man. Michael Connor here with me. So first off, of course, we've got to talk about the return of J-J-Watt or the possible return of J-J-Watt. Said he's not going to make any promises.

But to me, a lot more questions than answers with this. I mean, how much would he play? How available is he going to be? How effective would he be? All these question marks? Is he going to play at all? So just overall, your thoughts on JJ Watt, possibly coming back for the Texans. Yeah, I was wondering if that's what you guys don't want to talk about.

I called to that. Yeah, you know, I think everything would indicate that he will play. I mean, he hasn't promised that he hasn't technically been activated yet, but it sounds like the goal is that he would come back for the playoff game, not play this week. Technically, technically, Texas could move to the three-feed, but that's not really worth. Him risking re-injury or trying to rush it. So as is he's kind of pushing it here probably.

Yeah, I mean, it's huge, regardless of whether he is a standout and plays as well as he's playing before the season began or before he got injured, which I would doubt. You can't imagine he'd be fully in 100 percent, and he can't indicate I'm not going to put a percentage on if I feel good. But it's huge. I mean, even if he's half of his normal typical self, he'll draw extra defensive attention, he can probably provide some sort of interior presence that they didn't have without him and allow Jacob Martin, Wendy Merciless, Charles, I mean, he'd be freed on the edges. And, you know, even if he doesn't, even if he doesn't end up playing in Buffalo, I think just the, or I guess if he's played Buffalo, I guess if he's play Buffalo to say whoever the

player player is, you know, he doesn't have to play just the idea that he could play will, you know, cause the opponent to have to dedicate some time planning for that and whatnot. And so, I mean, and every possible way you could think of it as an advantage for the Texas. I mean, yeah, so looking back on the time that they've been without him, just how big of a, have they, how much have they missed him and how much will. like a Whitney Merciless, per se, benefit just from him being back out there? Yeah, I mean, it's huge.

You know, actually, something I just throw that should go up soon. You know, opponent's sense in the games that he hasn't played in, they've averaged over three seconds to throw against the Texans, which is crazy. You know, I mean, typically if a quarterback is taking three seconds, he probably got hit a bunch that day, and, you know, he didn't have a great day or, you know, whatever. But, you know, the quarterback's been able to get away with that against Texans, really not get him much, pressured very minimally. Winnie Mercila specifically.

I mean, he's drawn more double teams and, you know, he had two sacks against Camp Bay, but prior to that, he had not had a sack since week seven, which is obviously when JJ Wilde was healthy. And I think week seven is when he hit Jacobi Burset an absurd number of times in that game. And, yeah, it's huge for everyone. I think he'll open up holes for other guys to make plays. And that's the thing is even if he is not kind of the playmaker guy we're used to seeing, you have to imagine that he will still draw extra attention,

and that will still have an impact on the game. talking with Aaron Reese of the athletic here on the Sports Talk 7-9. And Aaron, we got the quotes from Bill O'Brien yesterday. We're going to play to win and all those types of things. But he didn't really say we're going to play our starters. So there's no way Deshawn Watson sees the field if the Kansas City Chiefs win at noon on Sunday, right? Yeah, you know, I agree with you. I think everyone's overreacting him by him saying, you know, play to win.

I don't know. What is he supposed to say in the situation, right? If he's supposed to have said it's going to totally mail it in this week, I can't imagine that would be helpful for the guys who are going to have to play. You know, you don't want to get totally embarrassed as we had it to the playoffs. Yeah, I wouldn't anticipate that anyone who is a little shaken up would probably not play. I mean, I can't imagine Will Fuller's going to play or anyone else who's carried an injury in. And if you do play, you know, I wouldn't interest if they play the whole game.

But I could be wrong. O'Brien's sticking pretty hard to this line here. So with the, you bring up Will Fuller there, the reports are out there that it's a multiple-week injury. And he's been non-committal, at least Bill O'Brien, on, you know, saying, He's day to day and whatnot. If you're just to say the likelihood that we see him play again this season, and that includes the playoffs, what would you put it at? Yeah, you know, I doubt it.

I think that, I mean, I guess it depends on how long they go on the platform, but I think at least in terms of how far we can look out with the first-round playoff game. I don't imagine he would play in that game. And if he doesn't, you know, I think they're going to need to have Kiki-Kootie active and maybe he'll have to contribute during Thomas. You know, Tideon wasn't active. He hasn't been involved in the past game much. the money to activate him so they have some other options kind of just offensively.

Because, you know, once, can he still go out with that cramp and Wolfler already gone out against Tampa Bay, receiving options really thin there for a moment if it's still kind of put back of the game. And just about the backup quarterback situation, A.J. McCarran, let's just say that the chiefs do in fact win. There was talk of the workout with Nick Fitzgerald. Have you heard anything about the Texans possibly getting another quarterback on roster for this week? Yeah, you know, I mean, they have a quarterback on the practice squad and Alex McGoo, so I would imagine that if they were to have someone else on the active roster, quarterback-wise, they would promote him, and McCarran would still be the backup of

Carlin. I don't think you're introducing new guy into the offense and all that in Week 17. But, I mean, more likely, I would imagine they would probably still go with two active quarterbacks, and even if Watson doesn't play, you probably be active, right? And then if he is the backup in the emergency situation or whatever, should McCarran play. But not, I mean, I think, assuming that they don't play starters, it will. when it started the whole game, whatever. Karen would be the guy. So we've done all this talking about what's going on and leading into this game,

but back to the game on Saturday against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. It feels like once again they left a lot of points out there on the field because they had a lot of opportunities. But where are you at after another uninspiring, despite it being a win performance from the team? Yeah, you know, I mean, I think there was nothing new, right? It's like they just wildly inconsistent offensively. You kind of know, at least prior to JJ O'Honback, you kind of kind of, I don't know what you're betting defensively from them. And they were pretty much saved by James Winston's carelessness.

Yeah, I mean, you know, I don't think I just really learned much neither. Other than that, I didn't really understand why O'Brien was running the ball in first down too much in the first half, unless the kind of the interceptions on the early lead dictated the game script a bit. But, you know, he's running first down against him one-run defensively. It didn't really make much sense to me. And he kept doing it. So I guess, I guess if I learned anything, that he's going to stick to what he wants

to do on the ground. but otherwise, I mean, it's kind of what you'd expect, right? This team has kind of up and down at different weeks. I think that, I think Watson's ankle did probably affect him, despite what he'd say. I mean, it didn't look like himself. He was just missing some throws he normally makes. And next-gen stats has a stat that tracks completion percentage above

or below expectation based on all the tracking data guys on the field. And Watson was like 10% below the expected completion rate that they had for him, which was his worst disparity between the actual one and the projected one all season. So he just kind of was not, wasn't on target, wasn't quite himself in that game. You mentioned the continuing to run into the teeth of one of the better run defenses in the league. Did anybody ask him about that or did he have anything to say about that? I mean, I know what his response probably would have been about check the,

probably told you to check the tape or something like that. But, I mean, it just, I'm with you, Aaron, and I noticed you were tweeting about it a lot on Saturday and a lot of other people were tweeting about it because it just seems like the smarter teams go away from the other team's strength. And just Bill O'Brien has no concept of that, or at least he didn't on Saturday. Yeah, you know, he actually didn't check the tape. He said he's got to be better. So there was that one. But, I mean, yeah, yeah, it didn't make much of us to me.

I mean, even when I think Colorado Tide, everyone would muscle today, you know, has been a pleasant surprise for this team. And it has an upgrade over Lamar Miller even if you kind of look at in terms of consistency of his runs and stuff. But I think still you don't necessarily need to run. into the ground against the Bucks. It seems like he was playing to hold on to the lead even in the first half, which is an odd strategy considering how explosive that Bucks offense, despite, you know,

James' Carroll Smith, whatever can be, and it's spurts. And, of course, we did see that later on as they tied to game. But, yeah, it did not make much of it me. Looking ahead to the where we're sitting at now with the current standing setting up for a Bills matchup in the Wild Card Round at NRG, what do you think of that potential matchup and how difficult would it be to get past that team? Yeah, you know, I think, you know, I think that maybe I'm a little skeptical just because

I'm around the Texans so often and stuff, but, you know, I think that is a dangerous match for them. They, you know, especially at Wolfhlers out on the field, I think they're going to have a really difficult time getting chunk plays. The both defense is really good, and especially against deep passes, I think only the Patriots have been better in terms of defensive efficiency against deep balls. So, you know, I think they're going to have problems getting chunk plays. And then the team and grace for them know that they at least don't be facing a very good quarterback,

Josh Allen, even if he has made strides. They can kind of blitz them. They struggle a lot against the blitz. And without a lot, that was something they were doing more in terms of blitzing in recent weeks of finding creative ways to generate pressure. So you think if they have a lot and they can still blitz against Allen, that would give them a good chance. But I think that it would probably actually be a pretty low-scrined game. All right. Aaron Reese of the Athletic, you can find them on Twitter at Aaron J-R-E-I-S-S.

Aaron, just go ahead and let the folks know what you guys got going up at the athletic this week. Yeah, well, I got a story a lot that will be up there militarily, it's not already up, and we'll have coverage from all over the league in terms of all the stuff that's playing out in Week 17 and got a big playoff feature coming out next week that I'm excited about. So that's what we got, and good time to subscribe, or if you need a last minute Christmas gift, we've got some promos going on for that too. All right, thanks a lot, Aaron.

We'll talk to you next week. All right, thanks. All right, Aaron Reese of the Athletic.com, more specifically in the Houston area covering the Houston Texans.