Houston Texans on Hard Knocks 2015: Week 4 Recap

Last week's recap of Hard Knocks was met with a pseudonymous email telling me to keep my "opinions" out of these posts. Which, in turn, was met with derisive laughter from me and the rest of the BRB staff, followed by (hopefully) laughter from many of you as well. The lesson? Umm...save your unsolicited feedback for someone who cares, I suppose. Or at least have the courage to put your name on your "feedback."

ANYWAY...

-"Do we want to continue to be the 'almost' team?"  "We almost had an NFL-caliber starting QB!"  Only one of those quotes is made up, though both are accurate.

-I cannot possibly explain how much seeing the QB meeting room labeled as "Quarter Backs" irritates me. Like, irrationally so.

-Christian Covington's nickname is "Shrek," and that's my favorite thing of the week. It couldn't be more perfect.

-Shrek >>>> Keshawn Martin as a punt returner.

-DeAndre Hopkins house...I expected more bespoke furnishings. But, to be fair (and as he said), "it's a long way from central South Carolina."

-Kourtnei Brown's love of his game ball is everything that is awesome about the access this show gives you.

-QUESS!

-No, seriously. QUESS!!

-Throwing this out there: I'd take Covington at FB over Jay Prosch. Discuss.

-Five or six WRs. From BO'B's mouth to Durga's ears.

-Clowney sightings! Plural!

-J.J. Watt's body is a race car. He's trying to live on the schedule of an elite Olympic athlete. And his mental focus is sharpened. All of which is to say, Marcus Mariota is literally going to die this year. Sorry, dude, but J.J. has to feed.

-EZ Nwachukwu is fast. And funny. And Travis Labhart is neither of those things. Guess which one didn't get cut today. It ain't easy NOT being EZ, Travis.

-EZ's screams at the fish that Labhart's wife caught were hilarious. If you weren't looking, it sounded like J-Jo's daughter.

-Charles James has a "taste for wild socks." Which, if you are only half paying attention because you are writing a blog post in real time, is NOT what you heard the first time the narrator said that phrase.

-Reason #476 to love Bill O'Brien: his candor with players like Charles James.

-Brian Cushing ... "oppertunity"

-Vince Wilfork, "spell opportunity." "That's a long word." "I spell it like I said it." "How do you spell 'knife?'" "N-I-F-E."

-John Simon: Neither a speller, nor Italian.

-J.J. Watt's pride in the defensive performance in practice is why he's better at his job than you are at yours. Or, at least one of the 500 reasons.

-Charles James v. Odell Beckham in Madden '16 is fun. James' benching of J-Jo so James can start is tremendous. And the impromptu James qua O'Brien was everything it should have been.

-Rick Smith not knowing that the Broncos were ok at ILB was unsurprising as it could be.

-Quess! "Every day is a birthday for me. I'm in bonus time now." Holy hell, if you don't root for that dude, you're the worst. And when Bill O'Brien tells you that you're gonna play in 2016, you're gonna f*%kin' play.

-Ooooh, O'Brien was NOT happy about Ryan Mallett oversleeping practice.

-VINCE. WILFORK. OVERALLS. MY GOD.

-My reaction to Wilfork was literally exactly the same as Bill O'Brien's. "What the f&%k? Look at the f&%kin' cowboy boots!"

-Is it just me or does Erin Andrews have much more of an accent talking to Charles James than she does on camera generally?

-We've secretly replaced Brian Cushing's hands with butter-coated teflon mittens. Let's see who notices.

-DeAndre Hopkins catches things. It's what he does.

-Kourtnei Brown deserves to make this team. For real. He's played his ass off and made an impact in literally every preseason game. And I finished that last sentence as they showed him whiffing on a diving tackle. Damn it.

-Kudos to Mike Vrabel for not breaking his foot off in Brown after that TD run. That's quality coaching right there.

-"Let's go win it, bro. I mean, we're already winning, but let's win it more." -Tom Savage

-If you don't like Charles James' excitement about getting in the game at RB, you don't deserve nice things ever in your entire life.

-Also, too: Charles James is the second-best RB on this team right now. Which is sad, but kinda awesome (for him). "That's a touchdown in my book; they can kiss my ass." And then O'Brien flips him off for having the ball, which is also great, because Bill is great and James is great and I'm invested in this team in a way that makes scenes like that mean something and shut up.

-The music during the "time to cut players" scene is so needlessly dramatic, William Shatner thinks it needs to ease up a bit.

-The Travis Labhart cut was perfectly O'Brien. I'd take a bullet for Bill O'Brien. Not in the face or anything, but, like, in the calf. Totally.

NEXT WEEK: Dallas Cowboys, Arian Foster with a kettlebell! Also, there's no chance Vince Wilfork shared more than 10% of that BBQ plate.