Texans Extend DB Jalen Pitre: 5 Things We Like

KILT-AM / SportsRadio 610

Payne & Pendergast discuss five things they like about the Texans extending defensive back Jalen Pitre.

Transcript

00:00Five things we like about the Jalen Petrie extension.

00:02If you're just tuning in, Jalen Petrie, the latest Houston Texans player to get extended.

00:08Current, I'll call it core player, to get extended.

00:11Three years, 39 million bucks.

00:13Jalen Petrie's going to be a Texan for the next several years.

00:16Here was Nick Casario before we get to the five things we like about the extension.

00:20Nick Casario, we asked him when he was on with us a week ago,

00:23hey, is it presumptuous for us to think that you've kind of shown us through the Hunter,

00:28Niko, and Stingley extensions, what the blueprint is for getting extended as a Houston Texan?

00:35Good player, good attitude.

00:37Go out there, be productive, work hard, put the team first, and you'll be rewarded.

00:42But I think when you look at the overall composition of the team and the mindset,

00:46and D'Amico has talked about this, what are the things that we're looking for?

00:49What do we prioritize?

00:51What a Houston Texan football player should look like or what we want it to look like.

00:55Understanding every player is different.

00:57Everyone has strengths.

00:58Everyone has areas that they can improve.

01:00We feel like we're pretty fortunate that we have a lot of good football players on this team,

01:05in this building.

01:06And, you know, those players, they earn what they receive.

01:10We don't give out anything.

01:12Like, this isn't like, okay, come in here and we're just going to give you.

01:15You get what you earn, and the contracts are the contracts,

01:18and every situation is going to be a little bit different.

01:20So, the biggest thing, first and foremost, is just, without digging deep in to bring a spreadsheet out,

01:30the numbers make sense.

01:32You're going to see various people report it that this makes him the highest paid nickelback in the NFL.

01:37It's dicey with Petrie because he's playing multiple different roles.

01:41Sometimes he's a nickel linebacker.

01:43Sometimes he's a slot corner.

01:44But the other part of it is that the deal doesn't kick in immediately.

01:49So, what it works into is that he's going to be playing on a deal that,

01:52over the course of time, he's averaging $10.5 million per year.

01:56So, if he were out there in free agency right now,

01:59it would be like he got a deal as a really good linebacker.

02:02So, it makes sense from the Texans' perspective,

02:05but it also gives him a boatload of guaranteed money.

02:08So, from Jalen Petrie's perspective, it makes sense as well.

02:10I think it's like a muted version of the Nico Collins contract

02:15in that it's good for all parties involved.

02:18Everybody can feel good about it.

02:20And it's making a bet on his upside and his consistency.

02:24But this is, it played out pretty much the same way Texans cap thought it should

02:30and has been talking about and writing back.

02:32He's a great follow on Twitter or X if you like this kind of stuff,

02:36at Texans cap.

02:37So, I feel really good about that part of it.

02:39It's the appropriate extension.

02:41It's both sides benefit from it.

02:43So, that's number one that you like, that we like about this,

02:46is it's the appropriate value for the contract.

02:49I think the other thing is, if we play the clip from Casario

02:54and talking about having multiple players like Jalen Petrie on the team,

02:59this is Nick Casario from earlier this season, the week before he was injured.

03:03Yeah, I'd say JP's been off anybody in the building, like what he means to our team,

03:12and you're going to get nothing but glowing remarks and positives.

03:16He plays the right way.

03:17He's got the right mindset.

03:18He's impactful with the plays.

03:20You know, I think every player, like you're going to have plays, you know,

03:24either give up some plays, you want some plays back.

03:26But just his energy, his mindset, his physicality, his effort, his playmaking ability.

03:32I want to say he's our leading tackler or something.

03:34I mean, he's close.

03:34I think him and Henry are close.

03:36But he impacts the game in a positive way when he's on the field.

03:40And his attitude is infectious.

03:42I mean, last year it was 1,000.

03:44Like, we'll take 2,000 Jalen Petries on this football team.

03:47So, he's embraced the role.

03:49It's different than the role last year.

03:51But we figured out that this is the best thing for him and for the football team.

03:56And he's gone out there and made play after play after play in each game.

04:00So, you know, we're fortunate.

04:01We feel like we have a number of good football players on this football team.

04:05You know, JP is certainly high on the list.

04:07So, this is – and sorry, Ben, I flipped it up on you there right at the last moment.

04:13The biggest thing about guys like Jalen Petrie is that as long as you've got a number of guys like him,

04:20you don't have to be in that awful, awful position as a coach of trying to coach enthusiasm.

04:26There's nothing worse than being a coach saying, like, hey, guys,

04:30could you show a little more excitement out there when guys get excited about making a big play or something.

04:36That there's – that he is that type of player that brings a certain energy.

04:41Yeah, yeah.

04:42And there's kind of a tipping point on a team where you've got to have a certain number of guys

04:46who just play that way and are – to really play with the kind of energy that Texans defense does.

04:55The other – the third thing I'd say about Jalen Petrie is his actual style of play

05:04and his ability to force turnovers, his ability to just kind of flip the field at times

05:12and come up in big moments – you know, you and I were talking with somebody during the commercial break

05:16who just flat out – he said, yeah, boy, we need him healthy in the playoffs.

05:21Yeah.

05:21Like, he's the type of player that can flip the script on you immediately,

05:25the same way Derek Stingley can flip the script with an interception

05:28or Will Anderson or Daniil Hunter can flip the script with a sack.

05:34Jalen Petrie, like, it wasn't that Cowboys game.

05:36He can come up and just flip the script by causing a fumble with a hellacious hit.

05:41Yep.

05:41And there's another part that I would add into this.

05:44And the real big step forward that Jalen Petrie took this year that I was excited to see,

05:50and we saw it in training camp, was he played less like a kamikaze

05:55and more like somebody who's got a controlled aggression to him.

05:58He was taking the right angles.

06:02He was form tackling when the situation demanded it.

06:05He was going for the big hit when it was okay for him to go for the big hit.

06:08So that style of, like, a restrained kamikaze on the field,

06:14that's part and parcel of the way this defense needs to play.

06:17They need to play with the same enthusiasm and the same fervor that they played with last year,

06:23but they've got to dial it in and discipline and be more disciplined in certain aspects.

06:27When it comes to just going to be, they can't be allowing big plays

06:31because they're going for the big hit and miss the tackle.

06:34So appropriate value on the contract, genuine enthusiasm from Jalen Petrie,

06:40style of play, number three.

06:42Yeah.

06:42Number four.

06:43The other big one, and we touched on this earlier,

06:46is that I have zero concerns whatsoever that Jalen Petrie is going to somehow take his foot off the gas

06:53because now he got paid.

06:54He's got that part of him that obviously just loves playing football.

07:00But remember, he was one of the guys who stuck it out at Baylor

07:04when everybody else was jumping ship, and justifiably so.

07:09It made sense for a lot of guys that, man, if you make the smart, rational decision,

07:13all right, I'm going to head off for greener pastures.

07:16That was when it wasn't.

07:17They were given permission to do it without being dinged by the transfer portal

07:20or anything else like that.

07:22They just got carte blanche.

07:23Those players could just leave, and he chose to stay.

07:26He's just kind of wired that way.

07:28He's wired.

07:29I would put the over-under on Jalen Petrie staying married for the rest of his life

07:35to whomever he marries in the future.

07:36Yeah.

07:37I'll put the over-under on his marriage at 45 years.

07:40Yeah.

07:40I think he's a guy that he's going to stick around through thick and through thin.

07:44That's my kind of sports book where we can take everybody's marriage everywhere

07:47and just bet on how many years, if there's a divorce, and if so, if there is a divorce,

07:53what's the over-under on number of years they stay married?

07:56Boy, if there was a sports book for that, especially someone who's been through a divorce,

08:00I might be able to cash in heavy on that.

08:03One of those fascinating discussions I ever had was with your friend Wallace Marsh.

08:07But he was a petroleum engineer going back to the 80s when he graduated from A&M.

08:14OU, yeah, Oklahoma.

08:15OU, excuse me.

08:16Oh, God, excuse me.

08:17I'm sorry, Wallace.

08:18Yes.

08:18You wanted to be an Aggie, but you couldn't get in.

08:21Okay.

08:21No, no.

08:22That was worse.

08:24Continue.

08:25No, so there was a period where petroleum engineers were not in high demand,

08:32and people were jumping ship like it was the Baylor football program.

08:35They wanted nothing to do with being a petroleum engineer.

08:38And then all of a sudden, when the industry came back, there was a high demand for petroleum engineers.

08:43And Wallace said that of all the people that were still in the business that were senior petroleum engineers,

08:50and they did very well because of it, because they were in high demand,

08:55everybody that he knew that had stuck with the profession was also still married.

08:59Like, there was kind of a commitment gene there.

09:02Oh, correlation, yeah.

09:03Yeah, yeah, yeah.

09:05That it was, you know, in an industry where, especially when you go through the highs and the lows of oil and gas,

09:11there's a lot of stress on your relationships.

09:13Yeah.

09:13I feel like Jalen Petrie would have stuck it out as a petroleum engineer.

09:17Okay.

09:17Yeah, maybe so.

09:19And as I kind of do some introspection with that, because that makes a lot of sense.

09:22What do they say about people who leave a high-paying sales executive job to get into talk radio?

09:28What are their percentages?

09:32Your second marriage is working out splendidly.

09:34Splendidly, yes.

09:34Yeah.

09:35Yeah.

09:35The other, okay, so the other, the fifth reason, and honestly, this isn't a major reason,

09:41but it just opens up my hopes for Damian Pierce,

09:45in that Petrie was a guy that they built the right role for him,

09:50and as a safety, it just wasn't it.

09:54It wasn't going to work out for him as a safety, or it wasn't working out for him as a safety.

09:58They figured out the right role for Jalen Petrie,

10:00and it ended up working out to the point where they wanted to give him an extension.

10:04I do feel like Casario and D'Amico look at Damian Pierce and think,

10:09man, we've seen the upside with Damian Pierce,

10:13and we also have, they didn't see the upside with Bobby Slowick.

10:17No.

10:18Right?

10:18Nope.

10:18They didn't keep Bobby Slowick on the roster.

10:20They did not.

10:20That's a great point, yes.

10:21They got the hell rid of Bobby Slowick.

10:23Yep.

10:23Damian Pierce is still here.

10:25I still think that there is upside with Damian Pierce,

10:28and maybe in Nick Caley's system and with a different offensive line,

10:33maybe we see the very best version of Damian Pierce.

10:35I'm not sitting here saying they need to extend Damian Pierce or anything,

10:38but I think it's, they really, really want to reward guys who operate a certain way,

10:42and Damian Pierce on the offensive side of the ball,

10:45he's, but for the simple thing about the play on the field,

10:49like, he's got a lot of swarm qualities.

10:51Oh, for sure.

10:52He could be a huge part of a really good culture on the offense

10:55if they can unlock that upside that we saw on him three years ago.

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