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