Texans Lose J.J. Watt to Season-Ending Injury: Your Texas Roundup

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“He’s a clown. Honestly.”

—Houston Rockets star James Harden to reporters on Saturday, after former Rockets coach Kevin McHale said Harden wasn’t a true leader, according to the Houston Chronicle.

BIG NEWS

J.J. Watt of the Houston Texans reacts during the second quarter of a game against the New England Patriots at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Massachusetts on September 24.Maddie Meyer/Getty

Watt Outage
Not only did the Houston Texans lose Sunday’s matchup against the Kansas City Chiefs, but they also lost superstar defensive end J.J. Watt to a season-ending injury, according to the Houston Chronicle. Watt’s left leg buckled on a pass rush in the first quarter and he immediately went down before being carted off the field, after suffering a tibial plateau fracture. Even though one doctor told the Chronicle that Watt’s injury is more serious than a torn ACL, it appears his career past this season is not in jeopardy. Watt’s 2017 season took a similar turn as his 2016 season, when the 28-year-old played just three games before back problems requiring two surgeries took him off the field. When healthy, Watt is arguably the best defensive player in the NFL, and he’s among the most recognizable faces in Texas. “I feel terrible for the guy,” Texans Coach Bill O’Brien told reporters after the game, according to the Chronicle. “Just knowing the type of guy that he is, he’s an amazing human being. He’s an amazing human being and he will work extremely hard to be back, to be back to play for this football team. I know that.” This is a huge blow to the Texans, who also lost starting linebacker Whitney Mercilus to a season-ending injury Sunday night. The Texans have started the season just 2-3, but they’ve been playing better football ever since switching to rookie and first-round draft pick Deshaun Watson as quarterback. Watson threw for five touchdowns Sunday night and had five scores the previous week, giving Texans fans something to cheer about even as they mourn the loss of Watt.

MEANWHILE, IN TEXAS

Mixed Messages
Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones told reporters after Sunday’s home loss to the Green Bay Packers that he’d bench any Cowboys player who he feels is being “disrespectful to the flag,” according to the Dallas Morning News. Before the game, Cowboys defensive linemen Damontre Moore and David Irving stood during the national anthem, then raised their fists after the song ended. Jones addressed anthem protests in a post-game press conference. “I don’t know about that,” Jones said of the fist-raising. “But if there is anything that is disrespectful to the flag then we will not play. You understand? If we are disrespecting the flag then we won’t play. Period. We’re going to respect the flag, and I’m going to create the perception of it. And we have.” Jones, however, didn’t describe what, exactly, constitutes “anything that is disrespectful to the flag.” Before the Cowboys game two weeks ago, Jones kneeled and locked arms, then stood for the anthem, though it’s unclear what message Jones was expressing with his kneeling. Players across the league have sat down or kneeled during the anthem in protest of policy brutality and racial injustice.

DACA Deal
The Trump administration gave Congress a list of several tough immigration policies to be included in any deal that would save the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, according to the New York Times. If Congress wants to save the program—which prevents 800,000 undocumented immigrants who were brought to the country at a young age from being deported—then in return, Trump wants his border wall, a crackdown on unaccompanied minors who immigrate from countries in Central America, 10,000 more immigration agents, a harder path to asylum, and the denial of federal grants to sanctuary cities. Trump decided to end DACA last month, giving Congress six months to come up with something to save it. Congress had been close to a bipartisan deal to save DACA before Trump made these demands on Sunday night, threatening to derail the deal, according to the Times.

Sizzling Beef
TV star Mario Lopez clapped back at San Antonio chef Jason Dady on Sunday, after the restauranteur accused Lopez of trying to get a free meal at his new restaurant, according to the San Antonio Express-News. The beef has been sizzling ever since Dady wrote on Facebook last week that “a certain celebrity” called his new restaurant, Range, and asked for a free meal “in exchange for a single Instagram post promoting it.” While Dady didn’t call out anyone by name, he liked another post that more explicitly accused Lopez. And in an expert display of shade, Dady then posted a GIF of Lopez from his time as an actor on the TV show Saved by the Bell, writing, “Haters gonna hate, Slaters gonna slate,” around an old photo of Lopez, who played a character named Slater. Lopez responded on Sunday on his iHeart Radio program, “On with Mario Lopez,” claiming that he didn’t ask Dady for a free meal. “This one’s funny,” Lopez said. “Either this guy got punk’d—someone phone-pranked him—or he has a shady publicist and they’re trying to get press. It’s really, really funny.”