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DJ Bien-Aime, ESPNOct 20, 2024, 06:52 PM ET
- DJ Bien-Aime covers the Houston Texans for ESPN. He joined ESPN in July of 2022 after covering the New York Jets. He’s a former athlete who finished his college career at Louisville. You can catch DJ on ESPN Radio on his show, “Talkin’ Texans.”
GREEN BAY, Wis. — Houston Texans wide receiver Stefon Diggs said “I’m never the bigger person,” regarding his heated pregame scuffle with Green Bay Packers cornerback Jaire Alexander.
Roughly 20 minutes before the Packers and Texans kicked off, Diggs and Alexander had a heated exchange on the field by the Packers’ sideline. Seconds later, a large group of Packers joined the verbal altercation as Diggs was the lone Texan, which turned into a little bit of pushing and shoving.
Diggs said he was walking to the locker room as the game was getting ready to kick off before he heard “chirping” from Alexander.
“I don’t give a f— if I’m by myself or with a million. I’m never the bigger person. I ain’t letting s— go,” Diggs said postgame. “They picked it up or whatever. But I ain’t with the football tough guy s—.”
The Packers went on to defeat the Texans 24-22, capped by a winning field goal from Brandon McManus as Diggs finished with a quiet day, totaling 23 yards on five catches.
Coach DeMeco Ryans would’ve preferred for Diggs to be the bigger person as Ryans wasn’t thrilled with the pregame exchange and said, “We can’t be about chirping.”
“Things like that happen. Those guys have a history. They’ve been going at it before. We don’t want to encourage that,” Ryans said. “We just want to go play ball the right way and make sure it’s settled on the field.”
The Texans’ passing offense wasn’t able to turn Diggs’ pregame fire into a respectable product. The unit had its worst passing performance in Ryans’ tenure with a net total of 55 yards.
Star quarterback C.J. Stroud threw for a career-low 86 yards with no touchdowns even though Houston’s defense and special teams unit forced three turnovers. The offensive rushing attack was effective, too, as running back Joe Mixon finished with 115 yards and two touchdowns.
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But the passing still couldn’t capitalize on it as Stroud went 2-for-7 on third downs for 13 yards while being sacked three times. The struggles started with pass protection as the Packers pressured Stroud on 48% of his dropbacks, a season high.
“We kept shooting ourselves in the foot once again,” Stroud said. “That’s just a recipe for disaster when you’re playing against a great team. I think our defense did a great job today. Our special teams did amazing. So, we got to be better as an offense. This is on us, point blank, period.”
Due to poor pass protection, the Stroud-Diggs connection wasn’t able to get going. And for all the pregame fireworks between Alexander and Diggs, they matched up against each other only six times with no targets, according to Next Gen Stats.
Sunday wasn’t the first time Alexander and Diggs had a pregame scuffle. In Week 8 of 2022, the two had a chippy interaction when both players ran out of the tunnel at the same time for pregame warmups when Diggs was a Buffalo Bill.
The Bills won 27-17, and Diggs finished with 108 receiving yards and a touchdown. After the game, Alexander called Diggs a “little boy,” but this time around, he wasn’t available in the locker room to discuss this heated exchange. Safety Xavier McKinney defended the Pro Bowl cornerback and said, “I’m with [No.] 2-3 every time.”
“They got they own little stuff,” McKinney said. “I’m with my guys and we going to ride together and that’s just what it is, so if he don’t like him, then I don’t like him. That’s what it is.”
Packers defensive end Rashan Gary concurred.
“Every game that we play is a big game, but just understanding the type of team they are, understanding where we want to get to in the season, you’ve got to take care of business today,” Gary said. “And all of that chirping before the game, we don’t like that fake, tough stuff because we’ve got 60 minutes to play ball, and that’s what we did today.”
ESPN Staff Writer Rob Demovsky contributed to this report.
