Pitre, Owens progressing for Texans

Texans safeties coach Joe Danna likes where his starting safeties are and how much better they can be.

Thursday, Houston Texans safeties coach Joe Danna addressed the media and spoke about his pair of young starting safeties, Jalen Pitre and Jonathan Owens.

Danna said he likes what he has seen from Pitre thus far, and expects him to continue to grow:

“So far, so good. But like all of us, there’s positives we have to build on, and there’s plenty of things we’ve got to work on every week as an entire team. We’re not exactly where we want to be, and everybody has got to do a little bit better to get the results that we want.”

The coach makes sure to keep Pitre focused on his complete game:

“It’s never just one thing in particular. It’s got to be the total package, whether you’re playing the run game, in the pass game, and all the fundamentals that go into it. You can’t let anything go. As soon as you let one thing go, the next thing is going to creep up. Just polishing up on all the details in every part of our game.”

Danna revealed that Pitre and Owens are both extremely competitive players who push each other hard but won’t reveal what he thinks makes them tick:

“Some of that I’ve got to keep to myself. They don’t even need to know that quite yet, you know. I’ve got to kind of keep that edge on them. They’re competitive guys. They don’t need a lot of poking and prodding and push real hard. Fortunately, they’re good pros that are highly motivated on a daily basis themselves.”

The Texans safeties coach believes his players are getting closer together and building trust:

“We spend a lot of time together. I think the more you spend time, whether it’s player and player, coach and player, that relationship is built over time. Once you get into a few games, you kind of been through some of those battles together. That builds trust, and it’s just something we’re trying to work on every week.”

Despite Owens being a younger player, Danna spoke highly of Owens work ethic and habits:

“He’s young from the sense that he hasn’t played a lot. He’s a hungry player. He wants success in the worst way. He’s a sponge, he studies, and our whole group does. We’ve got a great room. He’s just a guy; you can’t give him enough information. He wants to study, and he wants to be a great player.”