10-31-25 Cody Stoots with KOA Sports

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Right now, we're heading out to the Kai Commas Spurit
Health high Line and bring on a good buddy of mine,
Cody Stuts, who covers the Houston Texans down in Houston.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Cody, you're on with Nate Jackson, Ryan Edwards? What's up man?
How are you?

Speaker 3 (00:10):
I'm having a blast, man. We just got done doing
some stuff down here in Houston, getting ready for this
big one this weekend. Because it's a little measuring stick
game for both these teams, isn't it.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
I would say so yeah, And it's fascinating for the
Broncos side of things just for a second, because you
come off of a pretty pretty big statement win against Dallas,
but then immediately the goalpost moved to well, that's not
a very good defense, So what do we really know
about the offense? And now you've got the Texans defense,
who's one of the better performing defenses in the league,
and now this becomes the new measuring stick. So I'm

(00:41):
completely with you. How are Texans fans feeling about this game?

Speaker 3 (00:47):
They feel pretty similar to a couple of weeks ago
when the Texans getting ready to play the Seattle Seahawks.
They had come off of five incredible quarters of offense.
They felt like they were headed in the right direction
offensively in minutes. Hey, you got to play a real defense.
You got to play real defense, and Seattle kicked them
in the teeth. They were not ready for the Seahawks.
It didn't look good. They did a good job bouncing

(01:09):
back on a little bit of a short week against
San fran but it's not the San Fray you're used
to knowing. And then now Texans fans are kind of
in the same spot. They are not buying in until
the Houston Texans go out there and beat a good
football team. And you know what, the Broncos are a
good football team. They're a very good football team from
where Texans fans sit. And so if they want people

(01:30):
to buy in on them, the Texans have to beat
the Denver Broncos because I think we established down here
in Houston. If not now, when for the Texans, Because
they don't have a lot of really good teams coming
up after the Broncos. So this is that big like
prove its measuring stick, get me to buy in, make
me believe opportunity for the Texans against this Broncos team.

Speaker 4 (01:51):
So I imagine Texans fans are bought in on the defense
because there are the number one defense in the league.
But what's going on with the Texans offense been clicking well?

Speaker 3 (02:03):
They do not do a very good job of when
they make a mistake, just making that mistake. When they
make mistakes on offense, it turns into a chain reaction
of awful, awful decisions. I mean they if they don't
protect the quarterback, then the quarterback doesn't make a good throw,
then he throws in the reception or he throws short
of the sticks. And then if the running back doesn't

(02:25):
pass protect, then the QB scrambles when there was actually
a good pocket. Like, they just have a chain reaction
of bad decisions. They can't tree eyes or isolate one
mistake and just make one mistake. Things just go haywire
for them on offense when they make a mistake, and
it's primarily centered around the five guys blocking on the
offensive line in the quarterback and the office line's not

(02:47):
very good. They're much better than last year's offensive line,
and a lot of advanced staffs will tell you they're
somewhere in the middle in the NFL. But in the
Texans losses, they have a lot, a ton of pressure
and c J. Stroud hasn't done a good job with
the stuff that he's in control of, the accuracy, decision making,
win to step up in the pocket and when they
have one game. So they protected Stroud well and he's

(03:08):
been patient and taken what the defense gives him. So
very Jeko and Hine and the wins and the losses,
it's pretty clear to see how the Texans need to
operate to win, and it's pretty clear to see how
the opponents need to make them operate to make them loose.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
In your opinion, and I guess also the opinion of
Texas Texans fans.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
What sort of happened with CJ. Stroud.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
He seemed to be on a trajectory after that rookie year.
I remember talking to you because the Broncos were playing
c J. Stroud in the Texans that year and he
was just on this rocket ship after he won Rookie
of the Year. Last year was a bit of a
step back, I guess, and then this year has been off,
as you mentioned, a bit of a rocky start. Is
this all offensive line?

Speaker 2 (03:48):
Is this scheme? What's your take on it?

Speaker 3 (03:51):
So the year two was a combination of the offensive
line was awful. The scheme was figured out of a
National Football League, and C. J. Stroud himself admitted he
caught year two, after his first year in the NFL,
was gonna be easier. He was gonna be an easy year.
It wasn't gonna be as challenging. I called this NFL
thing's not as tough for me. I'm paraphrasing a little bit.

(04:11):
But Stroud admitted it and even talked this week. He
even brought it back up about how he felt like
he had been humbled as a football player and as
a man for some of the pride that he had
in his game. So there's a lot of things around
him and including him that went wrong in year two
and here in the start of year three, the scheme change.

(04:31):
It took him a minute to buy into it here,
because they went from that Kyle Sanahan Gary Kubiak style
of offense to that New England Patriots death five thousand
paper cuts. You know, dink and dunk be very careful
about when you take your shots. And I don't know
that Stroud totally loved or bought into it. He'd mentioned
a couple of times, Hey, let's stop doing the stuff

(04:52):
we're not good at. Let's do a lot more of
the stuff that we are good at. But then, ultimately,
his best performance, the one against San fran was doing
with a Patriots system loves to do. Take that short
stuff when the defense gives it to you, get rid
of the football, and then be very careful about when
you take those big shots and those big plays down
the field. And I think he saw that work and

(05:13):
Dinko Ryan talked about being disciplined at the quarterback spots.
Rod was very disciplined last week and he played his
best game of the season so far. So he's going
to need to be disciplined to get against this Broncos team.

Speaker 4 (05:25):
Let's talk about the Texans number one defense given up
two hundred and sixty six yards a game and only
fourteen point seven points a game. What is it that
makes the Texans defense so dominant.

Speaker 3 (05:36):
It starts with that pass rush and then it kind
of bleeds into the fact that they are so tough
on wide receivers with Derek Stingley and Kamari Lasser, And
really Stingley hasn't even played that well to start this year.
He's had a couple of hiccups in a couple of
rough moments, but he's healthy and kind of rounding in
the for him. You're starting to see more that all
pro Derek Stingley here in the past week or so,

(05:57):
and he's feeling good. Kamari Lasner, the other quarterback, has
been really, really good in the past few weeks. Again, took
him a few minutes to kind of get into a rhythm,
but then Will and Anderson and de Neil Hunter haven't
gotten home on as much or as many sacks as
you would have wanted. You know. We always joke that
they're more online shoppers because they don't have sacks at home,

(06:17):
you know, so they're not as gotten home as much
on sacks, but there's still an incredible pressure rate for
both of those guys. And Anderson's one of the best
pressure guys, and he has gotten home a little bit.
But they are at their best when both those guys
are cooking and both those guys getting to the quarterback.
And it really hasn't happened that much in the time

(06:37):
where they've spent time together, but the pressure's good. They've
been pretty sound tackling the past few weeks. They had
some issues with that early in the season that really
hurt them, especially against Tampa Bay. So the tackling has
gotten better. They're just very surehanded. And asking Sean Payton's
comments this week about how they don't do a lot,
but they do it really well, I think the Miko

(06:58):
Ryans kind of rattles up around in his brain and says, Oh,
we don't do a lot. Huh, all right, well, let's
just show you how hard it is to move the
ball against our football team. Because I think the Texans,
even though they don't show you a lot, they are
pretty proud of how intricate and how complicated they can
make things look on defense. So that's a fun matchup
to watch, kind of a matchup of wit. So these

(07:20):
two really good coaches on their side of the football.

Speaker 1 (07:23):
Coachas Jew's joining us last one for me, Man, always
appreciate catching up with you.

Speaker 2 (07:27):
So the division is.

Speaker 1 (07:29):
Always a weird one, right AFC South of the last
several years. I think every year we try to predict
what's going to happen there and it always ends up being.

Speaker 2 (07:36):
A little different.

Speaker 1 (07:37):
I thought the Texans would probably be the class of
that division, and you know, the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Speaker 2 (07:41):
Got to a little bit of a hot start, they've.

Speaker 1 (07:43):
Cooled, and then here you have the Indianapolis Colts on
a mission seemingly so where do Texans fans see the
Texans as it relates to not only the AFC South,
but the AFC right now, Bye bye AFC South.

Speaker 3 (07:57):
I mean, the Colts have created up such a wide
margin for error for themselves with their hot start, and yeah,
the Texans played them twice in the Colt schedule gets
much more difficult here on the back end. I'm not
super impressed with many of their victories. And you know,
of course, the referee saying at the end of the
game against Denver that one shouldn't have gone that way.
That was weird. But look, I've been the guy that

(08:20):
I'm the last guy to buy apple when it comes
to the Colts. I've been saying for weeks I don't
believe in him, I don't like him. Hey, you know,
I don't get it. I don't get this. And then
they turn out to have the best running back in football,
and they might have the best tight end in football,
and they got a really good offensive line and that quarterback. Man,
I just you know, it's Halloween. You're gonna go, We're
gonna walk around your trigger tree. You're gonna see a pumpkin,

(08:40):
and one of those pumpkins is gonna look like Daniel
Jones tonight, and eventually he's turning back into a pumpkin.
I know he is, I know he is. I'm not
believing in him, But Texans fans have kind of kissed
as he South goodbye. They're worried about winning tie breakers
in that five, six seven matchup, which of course might
be a big one with Denver. It's the Chiefs stay
hot and if the Denver can hold on the AFC

(09:00):
West so again another element to how big and how
important this one feels to Texan fans. This weekend.

Speaker 4 (09:06):
You talk a little bit about the Texans injuries. We've
heard about Nico Collins maybe banged, Dalton Schultz.

Speaker 2 (09:13):
Who's in, who's out.

Speaker 3 (09:15):
Nico's good to go and that was a concussion. He's fine,
He's ready to rock, So I'm not super worried about him.
The Schultz one is interesting. You got to pay attention
to this. Dalton Schultz is they're only capable tight end.
He's the only tied end that they trust to actually
throw the football to. He's had a really good year
blocking for both in the passing game and the run
game this year, and he's got two injuries. He's got

(09:36):
a shoulder and a knee injury. Only practiced on Friday
this week. It was a full practice, but it's kind
of a walk through on Friday, so it's not really
a practice. I would think he's gonna go. He seems
like kind of a gamer. He'll go, but I do
wonder how much the injuries affect his performance. And he's
a guy that, again is a safety valve for CJ.
Stroud some of that short passing game. He's had some

(09:58):
really nice moments and they really don't have very many
guys behind him that can do the same thing as him,
and in fact, to kind of limit some of the
snaps that he's on the field, they've got into this
jumbo package a bunch where they put an extra offensive
lineman on the field so they don't have to put
Schultz out there as much. And funny enough, Sean Payton

(10:18):
this week said, Hey, the reason we have tight ends
is so we don't end up in jumbo, and I
was like, well, that's interesting, but yeah, so Schultz is
the one that I pay attention to. Everybody else seems
to be pretty good and should be good to go.
Kind of a full strength Texans outside of Delton Schultz.
There was a little worried about what he marks, but
he's got no injury designation, so he's ready to rock too.

Speaker 1 (10:37):
All right at Cody Underscore stuts on Twitter stots and
check out his fantastic work at Hugh footballhou football dot com.

Speaker 2 (10:46):
Well Man, always great to catch up with you. I
really appreciate the time, this.

Speaker 3 (10:49):
Afternoon, anytime, anytime.

Speaker 1 (10:52):
All I appreciate it. Coach stut It's good stuff, good
good information there.

Speaker 2 (10:55):
All right.

Speaker 1 (10:56):
When we come back, we're gonna have our coach's corner,
all right. Sean Payton breaking down to play with voice
the Broncos Dave Logan, who's celebrating his six hundredth game
come up on Sunday, which is pretty cool, so we'll
have that's also your chance to win Broncos Raiders tickets
that is still to come this Hour's chance to win
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