Crushing Playoff Loss for Texans, Houston at a Crossroads with Stroud

Monday on The A-Team, Adam Clanton and Adam Wexler react to the Texans' playoff loss to the Patriots, examine what Stroud's performance means for the team going forward, and much more!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
It is not a victory.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Monday, Welcome into the A Team post mortem edition Sports
Talk seven to ninety. Wex ac Josh Jordan with you
on a Morgue edition of the program after the Texans
went up to New England. I swear Wex twenty eight
to sixteen felt like fifty two to sixteen. And that's

(00:24):
a testament to the Texans defense. But a lot of
layers to peel from this onion. It wasn't particularly any
other flavor other than bitter on a day where you
absolutely and Wex has said this since the game on
social media. Everybody who watched all season, not just yesterday's game,

(00:44):
knows it. You wasted one of the best defenses in
NFL history. And I don't even think it's hyperbole to
say that. I really do think you could stack this
Texans defense up against the all time greats and you
would at least have them in the conversation. Might not
be number one, but you would not be laughed out
of the building given what they had done all season long,

(01:05):
and honestly what they did yesterday, but five turnovers on
the road, you just can't overcome that, not even with
this defense. He had several against the Pittsburgh Steelers. But
that just wasn't enough yesterday. And that was the crazy part,
because as bad as CJ. Stroud individually and the offense

(01:26):
collectively played, when you got to halftime, you were still
in that game. And when you kicked a field goal
and made it twenty one to sixteen, you were very
much still in that game. But CJ kept giving the
ball away, the offense kept giving the ball away, and
the Achilles of this twenty twenty five textan season was
the guy they drafted number two overall three short seasons ago,

(01:47):
and it remains that right now.

Speaker 3 (01:49):
Yeah, it's a shame that went down like that got
it to twenty one to sixteen. Like you said, they
didn't have any more turnovers after that, their defense gave
up the only points of the game remaining. They definitely
would not be the number one defense of all time.
Number one defensive all time probably doesn't give up three
touchdown passes to Drake May, but they did, and it's
part of the story. I know what the major part
of the story is, and we will obviously focus there.
Demiko Rans met with the media, as did CJ. Stroud

(02:12):
after the game last night. Very hard to deliver satisfactory answers,
and they certainly didn't seem to be for most of
the people that heard from them or heard about what
was said. Demiko has also met with the media already today,
just moments ago, wrapping up before we.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
Sat into these seats.

Speaker 3 (02:29):
There are four teams that are still playing football, and
for the third consecutive year, with an opportunity to be
among them. The Texans are not so progress for this
team would be debatable at best. They have finished their
season in the exact same spot ever since CJ. Demiko
and Will Anderson Junior arrived. Hard to evaluate them anything
other than where they sit today, we will definitely look

(02:50):
at where they once were.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
CJ.

Speaker 3 (02:52):
Stroud's first year not nearly what you hoped it would
be three years from now. After watching that, probably the
opposite is true. Will Anderson playing nice football looked like
a nice pick in year one, and by year three
there aren't maybe any players at hitch age in the
league that you would rather have on your team. It's
been unbelievable how well he has played, and he did

(03:14):
it again yesterday with another three sack performance. Forced a
couple of fumbles, but one of the things that Demiko
said today, we may hear it more in full. I
thought it was worth pointing out because there is more
to just the game than your quarterbacks play. Two of
the four teams that lost yesterday should have their quarterback
going to the podium and saying, I feel like I

(03:35):
let the team down, and they both did, Josh Allen
and Buffalo, whose coach has since been fired, and C. J.
Stroud yesterday. Obviously Debiko just met with the media. He
has not been fired. But one thing that Demiko said
regarding the defense, and I don't know if people were
a little bit upset listening to or reading about what
one of the Patriots said about, you know, the defensive

(03:55):
play yesterday. A quote was from Will Campbell, our defense
played better. There's a lot of talk about how them
but our defense outplayed their defense today, and I think
if you really sit down and think about it, Demico
probably agrees. And that's what he said essentially today, not
responding to the comment, but saying they have a good defense.
Their guys made plays. They guys made the plays that

(04:17):
needed to be made, you know, turning those tipballs and interceptions,
returning one of them for a touchdown. Of the four,
and that's as simple as it gets. The Texans were
in position to make even more plays than they did defensively,
and yes, it's asking a lot, but that's the only
reason that New England's moving on, because their defense did
make a bunch of those plays much much easier. Against

(04:37):
a quarterback who had such a poor performance. They did
a lot to force it, but he could have done
a lot to prevent it. It's a long offseason, even
when you make it two extra weeks. The Texans have
one in front of them right now. We are definitely
open to any and all conversation from you guys, like
we always are, and already could build out fifty shows
in a row with the comments on social media, but

(04:58):
happy to have you in on the disc today. You
know the number at seven one three, two one two
five seven ninety. I said something rather bold before the
Steelers game. I thought if the Texans won that game,
they would be in the Super Bowl, and I really
kind of shows how ridiculously bad they have to play
on offense in certain ways for that to have been prevented,
which is obviously now not going to be the case.

(05:22):
I would say this also about the Texans moving forward
and some of the things that people will look at
and you you've got to take a look at what
the NFL is doing right now. Ten openings in the NFL,
two coaches in the AFC, two coaches have been in
their position longer than Demiko Ryans. He just got here
in twenty twenty three. He just passed the three year

(05:44):
mark for when he was hired, and only Andy Reid
and Zach Taylor have been in their positions longer in
the AFC. Ryce Young had his fifth year option picked
up not long after his only postseason game ended earlier
this offseason, and it was asked of Demico Ryans earlier today.
Definitely something to consider what the Texans are doing moving forward.

(06:07):
There's a billion questions from yesterday's game. We'd love to
answer along with you over the next four hours, and
we will.

Speaker 2 (06:14):
Well get to that in just a second. I just
want to make an emphatic statement. You want a debate
about it being one of the all time defenses, That's fine.
I agree with what you said, by the way, but
they are in the conversation in that I just feel
like they carried this team to that insane winning streak
and kept them in games even that they did lose.

(06:34):
This is in my opinion, and I don't know if
WEX will agree with this, and you guys are certainly
up to debate it as well, but I think, all
things considered, especially what we found out a mere minutes
after the Broncos advanced to the AFC Championship, this is
by far the most crushing playoff loss in Houston football
history because of what was at stake. I now more

(06:57):
than ever agree with what Wex said before he knew
that Boa Knicks was going to go down. The winner
of this game was going to go to the Super Bowl.
And I still think that. I mean, I'm sure Sean
Payton has been joined at the hip with Jared Stidham
since the clock hit triple zeros the other day, formulating
a game plan of some sort to go up against

(07:17):
this New England defense and try to offset what Drake
may could or could not do offensively in Mile High Stadium.
But I mean, come on, You're you're asking Jared Stidham
to be productive against this Houston Texans defense. With the
AFC Championship on the line, There's no way that Texans

(07:38):
don't at a minimum make their first ever appearance in
the Super Bowl if they win this game yesterday, very likely.

Speaker 3 (07:43):
And that's why this is the most crushing loss. I mean,
regardless of that. I mean, I think that was the
worst loss in Texans history.

Speaker 1 (07:49):
This is oilers included when I say this, though, Oh,
I don't care about the oilers at all.

Speaker 3 (07:53):
Houston football history and FO involves the oilers that you
have to I don't. I don't care about it. This
is the Texans. This is the worst loss in Texans history.
That's all I'm comparing it to. It's the worst loss
of the Demiico era, obviously, and this is the best
era of Texans football's. It's a performance you cannot you
can still. We're sitting here today. The game had just
kicked off twenty four hours ago. Three hours after that,

(08:13):
you couldn't believe what you were watching. We're twenty four
hours later, we're going to be forty eight to seventy two,
ninety six hours later, and you're still not going to
believe what you saw right out of the gate, Right
out of the gate with your offense with CJ. Stroud
with the first of three crucial drops by his receivers
and again, most of this was addressed I think today
a little bit better than maybe yesterday by Demico. And

(08:36):
we'll see what else is gathered from the Texans.

Speaker 1 (08:39):
Again. A locker room unavailable to me because I'm here
with you guys.

Speaker 3 (08:43):
Would love to be in there to see a little
bit of what some guys had to say. Obviously, not
on the road with the Texans a little bit difficult,
but like we said, it is from you know, I'm
only speaking for me. You, obviously, I think, are recognizing
the gravity of the situation a little bit better.

Speaker 1 (08:58):
It does matter to people.

Speaker 3 (08:59):
It's to say thing when they went to Pittsburgh and
I said, this is a Texans story, Well to fans,
it's not. It's just a football story for Houston. I've
been a fan of Houston football. I think it's very
similar to a team like you knew that the Oilers
were a better team at least once right during these
seven straight years Warren Moon took that team to the playoffs.
You knew the Oilers got screwed in Pittsburgh and maybe

(09:22):
that was the year they could have done more. So
it has happened before, but they had one team, one
of those teams with Warren Moon where they had a
defense like this, and not so coincidentally, was a year
where they rattled off win after win after win after
win after win after win after a slow start to
their season, exactly like this year. But that team had

(09:42):
Warren Moon on it. This team had CJ. Stroud on it.
And I don't know how much you guys want to
be bogged down with the numbers or the negative numbers,
because they're unbelievable.

Speaker 2 (09:52):
C J.

Speaker 3 (09:53):
Stroud twenty twenty three versus c J. Stroud twenty twenty
five and the path he's been on, it's unbelievable. How
bad it got yesterday, and it's just a trend that continued.

Speaker 2 (10:04):
I cannot believe this is the same kid that had
that rookie season, and I am as guilty as anybody
defending him, way, way, way longer than I should have,
to the point where at some point this season, the
offensive line, which is still by the way, needs immense work.

Speaker 3 (10:22):
I don't care what they lost yesterday, right The offensive
line got worked yesterday in the run game more so
than in the past game because CG had time to
make good decisions and he didn't. CG had time to
make good throws and he didn't. But they didn't win
in the pass game, they were they did good enough
to have a quarterback perform a heck of a lot
better than that. But you also obviously had pressure under
to pass the ball the whole game because you couldn't

(10:43):
run the ball at all, and it was part Woody.
I don't know why wood he refused to run. I
don't want to say he didn't run hard because that
sounds like I'm talking about effort. I'm being literal. He
got the handoff and then would pitter patter his way
to a non hole. Even if there wasn't a hole.
How's he going to get any yards? He's not going
any so, I don't know if something else was wrong.
And it was yet another game where he left, but

(11:04):
you know, talking about CJ like he did, uh, I
think there is a lot more to yesterday's performance than
just oh my god, he's so bad, get rid of him.
But that's certainly how a lot of people do feel.
We recognize that, and the one I'm crazy, I can't.
I can't blame them right now. On Monday, January.

Speaker 2 (11:19):
Nineteenth, less than twenty four hours after twenty eight to sixteen.
But you know what, that's what shows like this are four. Absolutely,
we don't normally do this. We don't normally pump the
phone number, but seven one three two one two five,
seven ninety we want your reaction if you would like
to give it. If not, we've got plenty between the
two of us. But yeah, let's talk about the most obvious,

(11:40):
the elephant in the room, the Texans being at a
one hundred percent crossroads in some way, shape or form,
no matter how you look at it, they're at a crossroads.

Speaker 1 (11:49):
With CJ.

Speaker 2 (11:50):
Stroud, we will dive into that and you'll hear from
both Dimico and CJ.

Speaker 1 (11:54):
Next the eight on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 2 (12:00):
Horse Talks seven to ninety Monday, after the Texans season
comes to an end twenty eight sixteen to the final
from New England. As the Patriots advanced to play Jarrett Stidham,
Tad Brown's son in law in the AFC Championship Game.
What a I'm sorry, and this isn't obviously a knock

(12:21):
on him, but it kind of is. What a completely
lackluster quarterback matchup. I saw a lot of this being said,
and don't worry, we're gonna get to our own issues
here at that position in Houston. But if you're on
the Wow, the Patriots really got an easy ride to
the super Bowl potentially crowd if you're on that train

(12:43):
right now, I can't really argue with that. Either easiest
schedule in the history of the league, and then their
playoff matchups not exactly a lot of resistance put up
by the opposition.

Speaker 1 (12:53):
Three of the top five defenses. Next week will be
the third. Doesn't look like it because they're playing.

Speaker 3 (13:00):
They scored sixteen, well that's half of the battle. I mean,
their defense has been is a lot better than people
are giving them credit for. And I don't think anyone
that watched yesterday's game could possibly overlook them now like
many people were before the game, which was stupid. But
the Patriots offense has faced the Chargers very good. The
Texans best in the AFC, now will face the second

(13:22):
best defense in the AFC. And remember to be in
the top five, well that includes the Patriots, So they
can't play themselves, So they're playing other defenses that are
among the best in the league.

Speaker 1 (13:31):
But they have won themselves.

Speaker 3 (13:32):
The path to getting there is a little bit easier because,
on top of that, They're the Seattle of the AFC,
as much as it probably makes people sick. Guess why
Seattle goes into their game tomorrow is the favorite. Well,
they have a top five offense and a top five defense.
Guess what The Patriots have the exact same thing, right,
and nobody else in the AFC.

Speaker 1 (13:53):
Did I mean?

Speaker 3 (13:53):
The Texans have the best defense and a mediocre offense
at best that played very poorly in two postseason games.
Obviously the Bronx had trouble scoring points all year, and
then clearly in this game it takes a step backwards.
You would think with a totally new game plan, even
one that might work, But you're playing a quarterback who
did not throw any passes this year during the regular
season and is a backup for multiple teams over his

(14:14):
already relatively long career for a reason, But yeah, that
path because of it. Their defense has made a big
stand on that. But yes, it stands to reason. As
much as they have faced good defenses, this is what
they will face when their defense is on the field.
The worst offensive line in the AFC. When they played
the Chargers, an offense that obviously was not playing their

(14:36):
best football, and they helped turn a reasonably good quarterback
into the worst playoff performance. I'm sure of his whole career,
no matter how many times he goes in the future.
And then they get Jared Stidham on the back end,
so certainly that paints a very lovely path. If you
ask for what path you would want, this would probably
be it. But it looks like I said it last week,

(14:56):
and I'll say it with only four teams remaining, barring injury,
Jared Stidham, Drake May, Matt Stafford or Sam Darnold. Two
of those four are going to be starting in Santa
Clara or the Ultimate NFL Prize. We said we wanted
to get to a lot of you guys, and we
do so we will. There is a lot for us
to discuss. Like I said, we could easily fill all

(15:17):
this up and we will fill in the gaps, but
I wanted to open things up for you guys, as
it is your first time here with us, after about
you know, twenty one hours or so to digest what
all took place. It didn't take long to see what
was going to unfold because the Texans had four interceptions
in the first half, their turnover in the second half
was extremely costly. It definitely took points off of the board.

(15:39):
That was more so than the other turnovers. One of
the other turnovers put points on the board. And that's
been the simple formula to winning the game that the
Texans play in this year's postseason. If your defense scores
a touchdown, you win. Texans did it twice against Pittsburgh.
Patriots did it once against the Texans. Yes, a lot
of other reasons why, but a huge reason were able

(16:00):
to turn one of those into points without giving it
to their offense to see what they could do. Because
the Patriots offense following Texans turnovers really couldn't do much
of anything. So to the phones, we go get it
started with Tom out in the Cypress area. The Texans
off season has begun. Tom, what do you have for
us today?

Speaker 4 (16:19):
Hey, guys, thanks for letting me in. Hey, I want
to go back in time if I can, just to
preface my remarks on what my topic might be, and
I think you'll find a parallel and what I have
to say. We go back and look at David Carr's
performance in his rookie season. He had fifty four sacks. Now,
there was no protocol in those days for concussions. But

(16:43):
in my opinion, the way I watched that player not
develop as good as he could have, not about talent,
about his decision making. He just was a different player.
So you know, during those fifty four sacks, he got
his bell rung quite a lot. I think that's what
we're looking at with TJ. CJ. I think he hears

(17:05):
footsteps his approach to what he does as a quarterback.
He never was a runner, and I didn't really want
him to run, but you've got to take what the
defense gives you, and he never seems to want to
do that. But you know, I'm not a doctor. I'll
just play one on the radio and say, I look
at him, he just doesn't look like he wants to

(17:30):
be out there for the lack of not that he's
not a good football player and has a lot to
bring to the table, but I think he's been hampered
by concressions. You can't help but wonder about it. And
I'm not going to, like I said, to be a
doctor here. I don't have any knowledge about it. But
you can't go from what he was doing in his

(17:50):
first two years to the last two years where he
had suffered by missing. I think it's six games due
to getting his bell wrong.

Speaker 3 (17:58):
I mean, I think that's a sorry if I cut
you off there, just put you on hold for a second.
Very difficult topic to address because we don't know, doctors
don't know, nobody knows. CJ probably doesn't know himself, but
it definitely is something I would say is worth considering.
I wouldn't compare anything that CJ. Stroud or any quarterback
that's played football for the Texas to David Carr. I think,
David Carr, I find it ironic that your last thing

(18:21):
about CJ before I put you on hold was about
to didn't look like he wanted to be out there.
That's why David Carr's not a good NFL quarterback. He
didn't want to be there. He put in the least
work of any quarterback I think the Texans have ever
had on their roster, to be honest with you, and
he was bailed out by the fact that everyone just
blamed his offensive line. He got sacked fifty four times,
he got sacked seventy times. Well, if he I think
if he put more into being an NFL player, he

(18:43):
would have understood how to play NFL quarterback a whole
lot better. I don't even know if he had the
mental capabilities of doing more than he did processing wise
or what have you, but just the simple want to
be the leader of this team and showing them the
way by being the guy they needed him to be.
Just from a work ethics standpoint, that's all was to it.
Ask anybody that was there, and I have a couple

(19:03):
things first and foremost. I'm not trying to pick knits here,
but you can't short him. He was sacked seventy six
times his rookie year. I don't know where he's getting
the fifty four from, but I have that number burned
into my brain from his rookie season of two thousand
and two.

Speaker 1 (19:18):
But you're right.

Speaker 2 (19:19):
Aside from that, and I don't think I don't think
that CJ is this guy. I don't think this CJ
doesn't work at it in the film room and all
that kind of stuff. And that's another way you wouldn't
want to compare anybody to David Carr. But I was
actually having this conversation just before the show with an
extended family member who was texting me he listens to
the show, and Jay was like talking about, Hey, they

(19:40):
try to do right by David Carr by drafting Tony Bisselli,
And he was talking about the same thing that Tom
kind of called in about. You know, once you get
kind of the shaky and the happy feet and all
that kind of stuff, you know, you get your bell
rung enough, maybe it changes who you are mentally.

Speaker 1 (19:55):
But in my opinion, and I know WEX would agree with.

Speaker 2 (19:58):
This, and I'm sure drafted David Carr, he should have
drafted Julius Peppers and dealt with the quarterback position when
you had more of a surefire thing. Oh, by the way,
they didn't know that Julius Peppers was going to play
for twenty years and be one of the greatest pass
rushers ever.

Speaker 1 (20:09):
But he was right there for the taking.

Speaker 3 (20:11):
And yeah, it's tough, and I know I said, it's
really hard to evaluate, and it really truly is when
you're talking about concussions.

Speaker 1 (20:19):
I didn't think David Carr is very good, but that's
all that.

Speaker 3 (20:22):
I hope we're almost done with talking about David carrs
it relates to this NFL team. I don't know if
CJ feels that way. I know a lot of people
the last several weeks following CJ's return have been just
hammering home that why doesn't he run?

Speaker 1 (20:35):
Why doesn't he scramble? Why doesn't he take off? And
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (20:39):
It doesn't to me, it doesn't look like there's so
many plays where he should be doing that. I don't
think he's making mistakes by not running, making mistakes by
not scrambling, afraid to not scramble. And he's been asked
directly about that, and again you can take his word
for it, you can watch the game and think otherwise,
and he said it hasn't affected him there. I don't
know what all these things have done to him. It

(21:00):
looks like a player that what Barcaller suggested that is
there is some evidence to how he's playing. I use
the word skittish. I don't know if it's because of concussions.
I don't know if it's because he just doesn't believe
in some of the things that they're doing offensively. So
as soon as he gets the ball, he's anticipating stuff
that really isn't happening. I think a lot of what's

(21:20):
happening also comes from his mechanics, which I think were
terrible this year. And it's got worse as the season
went on, as most of his numbers did. He had
about five throws yesterday that I thought he actually stepped
into the throw and drove the football, And he had
about another twenty where he could have but chose not to.
Whether that's technique, whether that's mechanics, whether that's mind games,

(21:41):
whatever it is, the floated balls to players that need
to have beb sent their way is just maddening at
some point, I'm sure to people that are watching, and again,
the balls are just not going to get there on
a day like that yesterday. Weather related with the way
that he chooses to throw the ball so often in
the last pass of the game, same thing. I actually
thought he stepped into that throw. That's a touchdown. Yeah,

(22:05):
he underthrew Xavier Hutchin put in by four five yards,
And sure the weather might have had something to do
with it, but that was that's just a throw that
has You got to make that throw. You got to
get the ball there, but throw it sooner than if
you don't think you can get it through the wind
or the conditions that. I don't think there was much wind,
and I don't think this snow was preventing the ball
from getting there. Wasn't that much longer than of a

(22:26):
throw then Drake May's touchdown to Booty. So it's just
there were so many little things that went wrong yesterday
for CJ. But they have been trending in that direction.
That's the most troubling part of where things stand. And
if concussion related symptoms or concussion related concerns.

Speaker 1 (22:43):
For CJ exist, that's tough.

Speaker 3 (22:45):
There's a lot of other current quarterbacks that I think
have been concussed comparably or more. And I watch too
as a good example. I think I don't think he
plays any differently. I just think he's not very good.

Speaker 1 (23:00):
I didn't think.

Speaker 3 (23:00):
I know he's had one amazing season, but I just
I don't know if it's if it's concussion related.

Speaker 1 (23:06):
Like I said, who would the best of acts is next?

Speaker 2 (23:09):
Is probably going to be a little bit of a
melting pot of this topic, and of course people talking
about that on the social media platform, there's no one
place to go to. There was plenty of content. There
was plenty of material out there regarding CJ.

Speaker 1 (23:24):
Stroud.

Speaker 2 (23:25):
So we'll continue discussing the biggest topic in town today
On a Monday edition of the show The a T
all right, I'll just start this off by saying my
favorite of the billions of samples to choose from yesterday,

(23:46):
just during the game, immediately following the game and since then.
I'm sorry, but the one where Whoopy Goldberg is CJ,
it just it slays me.

Speaker 1 (23:59):
Yeah, that was the.

Speaker 3 (24:00):
Only one that the guys that I bring up on
the show that I make fun of all the time,
which now was their day to bring it back this
way since Houston fell flat on my face.

Speaker 1 (24:08):
That was the only meme they sent.

Speaker 3 (24:10):
I've already seen it, and I said in response, the
memes that have been hitting from a CJ perspective are
unfortunately funny and accurate.

Speaker 2 (24:20):
It's was one of them. Yeah, it's it is brutal.
The thing is it's you know why, it's because it's
it's I mean, we're like I said, I'll just say
this right five times a day today.

Speaker 1 (24:31):
I can't believe what we were watching.

Speaker 2 (24:33):
You know what's funny is a lot of people meet
myself included, said some semblance of the following. There's no
way he plays worse than against Pittsburgh. So by that definition,
even if he played, eh, I said twenty five percent
better as what I was saying.

Speaker 1 (24:50):
All how about seven, it's an improvement, it's a bounce back.

Speaker 3 (24:53):
And how about seventeen of thirty five with a touchdown
one hundred and eighty five yards and a pick.

Speaker 1 (25:00):
That's awful.

Speaker 3 (25:01):
That's ridiculously than yesterday in the performance he turned in
and it is. It's not that quarterbacks can't do it.
And that's one other reason why the X platform for
some things sports is not only entertaining, but it can
be informative. And as badly as as he played, the

(25:23):
Texans have been involved in a lot of these games
in the last ten years.

Speaker 1 (25:28):
They've been to the playoffs quite a bit.

Speaker 3 (25:29):
Obviously the last three years they've had a defense we've
thought better than average. This past year an elite defense
according to EPA Expected points Added.

Speaker 1 (25:40):
The CJ.

Speaker 3 (25:41):
Stroud performance yesterday in the last ten years was the
fifth worst postseason performance. There are three Texans games, excuse me,
four Texans games on this top ten list.

Speaker 1 (25:57):
Brian Hoyer, Brian Hoyer doesn't matter. He was Ryan that day.

Speaker 3 (26:01):
If I'm not mistaken that that slides in just over
ten years ago, yes, twenty fifteen, Yeah, so not on
the list just for fifteen season twenty six, just the
last ten seasons. So it was Connor Cook against the
Texans yep A backup quarterback who obviously was terrible against them.

Speaker 1 (26:17):
Yea brock Osweiler's win right yes.

Speaker 3 (26:21):
The following week, brock Osweiler's performance against the Patriots based
on EPA was worse than CJ. They led it the
half and the two of the top three on the
list are against the Texans defense Justin Herbert last year
and number one worst EPA in the last ten years

(26:42):
in a postseason game Aaron Rodgers this year.

Speaker 1 (26:45):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (26:46):
But it also tells you because you gave that answer
Flacco why because he threw two touchdowns to the Texans
in that game. You would think, yeah, and that's why
you got I love love love love love love love numbers.
But they do not tell you everything, and they absolutely
can cloud what you think you're seeing. And it also
should should use this as a little bit Aaron Rodgers

(27:08):
going to the Hall of Fame, right, m So is
Drew Brees, He's number two on the list. I think
there's a pretty good chance Lamar Jackson's going. He's on
the list. It happens. It happens to the best quarterbacks
that have ever played in this game. All three of
them have won an MVP. I think all three of
them are going to the Hall of Fame. I would
put them there, and they're on the top ten worst
performances in the last ten years in the postseason. Because

(27:30):
it does happen, it doesn't excuse what we were watching.
It doesn't excuse that it should have been prevented. Like
you threw four picks? Can you at least not throw
four by eating it? When tay Ersery gets pushed into
the backfield and he trips Harris and Bryant who's trying
to slide through, and then when Bryant falls, CJ. Stroud

(27:52):
absolutely panics because nobody's put a hand on Clavon chas On.

Speaker 1 (27:57):
So eat it or dirt it.

Speaker 2 (28:00):
Don't throw the ball while you're being hit with five
Patriots right in front of you and only one Texans
player even remotely capable of even trying to play defense
on that play.

Speaker 1 (28:12):
That's that's gotta be eliminated.

Speaker 2 (28:14):
You know, I hate to bring up his name again,
but I'm going to We talked about David Carr in
the first two segments. One of the things he would
do would be run out of bounds trying to escape whatever,
and he would always do it behind the line of scrimmage.
That's frustrating, but you know what, they still had the
possession when it was over.

Speaker 1 (28:31):
That helps you get to seventy six sacs. Though.

Speaker 2 (28:33):
Yes, but CJ, like you said, just here it is,
see if you can go get it defense and they
did because he's putting it up there on a platter.

Speaker 3 (28:42):
A lot of balls that were seemingly hanging in the
air after being tipped, and you're like, oh my god,
not another one.

Speaker 1 (28:47):
Not another one was waiting. You were holding your breath
over and over and over.

Speaker 3 (28:50):
Like we said, a best of X is hardly worthy
of even doing today because it's the whole show. Everything
that was said that the comments made by Dimico and
CJ last night that I posted were immediately met with
where's mills? How can you say this? This guy's just
ridiculously blind. He's just blind loyalty to a player who
can't play, and c J stroud, you know, not recognizing
a shortcut, just on and on and on, which is

(29:12):
why we are here for you and why the phone
lines are open.

Speaker 1 (29:15):
You can git here from some of the other people that.

Speaker 3 (29:17):
May feel the same way you do, may not, but
certainly provide a different perspective. Robbie and Jay and Roger,
JB and Marvin and Ac and Josh and myself, we'll
all continue this discussion. Your Texans after a nine game
regular season winning streak, ten wins in ten weeks to
end the season ends with yesterday's twenty eight sixteen defeat
at the hands of the Patriots, and it stings to

(29:39):
me more than any other in Houston Texans football history.

Speaker 1 (29:44):
I imagine many if you agree.

Speaker 2 (29:49):
Winding down the two o'clock hour on the Monday following
the Texans season ending twenty eight sixteen loss in New
England to the New England Patriots, they will head Denver
to take on the Broncos. Everybody knew that was where
whoever won this game yesterday was going to head. So
but then you found out that bon Nicks was going
to be out for the remainder of the postseason, like

(30:11):
second to last or last play of the game he
breaks his ankle. I don't know if that really factored in.
I just I had people texting me that night about it.
And I'm like, yeah, I'm focused on New England right now.
I just don't care about Denver. And I'm sure that's
how the Texans were too, but that just doesn't matter now.
It does in the grand scheme of things. Thinking about

(30:32):
what the Texans is probably left on the table. Just no,
there's no guarantee they even win the AFC Championship, let
alone the Super Bowl. But geez, your path got a
little bit easier, it seems like, because bone Nicks just
gets coaches fired and he wasn't going to be playing
in the AFC Championship game. But having said all that
before we get back to some of y'all's phone calls

(30:53):
and that kind of thing. Dan Orlovski's a guy that
we really respect here on the show, and a guy
that is pretty fair, I think in his evaluation no
matter what he's talking about at any given time.

Speaker 1 (31:07):
He was pretty brutal on CJ.

Speaker 2 (31:09):
Stroud yesterday, and I gotta say I didn't disagree with
a lot of what he had to say.

Speaker 1 (31:14):
Here.

Speaker 2 (31:15):
Let's know what some of what Dan Rolosky had to
say about CJ. Stroud, especially in light of how good
this defense was this season for Houston.

Speaker 5 (31:22):
I mean, if you're Houston, you win that game with
thirty one other quarterbacks, and it's unfortunately high did.

Speaker 1 (31:29):
Him and any other quarterback.

Speaker 5 (31:31):
I mean, it's unfortunate that we don't get this defense
not only a then AFC title game, but then more
than likely in the Super Bowl if.

Speaker 1 (31:37):
They win that game yesterday.

Speaker 5 (31:39):
Bad quarterback play wins that game. Bad quarterback play, the
pick six and the fumble.

Speaker 1 (31:45):
That's ten points right there now. Credit New England.

Speaker 5 (31:47):
New England made some crucial plays in crucial moments. Drake
May's touchdown to the fourth down to Douglas, the touchdown
to steph.

Speaker 1 (31:54):
With the ball playsman, the booty play, no question.

Speaker 5 (31:56):
But if you're Houston, I think Houston and Buffalo walk
away from from this weekend sick to their stomach because
they look at all the self inflicted wounds. And Houston
is just going to sit there and go if ten
turnovers by CJ or five picks, five fumbles and two
games in the playoffs, yes, and I think now if
you're Houston, you're gonna sit there and go, what do

(32:20):
we do at the quarterback position in the future.

Speaker 3 (32:23):
You gotta be careful with those numbers. Dan and a
lot of people will be saying with Drake May yesterday.
People will pile on him for the interception that he threw.
Shouldn't even I mean, he shouldn't count towards your evaluation
of him. He threw a hail Mary at the end
of the first half that got picked off in the
end zone. There's nothing wrong with that. That's what you
want your quarterback to do. He put it in the
end zone. Team just didn't catch it, but it'll go
down as a turnover. And you see.

Speaker 1 (32:42):
Five fumbles for CJ. Straut, Oh my god.

Speaker 3 (32:44):
Yeah, well only two of them went to the other team,
so maybe you lost a couple of yards here. Maybe
it shows that he was loose with the football.

Speaker 1 (32:50):
Same for Drake.

Speaker 3 (32:51):
He's been fumbling for two games, but not all of
them had ended up in the hands of the others,
and in this case, they were fumbles but they didn't
end up touchdowns. All the same stuff that we were
talking about just over the first forty five minutes of
the show. It's just any kind of reasonable day for
your quarterback and you win.

Speaker 1 (33:05):
Thank god.

Speaker 3 (33:05):
Adam Schefter was on set to chime in with Evan,
Jared Stidham and I wish he would just go away.

Speaker 2 (33:12):
I do agree with that, but he goes back to
what we were talking about. You pick up, you pick
up that fifth year option, and this is audition time.
That's where he's at right now.

Speaker 3 (33:22):
Yeah, that's what the Texans have in front of them.
Will get into some of those things with both CJ
and Will Anderson, and Will asked about that earlier today
over at the Texans facility, his long term future with
the Texans. We've got time to get a few of
you in here before we hit the top of the hour.
JB at the front of the line, Texan season over.
JB here with us on the A team. What do
you got for us?

Speaker 6 (33:42):
Hey, guys, Yeah, I'm old enough to remember the love
your Blue days and AC I would have to agree
with you. This game yesterday, this disaster, I think it
ties the Mike Renfro game in nineteen eighty because as
the worst Houston Pro football loss in our history, because

(34:06):
that was the AFC Championship game, and we're just so
close if that call had gone the other way, because
that game.

Speaker 1 (34:12):
Was still competitive.

Speaker 6 (34:14):
But I can tell you I think in watching Houston
football for all my life, I've never seen a fan
base angrier at a player than TJ. Stroud. I think
social media has something to do with that igniting the flame.
So I think next year, if we keep them, it's

(34:36):
going to be a volatile situation at NRG because of
all the boo birds. Anytime he throws a pick or
misses a receiver, it could get really ugly, really fast.
And so I was thinking ahead the next year. I
sent you guys a link for X that kind of
compares the situation the Texans are in right now to

(34:56):
the Denver Broncos situation in twenty twelve when they had
an elite defense, they had Tim Tebow as their quarterback,
a limited window, and they went after free agent Peyton Manning,
who a lot of people thought might be very risky
because he had gone through that next surgery.

Speaker 1 (35:15):
Yeah, the Texans thought he was too risky, right.

Speaker 6 (35:19):
I think they wanted to go for him, but he
didn't even want to take a meeting, if I recall correctly.
But I'm looking at the free agent market now and
I'm thinking who is available, because I think we are
in a win now mentality because it's very much like
Jalen Green with the Rockets last year. We saw how

(35:39):
he collapsed in the bright light of the playoffs, and
the Rockets made a move and they brought in an
older legend and we'll see how it turns out, but
they knew it was not tenable with Jalen Green on
that court.

Speaker 3 (35:54):
I hope the Texans can find the sixth leading passer
in NFL history to join their school. Like the Rockets,
we're able to find Kevin Durant.

Speaker 2 (36:02):
Well, and that's the problem. Who's the Peyton manning? It's
out there. We'll discuss all this and a whole lot more.
We've got to get to the simulcast, which starts next
here on the show Team Sports Talk seven ninety and
now simulcast over on Space City Home Network Monday edition
of the program. After the Texans for the first time
in a long long time, it's not a victory Monday,

(36:24):
because they didn't get the job done and they you know,
it's as a team because obviously that's all they have
talked about in the post mortem. You know, notice that
everybody's saying the right things right now, and you know,
in some cases, like in the case of Jamika Ryans,
definitely in the case of Will Anderson, junior.

Speaker 1 (36:44):
In fact, we'll hear from him later on this hour.

Speaker 2 (36:47):
Guys are going out of their way to show that
they are backing CJ.

Speaker 1 (36:52):
Stroud.

Speaker 2 (36:54):
He's the guy moving forward, He's he's got the full
support of the locker room. And interesting because more than
one person yesterday I exchanged some semblance of the following text,
and I think I said this to you, but I
can't remember because a lot of texts were sent. How
do you not lose that locker room after what happened,
not just yesterday, but what happened in the week prior,

(37:14):
and what's kind of been happening when you've been out
there being asked to just not lose games, not necessarily
win them like you did your rookie year, but you've
just been asked don't screw up, and you didn't just
not do that, You royally screwed up.

Speaker 1 (37:28):
How do you not lose that locker room if you're
supposed to be the leader. I think it's.

Speaker 3 (37:31):
Because they believe it's not who he is. I think
Will Anderson believes it. I'm pretty sure Demiko believes it.
I know what they've said, but I truly believe that's
how they actually feel. I don't know that everyone agrees
with that. I don't know that everybody in the locker
room agrees with that, but I would bet the guys
that have been there, like Will and Demiko for all
of Cjay's time, or maybe even just two seasons of
Cjay's time, they probably do believe that yesterday was not

(37:55):
what they expect from him in the future. It's not
what they expect of him yesterday either, clearly, but I
think that's what they expect to see from him, not
expect from him, but expect to see from him moving forward.
And you know, our last caller was bringing up the
you know, the idea of you know, if he isn't
gonna be here, and I'm that's not realistic. As much
as it's gonna be our conversation for the next several weeks,

(38:17):
I just don't think it's realistic. The reason to move
on from CJ Stroud, I guess there's two. One, you
don't believe in him, and that's quite obvious would be
a good reason to do so. And two, you don't
want to commit to him financially and really for next year,
you're not you can commit to him for next year
without doing anything. He's already under contract next year at
his rate for being the number two overall pick, and

(38:37):
the fourth year of his deal, which goes up a little,
it goes up a ton in year five when you
pick up his option. Obviously would go up even more
if there's something done instead of picking up his option,
but it probably would be part of any extension he'd
signed anyway, because it allows you to keep his money
at an even lower rate in year five before it
explodes in year six and beyond. But you're gonna get

(38:59):
rid of him so you can be better. Right, And
the same caller described they're in a win now window.
Totally right, Absolutely, they are so taking CJ the quarterback,
not CJ yesterday's quarterback, taking that, seeking CJ the quarterback
off of this roster. Okay, now, what what is your
plan for in this window of defensive excellence to be

(39:20):
better than one of the last four teams in the NFL?

Speaker 1 (39:22):
Yeah, who's hard to.

Speaker 2 (39:23):
Getting a Hall of Famer that just had next surgery
that's available because his team released him.

Speaker 3 (39:27):
By the way, Yeah, I mean, we're not going to
go to that link, but I know people believe that
there's a quarterback in Cincinnati that wants out. They believe
there's a quarterback in Baltimore that may not believe he's
the long term answer, but I'm sure they believe he's
the twenty twenty sixth answer. Same with Josh Allen in Buffalo.
I don't think Buffalo is saying anything about getting rid
of him. That got rid of their head coach today

(39:48):
if you had not heard instead this morning, Sean McDermott
was fired even though he had done an admiral job
there for them. Interesting wording there. They look at how
the AFC has gone. Mike McDaniel makes it through the year,
and several days later and after meetings with ownership, and
he then gets fired. You see John Harbaugh have his

(40:10):
kicker miss a kick on the final play of the season,
and he gets fired. Aaron Rodgers team can't beat the
Texans as underdogs, and his coach decides to walk away.
And then the Bills go overtime in their game yesterday
and lose on a field goal in overtime, with Josh
Allen playing rather poorly and stupidly with how he handled

(40:33):
the football, and Sean McDermott was fired today.

Speaker 1 (40:37):
You said it a bazillion times and it still holds true.
Bad quarterback play gets coaches fired, whether it's coordinators. You
know who's being interviewed to come back to Kansas City,
Eric b Enemy, I.

Speaker 3 (40:52):
Mean, he was a much better I think he's been
a better coordinator for Mahomes than those that have followed.
I mean, I think that's reasonable point a different team now,
this shuffle that happens.

Speaker 2 (41:01):
And by the way, the tenth firing, because I was
asking this question last week, I think that ties the
NFL mark for most in an off season. This just
shows you that these types of decisions. That's why when
you brought up Tomko being what there's one of, there's
two other coaches that have been.

Speaker 3 (41:20):
Zach Taylor's been in. This will be his eighth season
with Cincinnati. This will be Andy Reid's fourteenth season with
Kansas City. There are no other AFC coaches entering more
than their fourth season as head coach of their current team. Demiko,
Shane Steichen, and Sean Payton were all hired in that
same offseason, and they're essentially tied as the third most
tenured AFC head coach with their current team.

Speaker 2 (41:41):
In my opinion, that doesn't even like I don't count
the Texans because they've historically, whether it was Bob or
whether it's been I guess Cal in this case, although
I don't really it's it's different because the tenure of
the coaches and who the coaches were and what was
going on with the franchise was a little bit different.
But X traditionally have not. They've been the slowest to

(42:02):
move on from anybody in their hierarchy of authority, whether
that be the coach or the GM and and I
just you know, I think, in other words, you got
a little bit more of a leash here in Houston,
but the clock is ticking. And the reason that caller
brought up the Denver scenario is what I was thinking
about last year, and going back to the original premise
of this of this segment, how.

Speaker 1 (42:25):
Can you beat danil Hunter. You're getting closer to the
end of the line.

Speaker 2 (42:28):
I know, Will Anderson Junior is about to get paid
a ton of money, hopefully to stay here in Houston.
But those two guys right there alone, and then everybody
else on that defense, you were historically great, not just
good great, and you have nothing to show of it
or for it because your offense couldn't even just like
sort of play good. It was you weren't asking them

(42:50):
to win these games. You were just asking them to
maybe for a change, don't lose them. And they couldn't
do that. And it's one guy that's at the top
of that list is why they probably. I mean, I
really do believe this.

Speaker 3 (43:02):
If they score in the second half following what he
marks running into ursery, then running out of his shoe,
then stumbling to the ground and fumbling, and the Patriots
recovering in the red zone, I think if they score
there a touchdown, obviously, I still think they win the game.
I mean, CJ. Stroud was awful yesterday. He wasn't really
that much better in the second half, but it's pretty
easy to argue that he was technically better because they

(43:25):
didn't throw the ball to the other team in the
second half. But that turnover that the team had was crushing,
and that was just like what we had been talking
about with CJ. Before he got to the Pittsburgh game.
He put the ball on the ground and lost it
zero times the entire season, CJ. Before the Pittsburgh game,
Woody Marks didn't even put the ball on the ground
one time this entire season on two hundred and twenty

(43:45):
regular season touches plus his touches against Pittsburgh, and then
he did yesterday and obviously they lost it. It's things
like that that really ended there. I thought that kind
of ended. Obviously, the touchdown pass over Stingley Junior made
it even that much more difficult. But we've gone an
hour and seven minutes into the show. All the focuses
on CJ and I completely understand that, and they were

(44:07):
in the situation they were in for Dimiko's decision making
in the fourth quarter because of the way the offense
had played. But they're punting decisions in the fourth quarter
were unacceptable. The first punt, I mean, I don't know,
unless you think your defense is going to score, I'm
not sure why you do that with twelve minutes left,
but a little more understandable of a decision to make

(44:28):
the punt with under five minutes to go. It's just,
you know, there's not I don't even want to talk
about it for very long because I don't want to
hear the Demiko was asked about it. It doesn't make
any sense. You have one time out left, you're down
two scores. It could be fourth and a billion, and
I think you would need to go for it. Unfortunately
it was second and ten or third and ten and
CJ got sacked and lost eight yards. So now it's

(44:50):
fourth and eighteen and you're obviously deep in your own territory.
So believe in your defense, which is his answer to
why they punted. You know, I'll see what our defense
can do. Okay, believe in them and go for it.
So gain no yards and say defense hold them to
a field goal here. So it's still a two score game.
I've been thirty one to sixteen. You still have an
opportunity giving them the ball after they just ran six

(45:12):
minutes off the clock before punting. They ran six minutes
of clock off of the or six minutes off of
the clock against the Texans defense on one drive in
the fourth quarter without even crossing midfield. Run run, run, run, run, run,
first down, first down, first down, and the Texans just
watch it all go away, and then you punted right

(45:33):
back to them. Just that's just a mistake. There's nothing else,
no other way to describe it.

Speaker 2 (45:38):
And since you brought it up, the first timeout they
used in the second half was just one of those
that you just burned.

Speaker 3 (45:43):
Yeah, they used two timeouts on offense. That was the
first drive of the second half. Can't happen, can't you?
Lee and the offensive staff and everyone handling who's coming
in and out.

Speaker 1 (45:51):
Of the game. You can't have that.

Speaker 3 (45:52):
So there are other things that led to some of
their offensive issues, some of their team issues that aren't
on number seven shoulders.

Speaker 1 (46:00):
Those are among them. You can't do that.

Speaker 3 (46:03):
It's all you do. You're not out there trying to
execute anything. You're not out there getting hit. You're not
out That's why they say it's a player's game. So
do your part so this doesn't happen. And how many
more times in this game? Again, it happened a lot
in the middle of the season, didn't happen a lot
against Pittsburgh, happened a lot yesterday. There's nine seconds on
the play clock and CJ's scrambling to get guys in position.

(46:25):
They've barely broken the huddle. He wants to yell out
checks to Andrews and Ingram, but he really can't because
they're gonna suffer a delay of game penalty because they
didn't get the calling in time, or they didn't get
it explained to everybody in time. Whether CJ doesn't get
it to them in time is highly unlikely. It's more
likely that the coach talking to him, telling him what
play to run, calling the plays because he does not

(46:45):
call his own plays, which is normal. You gotta get
him the play center. You gotta make those decisions faster.
And you cannot call timeouts an offense on offense in
the second half with twenty minutes remaining.

Speaker 1 (46:56):
No, No, it just crushed me.

Speaker 2 (46:58):
I was just like, come on, but you know again,
at the top of that list is the turnovers, and
we have not heard Demiico Ryans talk about that. We
will when we come back, because you can't you can't
overcome five turnovers anywhere. You really can't do it on
the road, and you can't do it in that kind
of weather. There was a lot of things that were
going up against them if they were gonna just decide
to completely help the Patriots cause, and that's exactly what

(47:21):
they did. Plus mentioned the fact that you know Buffalo's
situation in light of what Josh Allen again, Josh Allen
and the Texans probably looking at this offseason very similarly. Wow,
it was all right out there on a platter, and
if we had just won, we'd be playing each other
in Houston instead of you know what, ended up drawing

(47:44):
itself out over the weekend. So we'll get to all
that more when we continue here on the A Team.

Speaker 7 (47:50):
The A Team on Sports talking about lots and lots
and lots to get to and that includes you, guys.

Speaker 3 (47:56):
That includes hearing from Demico Ryans both yesterday after the
game and earlier today Strouds similarly, and some players from
inside the Houston Texans locker room for essentially the last
day of the twenty twenty five twenty six portion of
their season, which did include a lot of things, a
first win on the road in the playoffs, a first
visit to the playoffs as a wild card team, a

(48:17):
second nine game regular season winning streak, three players landing
All Pro honors, seven defensive players landing All Pro consideration.
Earlier today you had the Pro Football Writers Association of
America announcing they're All NFL team and both Jerrick Stingley
Junior and Will Anderson Junior are on it. There's also
an All AFC team. Both of those two guys made

(48:40):
that as well, along with Nico Collins. And the Nico
Collins absence, the early exit from the game with Dalton Schultz.
The fact that the Texans started a different combination of
five players on the offensive line for the fifth consecutive
game also wad into how the game was played yesterday.
I had to go into the game with just two

(49:01):
running backs, ended up seeing portions of the game where
you were very, very limited at tight end with Cad
Stover also leading the game leaning backwards and having his
knee bend awkwardly for a CJ. Stroud pass. That's why
Harrison Bryant was the favorite target of c J. Stroud
late in the game and unfortunately so I want to
get to a couple of different things from inside the

(49:22):
Texans locker room, but has promised wanted to hear from
a more of you as well. We'll start there and
then drift inside to hear from Dimico Ryans. Roger will
get this started here with us. Roger will always appreciate
you listening and joining us here on the show today.
What's on your mind?

Speaker 8 (49:37):
Good, good afternoon, guys. I just like you, guys, just
in shock this this happened to our Texans, uh, you know,
as You'stonians and if you're north of fifty, you know,
you just know that this touch on the walls another pelt.
It's another you know, another disappointment. And you know, if
you know the Lorenzo Charles and the you know the

(49:58):
all all the the wind FROs and you know all
the other downfalls of our of our history in JSON,
this is just another one of Will's. It's a little
more depressing because it is a historic defense. And I'm
not sure if the next season we'll have a historic
defense times too. That's not that's not offered in the books,
and that's not gonna be anybody's ding go kart. We

(50:20):
just hope that we have a good defense and some
kind of resemblance of an offense. But this is kind
of like an element I've been around, you know when
I was a youngster. You know, this is like that,
you know when you get that first you for a
hit and people are still trying to chase that CJ.
Strout dragon. That's what this kind of is, man, because
this is.

Speaker 9 (50:40):
Not this is a lethal it's a lethal addiction. It
could lead to your sports downfall if you keep on
chasing this one and and he keeps your wagon hitch
to this crazy horse. It's leading off the cliff. I
don't know what we can do about it. Obviously, we've
got to go in the next season with CJ as
the leader, and that's gonna pull a lot of worry

(51:02):
throughout the Houston fan base is and I already jumping
off the bagwagon already, but uh, this is gonna this
is gonna be crazy, this is gonna be kind of sticky.
I'm not sure how we're gonna come back from this
one because, uh, you know, you put all your ships
in and uh, this is the easiest pastors who were
going to have the Super Bowl.

Speaker 3 (51:19):
Oddly, yeah, considering who the team was and one other
element of it. And I brought this up to somebody
I was talking, and appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (51:26):
Roger.

Speaker 3 (51:27):
It's not just wasting this season of excellent defense. You had,
you know, some guys playing at less than one hundred percent,
and Stingly was with his oblique injury. There were some
some not one hundred percent games from him, although he
was almost out there every single week. And you had
a couple of games missed with the concussion for Jalen Peatree.
You had Kamari Lasser miss a game and then play

(51:49):
through injuries throughout many of the others, and then you
had the several injuries to your defensive line, which was
the position on the team more so than any other
offense or defense. They were the most well equipped to handle.
And they've had the most success under Nick Cassario of
finding players that can fill in. Nae Kwon Jones yesterday.

(52:09):
He joined late in the season. Fotu joined late in
the season. They had the subtle injury, they had the
Edward Junior injury, they had the Photocossi injury. Kurt Heikness
never played this year. But think of who all these
names that I've just mentioned. I'm not mentioning Aziz al Shier,
I'm not mentioning Will Anderson Junior. I'm not mentioning Daniel Hunter.
I'm not mentioning guys that were out there all game,

(52:31):
every game, for all of your games that is unfortunately
in the NFL. To me, what is unfortunate about this
year and what did not happen for them? They were
all world defensively, because this is a year where guys
didn't get hurt, they were healthy. Is it gonna happen again?
It's so unlikely, And I don't want to pick guys
out because you never know how it's gonna play. And

(52:53):
Will Anderson Junior has been very healthy in his three years,
but not this was his healthiest year. Daniel Hunter is
going to be in age thirty two season next year,
but holy cow, I can't imagine something chiseling through that armor.
But you never know. In the NFL, he has missed.
He missed an entire season with a shoulder injury, he
missed the following season with a peck injury, a partial season.
It does happen, and they just had all these guys

(53:16):
playing at an unreal level. Kaylyn Bullock should obviously be
mentioned that same breath also, and they essentially were there
almost the entire.

Speaker 2 (53:24):
Year, and they would have been there next week, and
they would have been there the week after in all likelihood.
I mean, you're down to two games at that point
and it's like now it's over.

Speaker 3 (53:33):
Yeah, it does end very very suddenly. And the addiction
that the caller was mentioning is it's an interesting analogy.
I don't know if it's it is somewhat of a
bumpy ride and if it's roller coaster like or I
don't know if he said, you take a hit and
you see what happens. But I'll go the amusement park route.
This is like the greatest ride ever. You wanted to

(53:53):
get back in line fifty times in a row to
ride the CJ. Strout experience. In year one, it was
just nothing but excellence. Like we said before, Jadon Daniels
came the next year basically the most successful productive electric
rookie season the league had ever seen, and the Texans
were clear beneficiaries of it. They won ten games, they
won a division, They won their initial postseason game that

(54:15):
year convincingly, and like I said, it's like the greatest
amusement park ride ever. There was no thought of.

Speaker 2 (54:22):
I don't, I don't. I don't think I can ride
that one again. Where's where's the garbage can? I need?

Speaker 1 (54:27):
I need to put my bed in there.

Speaker 3 (54:28):
The second year maybe there was a little of that,
and now the third year, you don't. You don't even
want to ride the riding. You don't want to be
at the amusement park at all. You're definitely not getting
a season pass. You don't even want to go there.
Your friends are saying, let's go, this is fun. No,
it's not fun. Anymore.

Speaker 2 (54:44):
The problem was yesterday the ride became final destination.

Speaker 1 (54:47):
I mean, we didn't die. He didn't die. They did,
season died.

Speaker 2 (54:52):
Yeah, the the ride malfunction in people that bad things
were happening. Let's just put it that way, and we'll
go into detail about an R rated movie. There might
be kids listening and watching right now, but probably out
of school.

Speaker 1 (55:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (55:03):
Well, yeah, they didn't go today for sure because of
MLK Day.

Speaker 1 (55:07):
I got one at home because of that.

Speaker 3 (55:09):
But yeah, I just full day's worth of NBA games,
if and when we ever get to that. As the
Rockets will wrap up their home stand tomorrow night, looking
for a fourth win of the five.

Speaker 1 (55:21):
Yeah, they got it done last night.

Speaker 2 (55:23):
The most anti climactic moving up the chart I've ever
seen for an all time NBA score. Hey, New Orleans,
what are you doing? Do you want him to get
the free throw line? I think honestly they were doing
it because it was still single digits.

Speaker 3 (55:36):
But even so, how many consecutive three point possessions do
you did? They think the Rockets were going to allow them,
and Kevin was like, I'm not going to hit these shots.
I'm going to find ways to miss point blank shots.
Even I was probably in a bad position on the
alley up that alp through to him in that sequence there,
but he did get to the free throw line he
hit those two shots. He has now surpassed Dirk Novitsky,

(56:00):
and it's very likely his health obviously, if it's part
of it. Then sometime and then the last twelve to
fifteen games of the season, roughly somewhere in that neighborhood,
he's going to pass Michael Jordan this year, so he
will have in just one season with the Rockets, he
will have passed Wilt Chamberlain. Last night he packed passed
Dirk Novitzky, and kudos to the Rockets staff putting Dirk

(56:21):
to work.

Speaker 1 (56:21):
And having him.

Speaker 3 (56:22):
That was surreal to see a congratulations video which Kevin
was able to watch after the game before he did
his postgame interview and had the Rockets launch go off.
But late in the season he will move into fifth
place and pass Michael Jordan.

Speaker 2 (56:38):
And then he's going to need a while to pass Kobe.
Kobe was a little bit more of but.

Speaker 3 (56:42):
His contract, the time he's under contract for in Houston
already suggests that that's within reach within that time frame.

Speaker 1 (56:50):
Yeah, definitely, and he might not be retiring when this
current contract expires.

Speaker 2 (56:55):
No, it's just going to be depending on, you know,
what's going on with the Rockets who They did get
a win last night.

Speaker 1 (57:00):
I it was weird.

Speaker 2 (57:01):
I'm walking out of there after doing the game, and
I'm like, the Texans lost. The Rockets won, right, I
know they did.

Speaker 3 (57:07):
That's just a regular season game against one of the
worst teams in the West.

Speaker 2 (57:11):
I guess because it was the Pelicans, and because the
Texans loss was so just disgusting and we were all
watching it leading up to the game in various places
inside Toyota Center that I walked out there, I was like, oh, yeah,
the Rockets did win that game last night.

Speaker 1 (57:24):
Oh they have the lead almost the whole night.

Speaker 3 (57:26):
They just every time they were starting to look like
they were going to put it away, they didn't, and
New Orleans kept making it eleven and nine to twelve,
and they had to play it all the way to it.
Like Kevin Durant being in the game at the end
of the game was unfortunate because they easily could have
pushed it further out. Probably worth noting Jabari Smith Junior
makes this a very very different team on the nights
where he makes shots. He took thirteen threes, he made

(57:48):
seven of them and scored thirty two points. Another spectacular
game for a men Thompson who has been unreal since
the beginning of December. He's in a group of just
five players averaging twenty points or more while shooting fifty
four percent from the floor. It's basically who's who of
the best players in the league, and he is in
that group with his offense over those twenty three games,

(58:08):
so more than half of their season, he's been playing
at that level. And they get the Spurs tomorrow night.

Speaker 2 (58:13):
Yep, that's going to be a nationally televised game, and
trying to get a guest on about that may or
may not be the guy that's gonna be calling that game.

Speaker 1 (58:21):
We shall see.

Speaker 2 (58:21):
But in the meantime, I mentioned that Will Anderson Junior
had a lot of positives to say about CJ.

Speaker 1 (58:27):
Stroud.

Speaker 2 (58:27):
You'll hear from him and someone who wasn't so positive
on CJ next.

Speaker 7 (58:33):
The a teen on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 2 (58:37):
You mentioned last segment that Will Anderson Junior has, first
of all, had one of the most sensational seasons you
could ask for from a pass rushing specialist. I fully
expect him to absolutely get paid this offseason. Texans do
not want to let him walk out of This is
not Ja'daevion Clowney.

Speaker 1 (58:55):
This is certainly not Mario Williams.

Speaker 2 (58:57):
This is a guy taken in the top three of
the draft right after CJ that you absolutely want to
lock up.

Speaker 1 (59:02):
You want to keep him in the building and have him.

Speaker 2 (59:04):
As the staple up front of what your defense tries
to do as it embodies its head coach. By the way,
I might add, there's no way he walks out that door.
But what he and a lot of the other guys
did yesterday on that roster are what good teammates do,
even if you think it might be I don't want

(59:27):
to say misguided, But if you don't agree because you
just don't think CJ. Stroud's going to bounce back or
is going to recover, you want teammates like will Anderson Junior,
like Tank Dell by the way, on social media supporting CJ.
But listen to what will Anderson Junior talked about when
it came to CJ. Strouds specifically. There's a lot of

(59:49):
things he talked about, but one of them was just
he sat down with CJ after the game and was
basically trying to tell him, you're going to get through this.

Speaker 10 (59:59):
This is boy all quarterbacks likes to think. But I
so see that. Said, Man, you're still so early in
your career and the success that you've had in your
career so far. Man, don't lose sight of that. Don't
lose sight of who you are. Don't love the sight
of all the great things you accomplished. Man, he's still
early in his career. He still has a lot of
ball to keep, the team to learn and he has
great people to learn from. So I'm excited about his
future and excited about him being the hardest team because
he is r QB Worton.

Speaker 2 (01:00:21):
You know, there is pumping your guy up there, supporting
your guy. But he went out of his way to say,
I think you're still the best quarterback in the NFL.

Speaker 1 (01:00:28):
I don't have to go that far, do you.

Speaker 3 (01:00:30):
Xavier Hutchinson said the same thing, and I brought it
up earlier. Hutch happens to be another guy who's been
here all three years that CJ's been here. Will's obviously
another will goes against him and hutch tries to catch
his passes. Most games don't go like they did yesterday,
where Xavier Hutchinson is the number one target for CJ.
Stroud in any game, preseason, regular season, or otherwise. But boy,

(01:00:54):
you throw a lot of passes his way. Hutchinson had
thirteen targets in yesterday's game. But he and Will Anderson
and I think why the question you asked in the
opening hour, how do you not lose the locker room
after a performance like that? You can hear why, You
can hear how. It is belief, and it is somebody
that they've been through three years of preparation and fighting

(01:01:16):
through it and football so just everything a football team
goes through. They see the work that he puts in,
but more importantly, they see the work on the field.
They know, like, if we thought CJ. Straub was going
to play like that moving forward or permanently, or that
wasn't out of his norm, then our conversations today would
be completely different. There would be no of course, they're

(01:01:37):
going to pick up his fifth year option, which I
haven't said yet but now I have, And of course
they're going to and we would be talking about is
there our way you can pry Joe Burrow from Cincinnati
with much more ferocity. Is there some other quarterback on
someone else's team that you really truly think would compete
and beat CJ out? If there's some veteran quarterback worthy
of doing that with, I mean, it's going to be

(01:01:58):
a pretty crappy list. Like it always is possibility that
the new head coach in Arizona says, is there any
way we cannot have Kyler Murray here next year? There's
a likelihood that the new head coach in Atlanta, Kevin Stefanski,
will say, Man, it'd be awesome if Kirk Cousins wasn't
here next year, or at least not our starter. So Matt,
if you in the front office wants to move him,

(01:02:19):
go right ahead. Uh, but that's your alternative to CJ.
And again I don't think.

Speaker 1 (01:02:25):
I don't.

Speaker 3 (01:02:25):
We wouldn't be talking about CJ's performance yesterday the way
that we are, same way they should be talking about
Buffalo's performance from Josh Allen, although his resume has a
lot more on the good side than CJ does. But
Josh Allen was awful and Josh Allen made really dumb
You can't be serious mistakes in that game. Not he
threw the ball badly and it got intercepted, not he

(01:02:47):
just wasn't.

Speaker 1 (01:02:47):
Throwing it well. Or how about what he did at
the end of the first half. You just can't. That's simple.

Speaker 3 (01:02:53):
A rookie wouldn't make that mistake, and he made it,
and he makes it all the time. Go back to
his first playoff game. You remember where that was. It
was against the Texans. It was here, and he threw
that ridiculous lateral to his tight end that, luckily for Buffalo,
he smacked out of bounds. He's still making some of
the same dumb decisions on the field with big, huge games,

(01:03:13):
winner go home.

Speaker 1 (01:03:14):
Games on the line. See just three years into his career,
Josh isn't.

Speaker 2 (01:03:18):
Yeah, And I think, as you hear this sound by it,
this is kind of where I'm leaning a little bit towards.
And I'll tell you what I'm thinking after you hear it.
So Shady McCoy with Sean McCoy, he's he's gonna go
on the record at the very beginning and say I
was one of the biggest CJ fans there was. But
then it goes south. If we have that audio, if

(01:03:40):
we don't. It would be a good time to know
about it.

Speaker 1 (01:03:45):
Big CJ.

Speaker 11 (01:03:46):
Strout fan, I don't know if he's the guard for
the future because like a rookie here was phenomenal.

Speaker 12 (01:03:52):
I'm like, damn, this is the worst is gonna look
He's got to get better. Then the next year I'm like, okay,
not what I'm thinking.

Speaker 11 (01:03:59):
Okay then and this year, I don't know, man, you
held them boys back. It's one thing to have a
bad game, it's another thing too. All his passes was laid,
was behind defenders, and I'm like, damn, are you.

Speaker 12 (01:04:13):
You can't be this bad. He can't be this bad.
So there's something there.

Speaker 11 (01:04:16):
And I always say, you know, Ohio State quarterbacks never
really do good in the pros like they're doing college.

Speaker 12 (01:04:21):
And I always thought I was different with CJ. Stroud.
Now I'm at the point where if the Texas don't
go anywhere.

Speaker 11 (01:04:27):
It can't be with him because it's not just this game.

Speaker 12 (01:04:31):
Did y'all watch the Steelers game? He didn't look good
at the Steelers.

Speaker 11 (01:04:34):
I'm like, damn, like you trying to get his game up.
He was so careless when you're in the playoffs, right, everything,
every small mistake is magnified, right, and now you get
to point he was playing like it was a preseason game.
Let me try this pass, let me try that, Demigo Ryans.
He's doing so well with this team right now, and
some of these picks, some of these passes, some of

(01:04:54):
these decisions are terrible to see this strout. I'm not
sure how far they can go with CJ. Stroud at quarterback.

Speaker 2 (01:04:59):
Let me ask you a quest, rush and wex he
comes back next year and he has a phenomenal regular
season and then you get to the postseason and some
of the stuff starts happening again because the stage is
too bright.

Speaker 1 (01:05:10):
Because that that can happen.

Speaker 2 (01:05:13):
Ask Dallas about that twice, Dak Prescott recently, Tony Romo
a million times before that.

Speaker 1 (01:05:20):
Guys put up big numbers in there.

Speaker 2 (01:05:22):
CJ's not even putting up the big regular season numbers anymore.
He didn't even have that part going for him.

Speaker 1 (01:05:27):
Right, we watched the whole regular season. We know that.
I doubt McCoy did, and that's why it was probably
so alarming to him. That's a good point.

Speaker 3 (01:05:34):
But thankfully he did bring up that all important comparison
to Ohio State who's even talking about, because I'm sure
he has no idea who he's talking about.

Speaker 1 (01:05:41):
Well, it's the stupidest thing ever.

Speaker 2 (01:05:43):
Yeah, well, I know that's that's a very minor thing,
given everything else that he said. And that's what I'm
more concerned about, like this guy, until there's no way
to prove that this isn't gonna happen again, Until it
doesn't happen again.

Speaker 3 (01:05:58):
Yeah, you gotta go out there and keep doing that. Now,
the specifics to what we already talked about, and then
he reiterated, it's it's the mist like it's the very
first pass of the game, very first pass of the game,
to an absolutely wide open Xavier Hutchinson. Hutchinson can't even
touch the football, it's so far behind him, the throw
is late, the throws off target. Everything about it is awful.

(01:06:19):
And this was the first. He doesn't know if there's
gonna be pressure, he doesn't know if they can run
the ball or not. And then same series of downs,
he throws one of his best dropped passes of the day.
He asks what Christian Kirk right in the chest with
the ball? But balls were being thrown late, decisions were
being made late, throws. As we said earlier, McCoy reiterated
that were being thrown behind guys consistently. Two of the interceptions,

(01:06:40):
even the touchdown pass was thrown behind Christian Kirk. He
was able to shield the defender with his body well enough,
but that's not where the ball's supposed to be. Weather related,
my finger hurt related, whatever it was, that he just
a whole game's worth of the same mistakes over and over.
That's what's most I think alarming about the performance yesterday
and yes other postseason games as well. Trending in the

(01:07:02):
wrong direction in the postseason. Great as a rookie, not
real good last year, disastrous this year. That's where your
quarterback has headed. Unfortunately.

Speaker 13 (01:07:11):
C J.

Speaker 2 (01:07:12):
Stroud was on like every podcast following his rookie season,
and he was very confident, and rightfully so. He had
shown just flashes of brilliance his rookie season. It's hard
to believe that we're talking about the same guy in
light of what has happened over the past two playoff games,
just in the last two weeks. But a guy that

(01:07:34):
had sky was the limit is like the biggest cliche
ever for young athletes, and it applied to him and
then some just absolutely incredible, And then you fast forward
to yesterday and even last week as he was running
off the field, we talked about this last week, kind
of taunting Pittsburgh fans on a night where he probably

(01:07:57):
didn't have his best night at the office. Guy was
long gone yesterday and earlier today speaking with the media
following twenty eight sixteen Patriots, and I just don't know.
Somebody was messaging me during the break. I don't know
how you get that back. I don't know how you
recover from this, because if it's a mental thing that's

(01:08:18):
different than anything mechanical or physical. To me, those things
can be adjusted and there's ways to do it. Only
you're in your head, if you're CJ.

Speaker 1 (01:08:25):
Shroud.

Speaker 3 (01:08:27):
Yeah, I think it was still more of a I
don't want it to sound like I'm blind, but I
do think it was more of a one game thing.
But I mentioned this earlier in the hour, so those
who weren't listening, then I'll say it again. I think
the mechanics are they need a lot of work, and
that's where I think many of his issues come from.
We just talked about where the ball was going yesterday. Sure,
some of it could have been and likely was weather related,

(01:08:48):
just like it probably was a week ago in Pittsburgh,
just like it probably was in Baltimore, just like it
possibly was in Kansas City. Guess what that part's not changing.
I'm not about to see a roof on the brand
new stadium in Kansas City. I mean, where you think
you're going in the AFC playoffs to play all these
controlled climate football games.

Speaker 1 (01:09:06):
You have one option.

Speaker 3 (01:09:07):
Win all your games in the regular season and host
all your games in the playoffs. Then you're gonna get
to play in the crime climate control and you don't
have to worry about all these other parts of it,
or have the NFL decide. Yeah, I mean it's fun
for everybody to talk about. Would we would rather see
the weather not impact the football games. We don't want
to be people. We don't want people to be carrying
these Matt Stafford can't play in cold weather conversations for

(01:09:27):
his entire career. He also didn't play that well yesterday
and they still won. Obviously, it was super cold. It
was very wintry, mixy in New England. But that's where
stadiums are. If you're in the NFC, maybe you get
around it a little bit depending on where you go.
We got nothing but West Coast games left. We had
three of the four West Coast games teams that were

(01:09:48):
West Coast teams left. In the NFC, doesn't mean the
weather's gonna be great in Seattle. Probably means the weather's
gonna be pretty good in San Francisco or it's so
fi where there is a roof. But in the AFC,
your path this year went through Denver. Your number two
seed was the team you just played. I don't see
Jacksonville rising to number one seed status where you can

(01:10:09):
play all your games there if you're on the road
and they're at home. But those should not be excuses
until the rules are changed, so they shouldn't be. But
I just can't look at what we've seen him do
and think he lost it. It's gone all the other
parts of the team. This is my greatest concern for CJ.
Strout because this is what's remained relatively similar when things

(01:10:32):
aren't perfect. He's got to be able to play well,
and the evidence that he can do that doesn't really exist,
and that's a problem because things aren't always going to
go well. Denver might have the best offensive line in
the NFL. But doesn't mean bo Nick's got perfect protection
all season long. Doesn't mean teams didn't blitz him and
full their line. It doesn't mean guys didn't run the
wrong route, doesn't mean they didn't play in weather. I

(01:10:53):
know he's played with a subpar group in front of him.
I would agree with Demiko when he said today the
offensive line was better this year than it was last year.
It was I think every which way you could look
at it, but it wasn't yesterday. It was good enough
to win with, but it wasn't good. You needed your
quarterback to play good football in bad conditions. Bad running game,

(01:11:14):
bad up the middle, pass protection, bad conditions literally in
the weather. Then you were trailing in the game, bad
conditions on the scoreboard. You got to be able to
play with those circumstances at a very high level. And
in their postseasons with CJ, there's just every which way
you want to look at it, the numbers are terrible.
And even with the wins and even in the three

(01:11:37):
years now, there's so many bad Texans numbers. Second half
for instance, Man, this is a bad second half postseason team,
especially obviously in the divisional round where they keep losing.
They've scored a touchdown in the second half of their
three Divisional Round games, just one Joe Mixon had it
didn't have any in the first year. They didn't even

(01:11:58):
score in Baltimore in the second half. They put up
six points against Kansas City on offense. Kansas City gave
him two at the end of the game with the safety.
They obviously scored just six points yesterday with a pair
of field goals. That's three years worth of awful second
half Divisional Round football under three different sets of circumstances

(01:12:18):
against three different defenses.

Speaker 1 (01:12:20):
The constant is you, CJ. Yeah, CJ. And it's not
even a constant play caller.

Speaker 2 (01:12:25):
And that right there, because you're talking about historical now
you're getting back into that aspect of the Texans franchise.
That's why the SoundBite that he gave yesterday where he was,
you know, basically talking about letting Houston down, it's a
little bit more than just a cliche in that sense.
This is a CJ in the post game yesterday talking

(01:12:45):
about that very thing, letting the city of Houston down.

Speaker 14 (01:12:48):
In this situation, now I look back and I just
I just feel like I'll let people down and you know,
not not happy with that, and you know it hurts,
and I'm not you know, naive to it. You didn't
play my best this year. But I'm gonna, you know, respond,
I'm gonna, you know, keep my my chest up, you know,
my my my chin up high, and I'm gonna just
keep batting for it, you know. You know, God be

(01:13:10):
for me. Who can be against me? And I'm just
gonna rely on that. But yeah, I think, you know,
even today, you know, just our team doing great, you know,
our defense, you know, getting stops, you know, and I'm
just being careless with the football. I gotta, you know,
get that fixed and something that I know I can.
So I'm gonna gonna get that done.

Speaker 2 (01:13:27):
While it's good he knows that, and he used the
word careless. While it's good that he knows it, it's
also the most frustrating part of this, Like why, you know,
I just kept finding myself saying that yesterday, what are you?
I must have screamed what are you doing at the
TV at least three different times yesterday.

Speaker 1 (01:13:43):
I probably had you beat.

Speaker 3 (01:13:45):
Just as we've seen a lot of football from CJ
over three years, We've seen him in six postseason games.
We've seen him in the majority of the regular season
games and obviously the nine games that they want at
the end of the year, six of which he started.
We saw him playing all these games and just these
things weren't a part of you know, thirty five attempt game.
He's gonna throw a couple balls behind some guys. He's
gonna put the ball where it should not be in

(01:14:06):
harm's way. There was obviously there were zero fumble issues.
There were zero careless with toting the ball, even in
a collapsing pocket. He was very good at protecting the football,
knowing that well, I can see them, even the guys
around me, and there's probably a guy about to get
me from you know, behind, and I'm going to need
to I gotta, I gotta secure the football. I mean,

(01:14:27):
Drake May obviously needs to learn that. Josh Allen still
hasn't learned that to a certain degree. But uh, there's
just so much good football we've seen. It's hard to
believe this is all you're gonna get in the postseason
because I don't I don't think he's played great in
the wildcard round. These three seasons, they've been just killing
teams defensively scoring points. I mean, heck, the defense is
being mean to CJ and the offense. Five touchdowns in

(01:14:49):
the wildcard round? Where where are my touchdowns in the
divisional round?

Speaker 1 (01:14:53):
Hook me up? Please? Yeah? That's interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:14:57):
There are two people, not just one. That's very obvious.
There's two people that if I were them, it's just me.
This is how I'd go about it. I'd probably keep
my head down all off season and be doing everything
possible to get this team, and specifically this offense where
it needs to be to compliment a fantastic defense, which

(01:15:18):
by all accounts, should for the most part, be back
or at least possible that it's back next year. We'll
get into that next. The A Team on Sports Talk
seven ninety home on a Monday edition of The A Team.
It's Sports Talks seven ninety It's Space City Home Network.
It's twenty eight sixteen Aftermath as the Texans go to

(01:15:40):
Foxboro and are now oh for the playoffs there it's
just I don't and we'll get to this a little
bit later in the show. Nobody wants to see the
Patriots go on another run again. Nobody, nobody outside of Boston,
New England.

Speaker 3 (01:15:54):
I mean, I wouldn't exactly say having this. I know
he's young, and I know Vrabel just got there. They're
obviously I don't expect them to go on a run.

Speaker 1 (01:16:03):
That's what everybody else is saying. These people, yeah, the
people that are fans of that.

Speaker 2 (01:16:06):
Team, everybody nationally, everybody, they're all saying it right now.
And they're telling you what's gonna happen WEX and you're
gonna like it, not gonna fall for it. But I'll
tell you this. And I was talking to somebody that
let's just say he knows a thing or two. This
guy bashes his head against the wall repeatedly because he

(01:16:28):
wants every Remember how like when I would get upset
at the head coach of the Texans or the GM
of the Texans, and I would never get rid of
both of them, there was always somebody left over. This
person wants the I don't think he refers to it
as a malignant cancer, but he definitely looks at it
as just get this element out of the organization as
quickly as possible so that you can finally break through

(01:16:50):
and not be attached to this Patriots South way of thinking.
This person cannot wait until the day Nick Cassario is
not involved or anybody that's that's associated with the bygone
era of Patriots football. In other words, anything Tom Brady related,
because I mean, other than Robert Kraft and Vrabel wants
being a player.

Speaker 1 (01:17:09):
This is all new. This this Patriots would be run
that people would have you believe there.

Speaker 3 (01:17:14):
Hey, there's a bunch of players that are post Nick
Cassario but still on the team, which means basically Bill
Belichick drafted them. But the reason that they're winning is
because the quarterback that they drafted after he left, and
the coach they hired after he left, and some of
the players they've added after he left that have made
the most impact are playing great football. Has nothing to

(01:17:35):
do with that. To me, it's the same thing as Cassaro,
just the reverse. You can dislike Cassario if you want,
because he has Patriots and his blood, but now explain
to me why you hate him as the GEM of
the Texans.

Speaker 1 (01:17:48):
Good luck.

Speaker 2 (01:17:49):
Well, I'm gonna explain to you why I don't like
him as the GM of the Texans when it comes
to the offense. And I know that's a very very
generic or general statement to make when you consider there
are offensive weapons that are on this team that he
brought here that absolutely one of them. Had he been
on the field yesterday, maybe it's different. I don't know
how much does Nico Collins make a difference in yesterday's game.

Speaker 3 (01:18:11):
Really, If CJ's playing like that, everybody on the offense
is somebody he brought here. Other than Titus Howard, every
other player that plays offense for the Texans is a
Nick Cassario edition. He's been here long enough that that's
pretty much true about the whole roster. There's only a
handful of players that aren't Casario additions. And in Howard's case,
he's a Casario contract because he's been extended since Casario
has been here. Nick to me, if you look at

(01:18:31):
some of you know, if you go dig deeper into
the numbers, but you could see it very very very
very clearly with your eyes. CJ wasn't throwing the wide
open receivers very often. And some of that is the
quality of your film work by the defense. Some of
that is the quality of your players. But the first
interception where he overthrows Christian Kirk, Kirk was open the

(01:18:51):
play there. Christian Kirk dropped it Kirk was open. The
play that opened up the game that I mentioned to Hutchinson,
Hutchinson was open. And these are all plays, especially those
two players that may end up running routes that Nico's running.
And thirteen throws to Hutchinson, and you saw how many
times they went Higgins way. Higgins's best play of the
game was as a defensive back because that ball was
also thrown behind him and underthrown and he had to

(01:19:13):
knock the ball away. If the numbers I saw this
said they threw to a receiver who's one on one
defender or closest defender. Basically, I know that's an NBA term.
Was Christian Gonzalez sixteen times? That's a third of the
throws that CJ made. That's outrageous. I know Carlton Davis
picked off CJ for the second time, for the second time.

(01:19:36):
He's had two two interception games now against c J.

Speaker 1 (01:19:39):
Stroud.

Speaker 2 (01:19:39):
He played for the Lions a couple of years ago
when the Jared Goff game happened. But why over and
over and over did you have this predetermined that this
was who he wanted to throw to, Because most of
these in these cases, this receiver's not open either was
a PBA PBu by Gonzales. He created two fumbles, one
of which was negated because a knee was down. The
other one was you were able to get back like

(01:20:02):
it's just where that was the Woody Marks fumble.

Speaker 3 (01:20:04):
You weren't able to get back. They're just there was
a lack of recognition of I think where where things
were going to be open. Nico does help solve that,
and it's not a coincidence the two most the two
receivers had the most catches and targets this year, well
when they weren't in the game yesterday, which was almost
the entire game. Because obviously Schultz is the other it
impacts you. I mean, Kate Stover can't play like Dalton Schultz.

(01:20:28):
That's just he's not him. Harrison Bryant's even less of
either one of them, and Jaden Higgins isn't Nico Collins.
It's I mean, we could just go to the source
here and get an answer for that, because that question
was asked and answered by Demico Ryans today about those
two specific players.

Speaker 1 (01:20:44):
I've got it here for you. How do you replace
Nico and Dalton?

Speaker 12 (01:20:49):
Yeah, you don't.

Speaker 13 (01:20:50):
You don't replace a Nico Collins. You don't replace the
Dalton Schultz when you lose your top guys, as any
team in his league when you lose your top guys
is going to be different.

Speaker 1 (01:21:00):
I thank you, guys.

Speaker 13 (01:21:01):
See the Niners kind of went through something similar to
get it catches up with you, right you and this
the best teams are gonna advance, and the best teams
are gonna the best team is gonna win the super Bowl,
all right, and that's gotta You need your your top
guys out there. You need your top playmakers out there.
And uh yeah, we definitely miss Nico.

Speaker 2 (01:21:23):
So that's obvious. And absolutely agree with them one hundred percent.
I would like you to play the cut immediately below
that one where on the rundown, of course, where he
is talking about evaluating said offensive line this year.

Speaker 13 (01:21:42):
Okay, I thought the offensive line did a really nice
job and they you know, I didn't think they get
enough credit for the job that they did. Like for
the offensive line we're able to put together everybody. A
lot of people probably gave us slack for the moves
that we made with our office a line, and they

(01:22:02):
played much better this year than we did last year.
They got better. Coach Cole did a really nice job
with the offensive line. The technique was better, They improved
a ton and they should get a lot of credit
for that.

Speaker 2 (01:22:15):
I don't want to hear that right now. I'm sorry.
I love Damiko Ryans. I'm as big a fan as anybody.
I do not want to hear about the line played
better and the technique got better.

Speaker 1 (01:22:25):
I don't want you.

Speaker 2 (01:22:26):
I'm fine with having to coach up some players, but
outside of URSII, who you spent a draft pick on,
and it actually hit like I need real, dedicated work
to make CJ's life if this is your guy, indeed
easier starting in July when you get the training camp.

Speaker 3 (01:22:46):
Yeah, the focus maybe needs to be elsewhere, but you
only have so many so much money to spend, and
so many players to find in any given off season.
I'm with you on you know, maybe the focus should
be more here, and maybe there should be better people
evaluating the talent to find for those spots. But that's
how you You're an imbalanced team because most of the

(01:23:06):
hits draft wise for Nick Cassario, they're playing at an
all pro level on the defensive side, and they've spent money.
I mean Obviously their biggest two biggest free agents spends
over the last two years are for a ze. If
you're talking about this from outside the organization, they're on
his ease and they're on Daniel Hunter, and they should be.

Speaker 1 (01:23:26):
That's why this defense is historic.

Speaker 3 (01:23:28):
He's right, and I understand that your feelings are the
same as I think anybody would have.

Speaker 1 (01:23:32):
Well, that's great.

Speaker 3 (01:23:33):
I felt like at the end of his comments, he
should also be saying, even though he's nice and he's
trying to compliment them, the last thing he should have said,
I think is but.

Speaker 1 (01:23:42):
It's not good enough. But it's still not good enough.

Speaker 3 (01:23:44):
Our team's not good He's not trying to pinpoint their
play so much the team on offense and the way
that they played with their line that they have to
have the five guys, even counting Trent Brown.

Speaker 1 (01:23:54):
They can't have the same group next year. It's not
good enough. No, no, no.

Speaker 2 (01:23:57):
And I guess my question is, and this is ultimate
what it could come down to. I don't know, because
you're having to assume that this is the reason why.
I mean, what would just talking about last segment, the
throws behind receivers, that kind of stuff, you would have
never said that about CJ.

Speaker 1 (01:24:14):
Stroud in twenty twenty three.

Speaker 2 (01:24:15):
You know why because every time you said poise, which
you guys forget, that was all everybody talked about. Look
at this kid's poise. Every pregame, whoever was calling the
game would talk about that. What's the word that was
right after it every single time? Accuracy. So poise and
accuracy for your rookie quarterback has gone poof in the

(01:24:36):
last two years.

Speaker 1 (01:24:37):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:24:38):
Some of that's on CJ for whatever reason, but I
gotta think a lot of that's on the fact that
he was running for his life a lot of the
time behind the line that's patchwork at best at times.

Speaker 1 (01:24:47):
But that's to me, that just wasn't. That wasn't this year.
But you just said it. You don't just lose it.

Speaker 3 (01:24:51):
No, I'm saying, he wasn't running for his life this
year behind this line. They weren't good enough and they
need to be better, and he needs to understand the
pocket more and he needs but he wasn't running for
us life this year.

Speaker 2 (01:25:00):
But you just said something like, we never would say
that about CJ in twenty twenty three. He needs to
understand the pocket better. How do you I get regressing
in some areas of the game, but that one, like,
if you had good pocket presence your rookie year, why
is it bad in year two and three. That's a
really really important question that somebody over there needs to
answer because of it.

Speaker 3 (01:25:20):
It could be the amount of hits now, could even
be the concussions, It could be lots of different things,
could be the I think, even with the offensive line
playing better, there's gonna be an element of confidence that's lost,
in my opinion, when you walk up to the line
behind these five guys and then a week later you
walk up to the line behind a different five guys,
and then a different five guys, and then a different five. Yeah,

(01:25:42):
five straight, just like coordinators, they've had to make a
change on the offensive line five consecutive weeks. They had,
If I'm not mistaken, I tried to keep track, they
had twelve different combinations and they only had one stretch
of more than two more than two games in a
row the whole year where they started the same five guys.

Speaker 1 (01:26:01):
Here's the thing.

Speaker 3 (01:26:02):
The and heck, they played with six offensive linemen for
like twenty percent of the year.

Speaker 2 (01:26:05):
Yeah, because the linemen they had weren't good enough to
just play with five is a big reason I think
they did that.

Speaker 1 (01:26:10):
But here's the other thing.

Speaker 2 (01:26:10):
The reason the Chiefs go to the Super Bowl and
they didn't get it done up front.

Speaker 1 (01:26:16):
And I realized there was injuries that year.

Speaker 2 (01:26:17):
But what do they turn around and do, like drafted
three offensive lineman or what they went out and got
free agency.

Speaker 3 (01:26:22):
Drafted two linemen, they signed linemen. They all hit. And
if you want a even more recent one for a
bad team that became a good team, go look at
all these awards and lists and all NFC teams and
all NFL teams and Pro Bowl knots. The Bears did
that this offseason. For Caleb Williams, their offensive line totally
revamped one off season. Free agency, big huge part of it.

Speaker 1 (01:26:46):
Did he have his best season?

Speaker 3 (01:26:48):
Well, it's only a year two, and yes he had
his best season, but it's more about he played behind
a competent line. The last throw of his entire season
this year, he stood back in the pocket forever. When
he threw DJ Moore and I got picked off. He
had all the protection of the world for the most
important throw of the game.

Speaker 2 (01:27:04):
I tell you what, I'm not ready for and I'll
tell you that when we come back.

Speaker 1 (01:27:09):
And it has to do with Nick Cassio. That's next.

Speaker 7 (01:27:13):
The ad on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 13 (01:27:18):
Hey, it's a man, Tompson win one thousand dollars right
now on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 7 (01:27:24):
Just enter this nationwide keyword at sports seven ninety dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:27:28):
Happy h A P P y Happy.

Speaker 7 (01:27:30):
Enter it now at Sports seven ninety dot com.

Speaker 2 (01:27:35):
Tomorrow morning at ten am. As the media availability continues
post twenty twenty five season, Nick Cassario is gonna meet
with the press Wednesday, sorry.

Speaker 1 (01:27:48):
Wednesday, not tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (01:27:50):
And I'll tell you what, I'm not ready for any
of the GMS speak that's ahead and it's coming.

Speaker 1 (01:27:56):
All right, Well, then I will go.

Speaker 2 (01:27:57):
I will listen to everything he said, and I will
help Josh cut up none of his audio. Thank you,
because it will be there. You guarantee it would be
to do it.

Speaker 1 (01:28:05):
Man.

Speaker 3 (01:28:05):
Why because of what we just talked about last second,
you got to go. You gotta sift through it and
see if maybe there's a couple of nuggets there. Maybe
there's you know, since we're awful at our jobs, maybe
one of us will ask a good enough question and
elicit a nice response, but this is what we get.

Speaker 2 (01:28:19):
You're not going to go and encourage him and to
keep his head up. Encourage Nick to keep his head up. Yeah, man,
it was a rough ending to the year.

Speaker 1 (01:28:26):
I think I will, yes, that will not be something
I dont come. Nobody did that for CJ yesterday.

Speaker 3 (01:28:32):
Uh bris was nobody there in the visiting media section
where the Texans were yesterday that felt the need to
do that.

Speaker 1 (01:28:39):
If they had.

Speaker 2 (01:28:40):
Do you think that person would get scrutiny seeing as
how he played the way he did.

Speaker 3 (01:28:43):
Since you bring it up, I do think there's one
element that I don't know the answer to this because
I haven't heard what she has had to say about it,
because I don't think anybody else is talking about it.
The reporter that we're talking about from Jacksonville, I don't
know if she is covers one game a year, covers
ten games a year, knows Liam Cohen has spoken to
Liam Cohen has I don't know any of that, and
I think that would play into any conversation like that

(01:29:07):
to how it's received and how it's done, And it's
just different people do different things.

Speaker 1 (01:29:11):
I don't think.

Speaker 3 (01:29:11):
There's anybody in the universe in Houston. Would that would
do that, Not that it's good or bad. I'm just
saying I don't think there's anybody in the media that
who used to would do that. They might do it privately, universally.
People were piling on CJ. Stroud yesterday and it would everything.

Speaker 2 (01:29:26):
She said if you go back and listen to everything
she said, and she was saying, as you mentioned, to
Liam Cohen, not Trevor Lawrence. Admittedly, so it's a different
I guess it's a different element seeing as how he's
a coach and can only affect so much versus the
players who are literally playing the game. But if there
was ever anybody that you would think would deserve those
kinds of uplifting words, it would have been CJ yesterday

(01:29:48):
and he was not getting that.

Speaker 3 (01:29:49):
I would pointed this out. I've done it all playoffs, Like,
you got to really like, what did Liam Cohen do wrong?
What does he even need that for? They had a
great season. It's just disappointing that it ended that way. Well,
why did it end that way? Because it ends that
way for thirteen teams. There's fourteen teams in the playoffs.
It ends that way for thirteen of them. That's an
enormous percentage of them. It just ended that way for
the Texans and the Bills and the two other teams.

(01:30:11):
Look at how the Bears lost. They had probably the
play of the playoffs on the day they lost their.

Speaker 2 (01:30:17):
Season, right before they lost. Yes, I mean that was unbelievable.
What Caylen willis a video game. My roommate used to
do that in college on Madden and it pissed me off.

Speaker 3 (01:30:26):
I still got a little semantically mad at Next Gen Stats.
So the ball's on the fourteen yard line on fourth
down and he drops back twenty six yards. He throws
the ball from the forty forty and a half forty
one I'll give you forty one, and he throws it
into the end zone. It's caught five yards deep, six
yards deep, I don't know by cole comet Okay, forty

(01:30:48):
to the goal line plus five that's forty five yards,
and next Gen stat says that ball that throw of
fifty one point two yards was the longest throw on
a red zone played because they were in the red
zone when the play started. And I'm like, so are
you calculating that from where you are forecasting? The ball
was going to hit the ground like stat cast does
on home runs. I mean, he caught the ball forty

(01:31:08):
five yards away, that's not how far the ball traveled.

Speaker 1 (01:31:10):
Yeah, it seems pretty simple way.

Speaker 2 (01:31:12):
I feel like in plays like that, you should you
should get the actual distance that you threw it credit.

Speaker 1 (01:31:17):
But I know that's not how it worked.

Speaker 2 (01:31:18):
So it was a fourteen yard touchdown pass exactly. That's
what I was I was waiting for you to say that.

Speaker 3 (01:31:23):
Well, every once in a while, like almost one hundred
percent of the time, I'll watch the game. When I'm
watching the game at home, somebody else inevitably will be
in another room watching the game, the missus usually, and
I enjoy the fact that there the TV is just
slightly off because then either I hear from her first
or she hears from me first. Oh my god, I

(01:31:43):
think we both said the exact same words on that
particular play.

Speaker 2 (01:31:47):
So after all of the GMS speak is said on
Wednesday about how long is it until we can start
seeing Nick Cassario go after maybe some free agents?

Speaker 3 (01:31:58):
Well, first things first, yes, four losses solidified four more
spots in the first round of the draft. Texans will
draft twenty eighth that's five spots from the end of
the first round because they had the toughest schedule among
the teams that shared their record in the regular season
that also lost in the divisional round, So that means
they get the worst pick.

Speaker 1 (01:32:17):
They might the first head of the Patriots.

Speaker 3 (01:32:19):
After they're easy, they're picking ahead of the Patriots. Patriots
will have one of the last four picks in the draft.
The four teams remaining have twenty nine through thirty two,
so they'll pick twenty eight, and they do have a
bunch of extra picks. The Washington deal with Tunsul, the
Giants deal with dart Land them two more picks in
the top eighty five seventy five. I think that five

(01:32:39):
picks probably inside the top one ten.

Speaker 1 (01:32:42):
Maybe they should use them all.

Speaker 3 (01:32:44):
Well, they definitely won't take five players in the top
one ten, but you might be able to turn the
sixty eighth pick into the forty fourth best player because
you have these additional picks, and he's done that before.
I think it's going to be pretty hard to draft
any higher than twenty eight, both because it's very difficult
to move up from there, even with their assets. I
think they move up the handful of spots. Nick usually

(01:33:04):
goes in the other direction. He had picked twenty five
last year and they didn't draft in the first round.
He had picked twenty three the year before and they
didn't draft anybody in the first round. Taking a first
round of this year again at twenty eight, it's it's
far from a given that the player drafted twenty eight
is going to be great. And Nick has actually been
very good at finding players that are great or that
are successful for where they drafted. He's had some misses too,

(01:33:27):
and unfortunately that comes right back to the same spot
some of his biggest misses. You could argue his three
biggest draft misses. These are all top two round picks
that I'm gonna mention. They all play the same position,
offensive line, all three of them. Juice Scruggs wasn't even
active for last week's game. He didn't play in this
week's game, but at least he was active. Blake Fisher

(01:33:49):
is your sixth lineman, and when given the option of
keeping Titus Howard inside at guard when Trent Brown is
unavailable and playing Blake Fisher at right tackle, which I
think they made the right decision and said no, we
don't want to do that. And Kenyan Green, who is
currently available to any team that wants him. These are
all top sixty picks and they all missed big, big, big, big,

(01:34:11):
big misses. You can't have them on the field playing
a full set of reps. I mean, it's nice that
Blake Fisher plays as your sixth lineman, but I don't
think anybody who analyzes his play on those snaps that
he got about twenty plus a game. They're fair at best,
fair at best. They just happen to have another player
who weighs almost three hundred pounds out there. That's about it.
And this is where we're gonna be. When you're talking

(01:34:33):
about free agency. They'll probably look at defense. Free agis
our draft. They're probably gonna look at defensive tackle. Probably
need to assess the tight end position. You drafted Luke
Lache and he never was active for a single game
this year. Brevin Jordan's coming back from injury is under
contract again. Harrison Bryant's a diamond does in tight end,
he's not going to be back. And Dalton Schultz you
have to consider whether or not you're gonna pay him

(01:34:55):
to be back, and they may not clearly. I think
the running back situation has to be addressed, and then
probably safety. All of those are behind making sure your
offensive line is even better, significantly better than last year's.
Titus Howard going to stay at tackle where he should.
You have the option of drafting a tackle and sticking
him back inside, but I would just draft somebody on

(01:35:16):
the interior instead, or sign somebody in free agency. There's
two spots on the interior or three that you need
to upgrade. Don't know if ed Ingram's going to be back,
they'd probably consider that a good free agent or trade acquisition.
They traded for him from Minnesota. He played well this year.
He played very well this year and could cash in
on it elsewhere because he's not been extended here. But

(01:35:38):
your center, Jake Andrews, he was. I mean, I didn't
see guys blowing him off the ball, but I don't
know that i'd consider him a plus center.

Speaker 1 (01:35:46):
And then your other guard spot. I need an offensive
lineman taken in the first round.

Speaker 2 (01:35:53):
I'm sorry, I just that might sound overly simplistic, But
how about again taking a first round or would be.

Speaker 1 (01:36:01):
Something in and of itself.

Speaker 3 (01:36:02):
Well, we'll look back at this last draft where the
Texans first pick was an offensive line or second pick
was an offensive lineman at forty eight. That drafted Higgins
at thirty four. But we'll look at the players that
either were available at twenty three through forty eight, because
he could have maneuvered himself into any of those spots,
and I think Ursery is gonna grade out pretty well.

Speaker 1 (01:36:22):
It was a good pick or other options.

Speaker 3 (01:36:24):
So drafting him at forty eight and taking the assets
you were able to get by maneuvering there, or just
taking him at twenty three, or taking Simmons at twenty
three or any of them like he that was correct.
I think he made the right maneuvers and landed a
player that's probably had a first round talent grade at
least in their mind, and he definitely played that way
this year.

Speaker 2 (01:36:44):
Yeah, it's funny because Breise Hall wasn't dealt at the
trade deadline and now he's gonna be a free agent.
Be interesting if if the Texans took a flyer right
because they need they need to replace Joe Mixon.

Speaker 1 (01:36:57):
They never did that.

Speaker 3 (01:36:58):
Yeah, I mean, that's is the best free agent running
back in the market.

Speaker 1 (01:37:02):
I mean, you almost got the best one. Last time around,
and that got that team a super Bowl. Right.

Speaker 3 (01:37:07):
He's also nowhere near as good as Saquon Barkley in
my opinion. Yeah, but you don't need No, you don't
on Barley, are you good? That's where you're free. This
is where you're spending your free agency money. Then you're
going out to get a running back. That's what you will,
that's what you're advocating for, which is not necessarily a
bad idea.

Speaker 2 (01:37:22):
Yeah, No, I mean you can, you can make things.
I mean Joe Mixon was putting up numbers behind the
same offensive line that was not great in front of CJ.
So I'm not saying it's a terrible option. But I
don't think what he Marx can be getting the lion's
share of the carries next year regardless.

Speaker 1 (01:37:38):
I think is so.

Speaker 2 (01:37:40):
Yeah, there's a lot still to get to and a
lot of it is coming from yesterday's game.

Speaker 1 (01:37:44):
In fact, maybe all of it will be. We'll see.

Speaker 2 (01:37:46):
It's The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. We do
it every Monday at four thirty, which means that's next.

Speaker 8 (01:37:54):
The eight.

Speaker 2 (01:38:00):
Well, there should be some really really easy pickings here
in this edition of The Good, the Bad, and the
ugly from a weekend in which the Texans season came
to an end twenty eight to sixteen to the final
in Foxborough twenty twenty five is now officially in the books.
What happens from here remains to be seen. But boy,
the good, the bad, and the ugly from a divisional

(01:38:21):
round weekend in the postseason or anything else, I'm not.

Speaker 1 (01:38:26):
Determining what you guys pick. I know what I'm picking.

Speaker 3 (01:38:29):
I do appreciate that. I'll go with the Texans for
the good. I have the good, Josh has the bad.
You've got the ugly. So as you said, you can
go in any direction you want. Two postseason games and
the rookie season in twenty twenty three, for Willy Anderson Junior,
we're very good against the Browns and the Ravens TfL
in each game, sack and a quarterback hit in each

(01:38:50):
one of those games. In twenty twenty four, in his
two postseason games, he had three and a half sacks,
four TFLs, five quarterback hits and one of each in
both of those games. And then this year against the
Steelers and the Patriots, will Anderson Junior had his second
consecutive three and a half sack postseason, He's now got
eight in six games. Another couple of TFLs quarterback hits

(01:39:14):
in both games for total and forced three fumbles, including
two in yesterday's game. That's part of the good. The obvious,
but even better good is Will Anderson Junior today talking
about if he'd be down with signing an extension and
playing here pretty much forever.

Speaker 10 (01:39:31):
Of course, I want to be in my whole career.
I love the Texans. I love everything about them. You know,
they trade up and got me, man. But yeah, you know,
I don't really like this all these things. But of
course I would love to be here, man. And if
it's in God's will to happen, it will happen.

Speaker 3 (01:39:45):
I think that this offseason will provide that. If you
watch the way that the Texans or Nick Cassario's handled players,
and not many have been in this similar situation league wide,
but one on his own team has, and that's Derek
Stingley Junior's pretty obvious that Derek Stingley Junior was the
kind of person and player they want him to be.
He's best player at his position in the NFL, or

(01:40:06):
certainly one of them, and they took the opportunity when
the offseason presented itself to make him the highest paid
player at his position. That is what Will Anderson and
his representatives will demand. It's what he's earned based on
how the NFL works, and I think the Texans will comply.
And I think that is what will happen this offseason,
that he will sign a new long term deal and

(01:40:27):
for however many seconds or minutes or days or weeks,
he'll be the highs paid player at that position or
whenever that kicks in. Interesting all this conversation about these
things for Will and CJ. I'm not sure the reason
for it, but when I was doing the Rockets game
on Friday night, it was just noticeable because he was
sitting in the front row.

Speaker 1 (01:40:47):
The agent for CJ.

Speaker 2 (01:40:48):
Stroud and Derek Stingley Junior and many other extremely well
paid NFL players. David Buligetto was at the game. He's
extremely well paid too well. He generated the most money
in contracts. Presumably that means he and athletes first pulled
the most money via commissions. But you want your best
players to play.

Speaker 3 (01:41:07):
Their best I don't think this is even the slightest
bit blasphemous. Will Anderson's been a better postseason player than
any player in Houston Texans history, including those that wore
or played the same position.

Speaker 1 (01:41:23):
If you want to get into that debate.

Speaker 3 (01:41:24):
Again, he's not a question at all. He's had a
better postseason career than JJ has.

Speaker 2 (01:41:30):
JJ famously disappeared against the Patriots.

Speaker 1 (01:41:33):
He also scored a touchdown in this.

Speaker 2 (01:41:35):
First fine when you're playing what's his face the red rifle?

Speaker 3 (01:41:39):
Yeah, no, he's just been You need you guys to
make plays, and they made a bunch of them.

Speaker 2 (01:41:43):
He got play yesterday where he caused a fumble was
in stupid.

Speaker 1 (01:41:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:41:49):
Three times they had their opportunity. He came back from
behind of Drake. May you see it all the time
from that when you're rushing from that edge and they
don't really see you looping around, smack the ball right
out of his hands. He had a chance to get it.
It's very awkward position for him to be even trying
to pick it up, and ultimately nobody on the Texans
was able to get it on either of those two fumbles,

(01:42:10):
which again Dimiko mentioned it on with us since we
brought that to you today. The deep both defenses were
there to make a bunch of plays, and the Patriots
made them just a little bit more often than the
Texans did. That's your good will, Anderson Junior, Josh, you've
got the bad.

Speaker 15 (01:42:27):
Okay, the obvious stuff. I think we've kind of covered.
So I'm gonna pivot a little bit and go with
the Woody Marks fumble. They're in the red zone. I
feel like if they would have scored with that opportunity there,
that the game swings, and I think for CJC and
him fumble, it was kind of more that, oh, here
we go again.

Speaker 3 (01:42:44):
It's not just me so to remind I brought this
play up earlier, when oh, you're not you're not gonna
win with CJ throwing four picks and you're not gonna
be able to do this, and that the Texan the
game situation that they're sitting in when this particular fumble
takes place, it's late in the game and you think,

(01:43:04):
oh my god, I can't even believe they're in the game.

Speaker 1 (01:43:07):
But they are in the game.

Speaker 3 (01:43:10):
You've had the fumble from Xavier Hutchinson on the third
play of the half, which luckily was overruled correctly by
review that it wasn't a fumble at all. You've got
the ball at the seventeen yard line. There's five and
a half minutes remaining, it's twenty one to thirteen. And

(01:43:30):
the reason you have the ball is because this was
the possession after this Will Anderson fumble, cause that was
recovered when Aziz al Schier got it at the thirty
five stumbled ahead for a couple of yards, So the
offense hadn't made a whole lot of progress. A couple
of nice passes from CJ got them to the seventeen
yard line, and you handed the ball to Woody Marks.

(01:43:50):
He ran into the back of Tay Nursery, stumbled backwards,
ran out of his shoe, scrambled to his right, and
gained a couple of yards about three yards, but Christian
Gonzales pulled the ball out. He fumbled and it was
recovered by the.

Speaker 2 (01:44:04):
Patriots Christian Goazalez, who was in concussion protocol. Two Yeah,
after their last game. Wow, just their guy played and
Nico it's just another part of yesterday.

Speaker 1 (01:44:14):
It sucks.

Speaker 6 (01:44:15):
Well.

Speaker 3 (01:44:15):
I mean, I think one good thing about yesterday's game.
If people weren't aware of this, I mean a Nico Collins,
while he did not play he's obviously doing very well,
which is the best you could ever hope for for
the person. Personally, I was surprised at his involvement in everything.
He flew out with the team on a road game
in the playoffs, he was on the sidelines throughout the game,
not just in the conditions but his own condition. And

(01:44:37):
obviously I think everybody's aware of the report that Laura
had during the game Laura Rutledge he was an ABCESPN
game when she said all indications from the team is
that he's doing well and he's symptom free, as in,
he will be available, he will clear concussion protocol and
would be available for next week's game, which is awesome
for anybody that suffers a concussion. I don't know what

(01:44:58):
the future holds for him in that regard, but nice
that it was not as impactful as many many others
would be. But to Josh's explanation here, I mean, you're
right there to tie the game, and there's still tons
of football left, an entire quarter left, you punch it in.
I would think Demiko as he would I think he

(01:45:18):
would chase those points and he would try for two,
and you've got an Arsenal fantastic red zone and goal
to go play to the red zone.

Speaker 1 (01:45:27):
I lean back or they would be successful.

Speaker 3 (01:45:29):
But yeah, that's a that's a bad that's a game changer.

Speaker 2 (01:45:32):
We'll get to the ugly next segment, because it's going
to require playing some audio, and there's been a lot
of it today. This one I think probably hurts the
most simply because it came from another quarterback, and one
that was a whole lot more accomplished than dan Orlowski
who we heard from earlier. But it seemed like it
was a little bit more stinging or a biting criticism

(01:45:56):
as well, simply because it alludes to something maybe not
sinister or nefarious, but definitely something lurking. It's just not
as simple as well. It's just c J. Stroud forgot
how to play football. So we'll get to that, and
in addition to that, something else that you could probably
consider ugly. Why are Brown's beat writers even weighing in

(01:46:17):
at all on the CJ.

Speaker 1 (01:46:18):
Stroud situation? All of that next.

Speaker 9 (01:46:23):
The eight.

Speaker 2 (01:46:26):
Approaching five o'clock here on the eight team Sports Talk
seven ninety Space City Home Network, the Good Time. Yesterday
they were still a chance, Ah jeez, what an absolute
waste of an iconic defense.

Speaker 1 (01:46:38):
Iconic.

Speaker 2 (01:46:40):
They killed guys out there. I said they were going
to during the summer too, and they did it. They
killed guys who quarterbacks everywhere were hurting, hurting. Okay, it's metaphorical.
They were anybody good. They could have been a nice season,
a nice season, A nice season they had.

Speaker 1 (01:46:56):
They were neat guys.

Speaker 3 (01:46:58):
In a few sacks. It's some turnovers happened.

Speaker 2 (01:47:01):
Well, you know a guy who didn't make a lot happen,
especially yesterday with CJ. Stroud, And I don't know why.
Maybe it's because he was calling the game. Maybe it
was because I watched him so much when I was
so much younger, and he was he was by all accounts,
he was not a prolific passer. Troy Iigman played at
a time where running the football was way more imperative

(01:47:25):
and way more done in the NFL than this pass
happy league we've gotten basically since the start of the millennium.
So the numbers when you look back don't reflect you
know you would. You would look at his numbers guys
like him, his contemporaries and say, man quarterbacks suck.

Speaker 3 (01:47:42):
Back then, during his six consecutive Pro Bowl nods, so
arguably the best six of twelve years of his career.

Speaker 1 (01:47:49):
How many times do you think he threw for twenty
touchdowns in a season? Once?

Speaker 2 (01:47:55):
Bingo and that again it's not He also had good
reived Michael Irvin Hall of Famer genovichack.

Speaker 3 (01:48:03):
Michael Irvin was on SNL this week. Yeah, I bet,
I mean they mocked him during the news. Yeah, what
he'll be doing tonight? All right, So Troy, there's a
lot of jokes I can make there, but I won't.

Speaker 2 (01:48:13):
He's gonna be energetic as I'll get out. I hope
he's sad after. I don't think that I'm not rooting
for Miami. I don't think that the A is gonna
get b ted tonight.

Speaker 1 (01:48:25):
Okay, I got you. I see what you did there.

Speaker 3 (01:48:28):
Oh, by the way, before you get to Troy, there
is an opening for you or Josh or myself if
you so choose to alter your thoughts on your the
last pick on your stone cold thoughts. I haven't even
looked at because the game obviously is not kicked off
and the line is seven and a half rather than
eight and a half, So taking Indiana to cover the
eight and a half has now been altered to seven

(01:48:49):
and a half on my selection and Josh's as well.

Speaker 1 (01:48:52):
So it's fine, okay. As Matt would say.

Speaker 2 (01:48:54):
I mean you are going for something you haven't done before,
which is what zero over five again the opposite? Oh
really I did five and oh this year? Oh well,
more pathetic that I haven't even cracked forty. Well now
I have. I didn't even know until just now. I
have not looked at the spreadsheet all weekend. That's the
kind of weekend it was.

Speaker 3 (01:49:12):
All right, dude, you could you could say that line
every day the rest of your life and it would
almost always be true. Man, I haven't looked at the
spreadsheet all weekend. Jim, tell me what we have going
on here in the meeting today.

Speaker 2 (01:49:24):
It really does sound like we have real jobs when
I say that, and we don't, Okay, Troy Aikman, just
biting criticism of CJ. Shroud during the game, and then
we'll dissect what we think you mean. We'll interpret this dream.

Speaker 1 (01:49:40):
Jamiko, Ryans and pic Casio. They've got some tough decisions
they've got.

Speaker 15 (01:49:45):
To make about this team on the offensive side of
the ball.

Speaker 1 (01:49:49):
You know, they replaced Bobby Slowick last year.

Speaker 12 (01:49:53):
After his two years as the offensive coordinator.

Speaker 10 (01:49:57):
CJ.

Speaker 5 (01:49:58):
Stroud has been chasing his rookie success for the last
two years.

Speaker 1 (01:50:02):
He's not been the same player. We've not seen that the
fellows from you.

Speaker 10 (01:50:06):
There's a reason for that.

Speaker 12 (01:50:07):
It has to be if you're.

Speaker 1 (01:50:08):
Asking, man, the fans are fired up?

Speaker 2 (01:50:11):
Are you know why? Because they're in the AFC where CJ.
Stroud plays. Right, Let's tackle everything he said, because first
and foremost chasing basically his rookie seam. Well, the first
thing he says is they've got some serious questions to
answer this offseason.

Speaker 1 (01:50:27):
That's not small fix.

Speaker 2 (01:50:29):
That's not they'll be back because they've got this great defense.
That's not any of the things that you would say
to yourself to make you feel better in this situation.

Speaker 1 (01:50:38):
That's CJ.

Speaker 2 (01:50:39):
Stroud plus serious questions equals this could get ugly if
the answers aren't what we want them to be, or
aren't answered correctly, or any number of things. That's what
the first thing I thought. And then him talking about
CJ chasing his rookie season is so accurate because it's
what we've all been doing this whole time. All we've

(01:51:00):
talked about for two years now. Man, this kid, he
was so awesome back then. I think it's gone down
bad since. Remember I got so mad when all those
quarterback lists would come out and Justin Herbert was above CJ.
Shroud and everybody said the same thing. He's regressed, and
I'd be like, offensive line, offensive line, and that's how

(01:51:20):
it would sound. He has regressed. I can't deny it anymore.
I defended him way too long. I took too long
to come around. If you will, I'm on board. He's
bad right now. He has regressed it. You can't trust him,
and that's the worst thing you can say about a
signal caller in today's NFL.

Speaker 1 (01:51:37):
Yeah, he did regress.

Speaker 3 (01:51:38):
I think during the regular seasons too, and in these
two games should are alarming because of the magnitude of
the regression and the fact that he did have ball security.
He didn't have ball security issues pretty much at all,
arguably his whole career, but certainly this year.

Speaker 2 (01:51:54):
Right as bad as other things were, he did take
care of the football. Yeah, well, I just mean fumbling
the ball. The interceptions are just kind of a totally
different issue. First year in the NFL, as a rookie.
He wasn't just good at not throwing picks, he was
the best. Nobody in the league had a lower interception
percentage five than he did. He threw five in fifteen games.
It was one point zero, which was which led the league.

Speaker 3 (01:52:16):
It has not been awful either of the past two years,
but it's been noticeably worse. He's thrown for fewer yards
per game each season of his career, going from two
seventy four a league leading two seventy three point nine
as a rookie to two hundred and seventeen point two
which is nowhere near the top of the league. Now,
his sacked percentage times he was sacked lowest of his

(01:52:38):
career this year. That goes into did they have a
little bit better protection? And certainly late in the year
they had much better protection. Even in yesterday's game, while
they were issues, it still wasn't an overwhelming this guy
has no chance type of day. There's just too many
things that have regressed, and now that you have a
third year to look at one, two and three, there's
no question about it, and it's way where if you're

(01:53:01):
focused on the postseason performances. The two postseason games he
played to open up his career against Cleveland and against Baltimore.
Obviously wasn't very good in Baltimore in the second half,
that didn't score any points, not a real good game.
That was his second worst game going into yesterday, But
progressively there's a lot of things that just look worse

(01:53:22):
and worse. And to have two of his three worst
games happened in his two most recent games, and his
postseason careers played six times, but two of his three
worst games are the ones that just happened. The Steelers defense,
I think, if I were to rank them, is probably
the second worst defense, as in the second's easiest to
play against that he's seen in the playoffs. Probably Cleveland's wasn't.

(01:53:44):
I mean, I think people think they were really good.
I don't think they were really good that year. Kansas
City on the road, Pittsburgh, Baltimore now New England on
the road, plus the Chargers a year ago.

Speaker 1 (01:53:54):
Maybe the Chargers.

Speaker 3 (01:53:55):
But it shouldn't be like this, and it shouldn't be
such a like this is like the worst playoff game
we're ever gonna see, which is why I hashtagged ed
Warder yesterday. That's the only reason I was so ticked
off at him. It was just asinine. It was stupid.

Speaker 1 (01:54:06):
Did he call you and laughed? It was so off base,
Like CJ.

Speaker 3 (01:54:10):
Stroud are having one of the worst performances we've ever
seen in playoff history. About his Steelers performance, it took
six days for one to be way, way, way worse.

Speaker 2 (01:54:22):
Way worse way, I mean ways.

Speaker 3 (01:54:25):
Been other games like this of the postseason. Hopefully there
won't be any more for this quarterback.

Speaker 1 (01:54:31):
No, it was ugly.

Speaker 2 (01:54:32):
It was very, very ugly, hence where I put this
in this category. But again, those questions definitely need to
be answered this offseason. And again I do want to
get to the Browns beat Rider because I thought she
just this is just pathetic.

Speaker 1 (01:54:47):
I'll get to that.

Speaker 2 (01:54:48):
Plus, whoever tells you that the NFL is the king
of parody, they don't know what they're talking about. I'll
explain that as we get to football at five next
the eight on Sport tell you after the Good, the Bad,
and the Ugly lasted two segments to carry over another
element of the ugly into football at five? How could
I possibly do it? But I'm me and that's how

(01:55:10):
I get it done. Because I gotta tell you and
I've heard her name before. I don't think i've maybe
i've seen her on television. What Texans fans don't need
right now is some idiot Brown's beat writer trying to
kick them while they're down. And that's exactly what Mary K.

(01:55:30):
Cabot tried to do. At around this time yesterday five
point twenty four pm, she tweets the following.

Speaker 1 (01:55:39):
I bet she thought this was so clever.

Speaker 2 (01:55:41):
Texans haven't been able to parlay their bounty from the
Deshaun Watson trade with the Browns three first round picks
a net of five overall into more than three wild
card victories. I mean, she thought she really did something
there for a second, didn't she. They got that bounty
from the Deshaun Watson trade and all they've gotten is.

Speaker 1 (01:56:02):
Three wild card victories out of it.

Speaker 2 (01:56:05):
Hey, WEX did the Did the Browns make the postseason
since the DeShawn trade?

Speaker 1 (01:56:12):
What kind of what kind of responses were there?

Speaker 3 (01:56:15):
I know this is best of X, but I feel
like this just absolutely has to be a gold mine
of how did you have time to post this when
you were covering the Browns playoffs? Where did you get
your You're dunking on the Texans because your thirty six
years of covering Browns football has brought you to this point. Well,

(01:56:36):
I'm glad you asked, how did you have time for this?
Aren't the Browns? In another coaching search, she did get.

Speaker 1 (01:56:44):
Quote tweeted by at Adam Clanton.

Speaker 2 (01:56:48):
And Deshaun Watson hasn't been able to parlay two hundred
and thirty million dollars guaranteed from the Browns into a
successful Orchids of Asia chain of franchises. But that's none
of our business. Mary, Like, I get it, she's not
doing anything because the Browns aren't doing anything, but like

(01:57:08):
you're gonna go after the Texans when you employ Deshaun
Watson and four other quarterbacks.

Speaker 3 (01:57:14):
I do also find it interesting the level of suck
she thinks what the Texans have done is she's been
coming to the NFL for this long.

Speaker 1 (01:57:25):
She probably put Justin Herbert not high on those quarterback lists.

Speaker 3 (01:57:28):
Reaching the final four in the AFC three consecutive years
immediately after three years of winning eleven games total is
not good, not an accomplishment, not what you're hoping for
to a certain extent, like look where they were then
they made this deal. When we were talking about Nick

(01:57:50):
Cassario's construction of this team just last week, again we
said it really didn't get started until this deal was made.
This helped jump start everything. Clearly, Like, this team's not
even gonna reach the playoffs if they don't make that
deal because they're not gonna have Will Anderson Junior on it,
they're probably not gonna be that.

Speaker 1 (01:58:06):
It is not worth a much more of our time.

Speaker 2 (01:58:10):
Browns are twenty six and forty two since the tray
with zero playoff wins. That's a pretty good response.

Speaker 3 (01:58:15):
And think about what actually happened that day. One of
the most talented quarterbacks in the league was acquired by
the Browns, right, and they guaranteed him two hundred and
thirty million dollars to not play for them but take
a roster spot.

Speaker 1 (01:58:33):
It was supposed to be.

Speaker 2 (01:58:35):
Look at what they have done because they're the ones
who got the player, the quarterback, the player on every
NFL team.

Speaker 1 (01:58:43):
You just acquired him, your your team that you cover.

Speaker 3 (01:58:47):
Just an interesting like do you like it in some
way you're trying to I don't know, Like the grade
for this deal is over, isn't it.

Speaker 1 (01:58:54):
It's pinover?

Speaker 3 (01:58:55):
The Texans don't have to win a divisional round playoff game,
a super Bowl or anything else. Its solidify an overwhelming
This is a deal that they would do one hundred times, even.

Speaker 2 (01:59:07):
If CJ never plays another snap for them, they won. Yeah,
I don't, I'm not. You remember in Billy Madison where
he's having the conversation with his dad on the staircase
and his dad goes rock R KAY and Adam Sandler's
character Billy says, yeah, so what's your point?

Speaker 1 (01:59:26):
He's like r O c K. That gift is a
response to her tweet. Yeah, so what's your point?

Speaker 3 (01:59:31):
It all spins back to that other point I keep
making like we're sitting here right now without a team
that we cover in the playoffs. Okay, so there's four
teams left total, twenty eight teams are sitting at home.
And among those twenty eight teams, one of them employs
Pat Mahomes, another one employs Josh Allen, another one employs

(01:59:53):
Lamar Jackson, yet another employees Joe Burrow. Jalen hurts is
not do you not?

Speaker 1 (01:59:59):
You've covered the.

Speaker 3 (01:59:59):
Na fell for thirty six years. The quality of players
that will never win a super Bowl or even reach
a Super Bowl is comical to be in this in your.

Speaker 1 (02:00:12):
Brain and post this. But Mary's a moron.

Speaker 3 (02:00:15):
I mean, she's well respected in Cleveland for putting in
almost four four decades in Cleveland.

Speaker 1 (02:00:21):
Is not doing much for anybody else in America.

Speaker 3 (02:00:23):
She's doing some fine fine work now dunking on the
Texans for only winning one playoff game each of the
last three years.

Speaker 2 (02:00:30):
Yeah, it's funny, it's good stuff. Okay, remember all we
I've done this. I'm guilty of this as much as
anybody man NFL's king. You know why parody? Every single
year somebody knew.

Speaker 3 (02:00:46):
Last place team headed to the conference championship game the
Patriots from last year.

Speaker 2 (02:00:50):
Yeah, and they've never been to the postseason before. You
had a last place Well, not this group. The fifteenth
straight year of either the Patriots or the Chiefs playing
in the AFC Championship game. Think about that, fifteen years.
That's not parody. That's utter dominance and boredom. Nobody wants

(02:01:12):
to see this. We got rid of Patrick Mahomes for
one year and we can't even have nice things still.

Speaker 3 (02:01:19):
Right, you can say it that way. The Patriots being
in this game the last time they were there was
when it.

Speaker 1 (02:01:29):
That doesn't matter to me. Their fan base.

Speaker 3 (02:01:31):
The Patriots were dominant for a long time, and then
the Chiefs were dominant immediately after.

Speaker 2 (02:01:37):
That's all they're saying. Have you met a New England
fan before? Yeah, they're the most obnoxious people on the planet.
We don't need this, We don't need nobody needs it,
nobody else. Did you see a graph yesterday? Who were
people rooting for in America? Was this a little bity
tiny dot was rooting for the Patriots? All of America?
One of the Texans to win. I saw it. There
were tons of other fan bases. Pittsburgh fans wanted this.

(02:02:00):
Nobody wants the Patriots to do anything, least of all
that trust fun baby looking quarterback they have. Nobody wants
to see more Patriots. Oh good, Mike Vrabel in his
first year is going to go to the Super Bowl probably,
oh good, orchids of Asia's greatest customer, Robert Kraft is
going to get another ring potentially.

Speaker 1 (02:02:20):
Nobody wants to see this crap.

Speaker 2 (02:02:22):
And you know what, they don't want to see the
Chiefs do anything next year when Mahomes.

Speaker 1 (02:02:25):
Is healthy again. We're sick of this crap. Come on, CJ.

Speaker 3 (02:02:29):
Look what you did at the last team standing to
keep that stat from being true again and the Texans failed.

Speaker 2 (02:02:36):
And that's another thing. I'm just so tired. It doesn't
matter like every which way you get there, Can you
guys just win a game in the second round for once,
just once, because that'll be the first time. It's so obnoxious,
it's so annoying, and it's even worse in hindsight when
you had it all set up for you. But even
forget all that, forget about the fact that Jared Stidham

(02:02:58):
is going to be opposing you if you're there on
Sunday next week. Just how about for the sake of
your own franchise that graphic yesterday before the game.

Speaker 1 (02:03:06):
Look at these two franchises.

Speaker 2 (02:03:08):
It's it's pathetic, cal and mostly Hannah should be absolutely
embarrassed that there's just a bunch of goose eggs.

Speaker 3 (02:03:15):
And has very little to do with the Texans. They
happen to be playing the most successful franchise in the
NFL since they have become a part of the NFL.

Speaker 2 (02:03:25):
So why don't you do better so you become that franchise.
That's all I'm asking for.

Speaker 3 (02:03:30):
Why don't the other thirty one teams? Other thirty teams
do that?

Speaker 2 (02:03:32):
Because passed the second round of the postseason, wex like
get well, great, So that's one day, that's one game.

Speaker 1 (02:03:39):
I would like that day. I would like it too.

Speaker 3 (02:03:41):
But you're comparing a franchise that's been around since O
two to in just that timeframe, and they are obviously
an expansion team.

Speaker 2 (02:03:48):
So the freaking Jags have gone to the AFC Championship
and they suck.

Speaker 3 (02:03:52):
Like the Texans are the only team left to not
get there, and they've put that up many many times.
Does anybody think of the Texans as a bigger laughingstock
than the Jaguars who have been to this game, this
conference title game? Like, yeah, they've been there and it
was great for that afternoon of our eight days of
enjoying Blake Bortles football that they got.

Speaker 2 (02:04:15):
But I think I think what gets me the most,
and rightfully so when they said this and a lot
of it, we were defenders. In fact, Will Anderson Junior
was asked about this very topic and gave a really
good answer.

Speaker 1 (02:04:25):
He's like, we know when we talked about it last week,
we know.

Speaker 2 (02:04:27):
What this team getting to this place in the postseason
would do for this city.

Speaker 1 (02:04:33):
It's just never happened before. Yep.

Speaker 3 (02:04:36):
They had only come up short in this round only
four times before Dimiico got here, and he has said
that is not enough. I got to it. He's almost
consecutive seasons of not being able to get it done.
I do none of them in one score games either.

Speaker 1 (02:04:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:04:55):
No, it's not competitive, unfortunately, even though it feels like
it was because of the this defense was playing yesterday,
giving them opportunities, if not just.

Speaker 1 (02:05:05):
Lesser points. They were on the field for three Drake
may touchdown passes.

Speaker 2 (02:05:10):
Yeah, and I think what really sucks is that blog
did get his hand on that touchdown ball. It's clear
as day in the replay he almost punched it out.
I don't think it's a game of white teaching tape.
But the three touchdown passes, the first one on fourth down,
they have Douglas in motion and he when he makes
his cut across the middle of the field, block is

(02:05:30):
right there. He's in a bit of a trail position,
but there's you can't avoid that. That's the nature of
the coverage that they were using. With Petrie coming up
to the line, and you know being at the line.
He didn't blitz, but that's where they had him positioned.
So that's Bullock's man. He gets a hand on the ball,
he tips it. It's flutters for the two seconds before
it hit Douglas. He catches it and because he was
trying to make a play on the ball, there's nobody

(02:05:51):
left and he runs it into the angel the Stefan
digs touchdown.

Speaker 3 (02:05:54):
That's a perfect throat. It's a dart. It takes incredible
hands to even catch it to begin with. And Jay
and Read is right there. He smacks him across the arm.
He takes him to the ground, easily could be knocked out.
Bullock even hits him, but he doesn't. And Derek Stingley
Junior's coverage on the boots he touchdown is perfection. What
I've said all along, you can have perfect coverage. A

(02:06:16):
perfect throw will beat perfect coverage.

Speaker 1 (02:06:19):
And that's what happened.

Speaker 3 (02:06:20):
And it's still needed one of the catches of the
year to make it happen.

Speaker 1 (02:06:24):
One handed, one handed catch.

Speaker 2 (02:06:25):
I'm still not convinced it didn't like hit the ground,
settle all that kind of For as much as those
are scrutinized, really we couldn't get a better look.

Speaker 1 (02:06:32):
They were like, man, may place, we want the Patriots
to keep going. That's it. That's what it was. That's it.
J could you help here. We can't do it all ourselves.
It's all scripted. It's all scripted.

Speaker 2 (02:06:45):
I was just talking about the parody in the NFL,
and we mentioned this a little bit earlier.

Speaker 1 (02:06:49):
The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Speaker 2 (02:06:53):
Naggi out the enemy back in in Kansas City. Should
we all be scared now because the Chiefs offense is
going to rear its ugly head again.

Speaker 3 (02:07:03):
I think it's fair to say that, in my opinion,
Naggy is a worse OC with the same team under
the same head coach, with the same quarterback. I mean, yes,
Matt Naggy's last couple of years were with a fading
Travis Kelcey and lack of Tyreek Hill and Eric b
Enemy had both of those things. But it does appear

(02:07:23):
that the Bears running back coach will be the new
OC for the Chiefs. Naggie was out of contract. It's
possible he's the Titans choice for head coach, So all
things considered, yes, please, I think he's a terrible choice.
For a head coach, just like I think he's a
bad choice for an OC.

Speaker 1 (02:07:39):
But to each his own.

Speaker 3 (02:07:40):
It's one of the many things happening in the NFL
coaching carousel. There's quite a few things that have taken place.
Even each week of NFL postseason games have kind of
opened up a new set of openings. I guess you
could say we had the hiring of Kevin Stefanski over
the weekend with the Atlanta Falcons. Matt Ryan's first big
decision as Arthur Blank's right hand man is getting together

(02:08:03):
with Somebody's very, very familiar with Kevin Stefanski's work with
the under five hundred resume he brings with them in
the Cleveland Browns has landed him the job with the
Atlanta Falcons. So two of the ten jobs have an
answer definitively. I think a couple more actually took place
in the last few minutes or hours, But John Harbaugh
is the new head coach of the Giants, Kevin Stefanski

(02:08:26):
hired by the Falcons. We got all these openings in
the AFC. I just want to point this out because
I brought it up earlier and really didn't pay off
on what I meant. When the Bills released their statement
today announcing that Sean McDermott has been relieved of his
duties as head coach, one of the very first responses
came from somebody. It was a picture of a someone

(02:08:47):
with medals on his uniform. He's got a hat on.
He looks like an admiral. And you read the first
line of the statement, it says, in quotes, Sean has
done an admiral job of leading our football team for
the past nine seasons, said owner Terry Pagula.

Speaker 2 (02:09:07):
Did he say that word or did they mis type?
We have a new version on their website where it
says admirable job. Okay, but what did he say? I
mean there's no audio this. This is when you tay,
can we get a statement? Pr staff wrote it? Yeah,
I mean who've made the graphic? Is probably where the

(02:09:27):
mistake was made, but a comical one. Nonetheless, he's put
out of statement as well. McDermott upon just like John
Harbaugh did. This is I mean three coaches who have
been in it for a long time, you know, almost
two decades for Tomlin, more almost two decades for Harbaugh,
and you know, decades worth of work in Buffalo. They
have Josh Allen and they have not been to the

(02:09:48):
Super Bowl, and that basically is the standard they believe
they should be reaching, and to put it on his
shoulders is probably inaccurate to say they need change, and
we're not getting rid of Josh Allen. So we're left
with two hot one option. And it's you interesting that
maybe there's a reunion with Brian Dabole. He obviously spent
some time there before leaving for the Giants head coaching job.

(02:10:09):
I'd be shocked if they promoted Joe Brady, who's spent
on their offensive staff, even though I think he's a
very good coach. It doesn't seem like it would make
a whole lot of sense to say, well, we can't
win with this guy, so let's just take one of
his assistants to make him head coach. In order to
be better or bring a better resume than Shawn's, McDermott's
basically have to hire a head coach with a Super
Bowl appearance or win. And with all these openings, after

(02:10:34):
a year away from the Cowboys and many years removed
from Aaron Rodgers in Green Bay, don't you think Mike
McCarthy's gonna get hired this coaching cycle, and now there
are two jobs with MVP quarterbacks, well waiting for you
to go after that part right there, Harball was hired
and who was the other high profile coaching hire.

Speaker 1 (02:10:55):
Kevin Stefanski with Yes.

Speaker 2 (02:10:58):
Don't you think they might may reconsider where they land
if they knew that Josh Allen was gonna be available.

Speaker 3 (02:11:04):
Someone brought this up on X and I answered, I
think I think John Harbo is completely fine. He's the
coach of the New York Giants. He has a young
quarterback that he probably believes in, and if things aren't
immediately successful, they're gonna fire the GM that brought him in,
not him, He'll help handpick the GM to bring in
and he'll get to move on. They have incredibly They

(02:11:25):
really have a talented roster. They're three edge rushers. Obviously
technically three of them can't be on the edge, but
they have three players they can play there plus Neighbors
plus Robinson plus Gatabo plus Dart like they can't. And
they're in the East the NFC East. Philly's in turmoil.
The Commanders had a disastrous season, fired both of their coordinators.

Speaker 2 (02:11:44):
Jerrys still running the Cowboys and the Cowboys. So going
back to the Bills, you're asking about Mike McCarthy. I
know this is probably a little unfair, but screw it.
I don't care if you're Josh Allen and the Bills
and you're trying to get over the hump. I don't
know if Mike McCarthy, who perennially came up short in

(02:12:04):
the playoffs all the time, is the guy I'm going with, Well,
all you've ever done is win in the regular season,
which now all well, if he did it in Green
Bay for a billion years as well, that's what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (02:12:15):
Well, this goes back to the singing point.

Speaker 3 (02:12:17):
Only one team wins, only one quarterback wins three or
four games in the postseason.

Speaker 1 (02:12:23):
It's a tiny, tiny number.

Speaker 3 (02:12:25):
I know all of the Super Bowls went to Tom
Brady and Pat Mahomes anyway, so hardly any of these.

Speaker 2 (02:12:31):
Guys have done it. Again, that's kind of to my point.
You had Aaron Rodgers in his prime, you just got
to find a way.

Speaker 1 (02:12:38):
You just do.

Speaker 3 (02:12:39):
Like, how many less Super Bowl wins does Aaron Rodgers
have than Peyton Manning one? Yeah, everybody who had Peyton
Manning had him in his prime for twenty years.

Speaker 2 (02:12:51):
The interesting thing though, that nobody ever talks about. Well,
it gets talked about a little bit, but not as
much as I think it should. Brady is not only
the main reason that the Patriots won all those Super
Bowls because of his talent and you know making. I
don't want to say lesser receivers, but other than Randy Moss,
he did not have a true wide receiver one for

(02:13:12):
most of his career where you looked at him and
be like, that's one of the top two receivers in
the NFL.

Speaker 1 (02:13:16):
Body type, yeah, but performance type.

Speaker 3 (02:13:20):
Wes Welker and some of those guys were putting up
some pretty awesome numbers. And he had what Mahomes had
the best tight end in football.

Speaker 1 (02:13:26):
He had growth two of them at one point.

Speaker 3 (02:13:30):
Hernandez was a very good player, but man, his best
in football.

Speaker 2 (02:13:36):
I think you should probably revisit some of his numbers.
Barely even in the NFL, and when he was he
was awesome. I guess barely in the NFL because he
killed people and then killed himself.

Speaker 1 (02:13:47):
He had three year NFL player. Tell me his numbers.
He had one year of more than six hundred yards.
He's a tight end. What do you want from him?

Speaker 3 (02:13:56):
I don't want to call him one of the best
tight ends in the NFL extremely short period of time.

Speaker 2 (02:14:02):
One season. Maybe you know what, this was one of
the best tight ends. This is the Texan's fault for
that Letterman game. Gosh, imagine if they had warned those
to kind of like get the monkey off their back.

Speaker 3 (02:14:13):
You were saying, I don't know if Mike McCarthy's the
guy you want for Buffalo. Let's say, so, which of
these other coaching candidates who've done less than Mike McCarthy
do you want.

Speaker 2 (02:14:22):
Well, I think if I'm Josh Allen, I should probably
have a huge say in this, and I would think
day Ball is probably his guy.

Speaker 1 (02:14:32):
That's why I brought him up.

Speaker 3 (02:14:33):
I do think there's a pretty good chance that that
it's kind of an odd situation, but he's also a
Buffalo guy. Day Ball, I believe his family still lives there.
I mean, New York's not super new Jersey's not super far.

Speaker 2 (02:14:44):
But that stadium is gonna be gonna have a roof
right high Mark's new place build. It's not I don't
can you imagine living in Buffalo your whole life and
going to just the most Siberia games ever. And you
have the ability to build a new stadium and you
don't put a roof on it.

Speaker 1 (02:15:00):
Yeah, save money. Okay, there's how many days in a
year do you use it? It snows all of them
in the winter? Well, who cares on the tube?

Speaker 3 (02:15:10):
In the three hundred and fifty four other days it
snows in the stadium you're not using.

Speaker 1 (02:15:15):
I mean how many rule?

Speaker 3 (02:15:16):
What's the most number of days you could be using
that stadium for a Bills game that matters because I'm
not counting preseason games two home games, and you're nine
regular season home dates. If that's the case, then why
the Texans have to have a roof?

Speaker 1 (02:15:28):
Oh it's hot? Open it?

Speaker 3 (02:15:31):
I mean you want to That's been a long standing conversation.
Why did the Texans have a right?

Speaker 2 (02:15:35):
I mean, we know why they have it the rodeo,
even though, come on, there's no way they're going to
open that roof for anything other than fifty degree days.

Speaker 3 (02:15:44):
If that, if I'm not mistake, I think this is
still I think I don't know what was the reason,
and maybe it was just a non reason and they just
excuse their way out of it. They were supposed to
have the roof open. Roof open for the home opener
this year against Tampa. By the way, well that was
a night game though, wasn't it six o'clock? Yeah? I

(02:16:05):
bet you couldn't count on two hands. I'll give you
two hands.

Speaker 2 (02:16:08):
Because they've been around twenty three or whatever years, the
amount of times has been open before. I really doubt
it's less than it's more than ten. That might be
an interesting stat to look up during the break. What's
the Wexler Research Group doing right now?

Speaker 3 (02:16:23):
Nothing there. I don't know that they're getting. Their contract
was not extended. We've been negotiating on whether it's there
on a part time basis. But they put in even
less work than David Carr. I mean, I'd like to
have them tag along as, oh this is I got
a group of people working with me.

Speaker 1 (02:16:38):
But I'm just I do all the work.

Speaker 2 (02:16:41):
So the moral of the story is there's no parody
in the AFC Patriot Now it's just the AFC well Patriots,
and that's what it is. The AFC Championship Game fifteen
years in a row. Tech wrecord when the roof is
open is twenty six and twenty six. Nonsense, there is
no way you're kidding me fifty two times. I'm just

(02:17:05):
going with what's in their notes. How many games have
been played there a lot, almost two hundred. That actually
makes me mad that I thought that and it was
that wrong.

Speaker 1 (02:17:15):
All right? In case you missed it is straight ahead.

Speaker 2 (02:17:20):
The eighteen a bunch of items, so you might not
have got a chance to get to or divulge everything
we have to say about it in full.

Speaker 1 (02:17:29):
That's what we do in case you missed it.

Speaker 3 (02:17:30):
Also note, got tickets to go see two different things
coming up here later this month for one and later
this year for the other. We'll give those tickets away
in the final segment of the show. I got a
pair of tickets to see Monster Energies Ama Supercross that's
at Energy Stadium on January thirty first.

Speaker 1 (02:17:48):
We also have a pair of tickets.

Speaker 3 (02:17:50):
Throughout the week to go see John Mellencamp live on
his Dancing Words Tour Greatest Hits August sixth.

Speaker 1 (02:17:58):
He'll be at the Woodlands Pavilion.

Speaker 3 (02:18:00):
Ticketmaster dot com for tickets to either event. Event tickets
for the Mellencamp show we'll go on sale this Friday,
I definitely appreciate John Mellencamp. He was the inspiration for
yet another parody. Song writing exhibition wrote a song about
use Jack and Diane for a song about cal and Jack.

(02:18:26):
See if I can find it sometime this week and
let you guys hear it.

Speaker 1 (02:18:30):
What about pink houses? No, I don't.

Speaker 3 (02:18:34):
I mean trying to spin that into some sort of
sports related parody. It's tough, much more difficult than when
two guys with one organization obviously are inseparable for a
number of years for no reason whatsoever.

Speaker 2 (02:18:49):
Very easy to use Jack and Diane. Nothing about yesterday
hurts so good, Yeah, no question about it. But there
are a bunch of things we haven't gotten to really
this hour. Unfortunately for some of you that might be
new to this hour of the program, really haven't gone
full in on the Texans twenty eight to sixteen loss.

Speaker 1 (02:19:06):
A five turnover.

Speaker 3 (02:19:07):
Game for the team, four picks for CJ in the
first half, A fumble in the third quarter in a
one score game in the red zone from Woody Marks
that was recovered by the Patriots obviously hurt a great deal.
The drops that occurred during the game were also a factor.
The fact that their offensive line lost in the trenches.
The running game was the worst it's been all year.

(02:19:28):
After you could argue it was the best it's been
all year, but it's what happens when you play better competition.
The Steelers got manhandled by this roughly the same group.
There was no Trent Brown. There was no Nico Collins.
Not long end of the game, there was no Dalton Schultz.
On one of the red zone plays after they scored
a touchdown. Remember the touchdown the Texan scored. We haven't

(02:19:50):
mentioned that Texans had Neil.

Speaker 1 (02:19:53):
They were in the one yard line.

Speaker 3 (02:19:55):
Brought in Tommy Toji I to line up at fullback,
and they handled the ball off to what he marks.
Toji made a nice fumble and he ran it in
almost untouched for the touchdown.

Speaker 1 (02:20:06):
But the officials.

Speaker 3 (02:20:07):
Correctly called an illegal shift on the Texans.

Speaker 1 (02:20:11):
Seemed I wasn't minor at all.

Speaker 3 (02:20:14):
The Texans were lucky they didn't get call it sooner
because I don't again. TV crews do a good job
sometimes in over three hours of a broadcast, they usually
do pretty well.

Speaker 2 (02:20:24):
But if you weren't watching, you missed it. TOGII was
talking to CJ.

Speaker 3 (02:20:29):
Stroud before right after they broke the huddle, like a
last messager. Here's what you need to do, or this
is the player, one last bit of detail, because you're
never out here. And I guess he didn't tell him this.
When CJ. Stroud gives the signal for Dalton Schultz to
go in motion, totally normal for ten other players on offense,

(02:20:49):
well not when one of them is a defensive tackle.

Speaker 1 (02:20:51):
When CJ.

Speaker 3 (02:20:52):
Stroud lifted his foot, his right foot to indicate it's
time for the motion TOJII almost fell over because he
flinched because he thought that was the snap. And I
don't know if the officials missed it, but they didn't
call false start. And what he did to avoid the
flag was just continued down into his stance. But that

(02:21:13):
meant he wasn't set, and Schultz wasn't set. Obviously he
was in motion.

Speaker 2 (02:21:17):
Dald Schultz would never stop his motion on that play
because that's not what the play calls for. So they
were both in motion. That is an illegal shift that
was correctly called, and it took points off the board
and he weren't penalized a lot yesterday, but they had
a couple of pre snap penalties that obviously was one
of them, and those are I mean it was neat
when TOJII went out there and they ended up still

(02:21:39):
scoring on the play and he got a touchdown later.
But why are you running that there in this instance?

Speaker 3 (02:21:46):
You're so bad with your red zone playbook and your
red zone execution and your red zone play calls that
in this playoff game at that juncture, that's what you want.

Speaker 2 (02:21:56):
That's who you sent out there. I can't wait for
year or two of Nick Hayley. We shall see that holds.

Speaker 3 (02:22:02):
How about year one for a few guys around the NFL, Josh,
and we get to the rest of in case you missed.

Speaker 15 (02:22:06):
It, Yeah, let's do that.

Speaker 1 (02:22:08):
And I have to agree with you real quick.

Speaker 15 (02:22:09):
WEX we already have all these issues in the red
zone with their offense, So why don't we get a
defensive guy that hasn't really ever done any of this
and get him in here to try and do it right.

Speaker 3 (02:22:19):
They employ a fullback he played in yesterday's game at fullback,
British Brooks. When Kate Stover makes his quarterback debuts for
our quarterback play calls for the short yardage plays, they
put Brooks in the backfield and he leads the way,
pushes him here, or opens up a small hole there.
I can't help but take it back from you one

(02:22:40):
more time, Josh, because I wanted to mention these numbers.
The Kate Stover got two plays in yesterday's game. They
were both quarterback sneaks, obviously, and they were both successful.
They found something. It only took them all year to
find it. Kate Stover averaged three yards of carry yesterday.
Both of his cares were in and one situations. He

(02:23:02):
only needed one. He got four on one. He got
two on the other. He averaged three yards of carry
on a play designed to get you at the very
least one yard. What do he mark, Savage? One point
two yards of carry? He got fourteen opportunities one point
two yards of carry on plays designed to gain who
knows how many yards versus six yards on two snaps

(02:23:23):
designed to just get more than one.

Speaker 1 (02:23:25):
Where do you think Joe Mixon's playing next year? What
else do we have?

Speaker 10 (02:23:29):
All?

Speaker 6 (02:23:29):
Right?

Speaker 12 (02:23:29):
Man?

Speaker 15 (02:23:29):
You guys hit on a little earlier, but we'll go
back to it. Eric b Enemy, he looks like he's
going to be the new OC for the Chiefs. Do
you guys remember when the Texans fans wanted him considered
to be the head coach here, and then there was
something alleged about maybe something in his past that wasn't
Texans worthy, and it never really never really played out.

Speaker 3 (02:23:46):
Well, it's his past. There's not the stuff that went
on at Colorado. There's not much alleged to it. It's
something that teams at some point. There's guys that have
done things in their past that are not football related
that people will either do who care about still or don't.
Either they feel like he's moved on and they should too.
It's been, however, many years. Whatever the baggage or infraction

(02:24:09):
or illegal activity, whatever it is, sometimes teams don't care.
Sometimes teams think that person has moved on, and so
should they. Most of his employers have felt that way.
He hasn't had trouble finding jobs. He's had trouble finding
head coaching jobs. And unless Andy Reid is going to
make him their coach and waiting and the Chiefs are
on board with that, I don't think success as Casey's

(02:24:29):
oc which he may or may not have, will lead
to a head coaching job. I think he is one
of many many coaches that will be a good assistant
for his NFL career and that's all. Yeah, nothing really
is a good hire for the Chiefs, though he's got
familiarity they had success.

Speaker 1 (02:24:45):
Try it again.

Speaker 2 (02:24:46):
Yeah, they're just going to try and to But the
difference in the personnel that you mentioned last segment is
going to be a big, big, big difference. Although they're
the Chiefs, they'll probably just draft a bunch of awesome
guys in every single round of the draft like they
normally do.

Speaker 15 (02:24:59):
What else, Dolphins to hire Packers DC Jeff Hafley as
head coach.

Speaker 1 (02:25:05):
That is so inspiring. I was about to say, woot.

Speaker 3 (02:25:11):
Now, Remember Jeff Hafley opened the door for Bill O'Brien
to return to head coaching.

Speaker 1 (02:25:18):
Oh good.

Speaker 3 (02:25:19):
He was BC's head coach. He left their head coaching
position to become the Packers DC, which is what he
was for the last two years. His departure opened the
door for Bill O'Brien to take the head coaching job
at BC. I don't think Bill's going to follow him
to Green Bay this time, since he's a defensive coach.
But the Dolphins say no more Mike McDaniel, too much offense. Hello,

(02:25:42):
Jeff Hapley defensive background.

Speaker 2 (02:25:44):
I'm sure the Boston College Faithful and that one guy
who is a reporter are very happy that Bill O'Brien
is there.

Speaker 1 (02:25:50):
I would be this is fun. What was his name?
Justin Trevor. Oh, that's right, Trevor. Sorry.

Speaker 3 (02:25:58):
One more item of in case you missed it from
over the weekend. First, I wanted to get you a
chance to win those tickets here. If you're listening to
this show, you don't know the answer to this question,
very simple, it's a number. I'll give you the question
or momentarily. What we're giving away are tickets to go
see John Mellencamp Dancing Words Tour The Greatest Hits Sauga
six at the Woodlands Pavilion. Tickets will go on sale

(02:26:20):
this Friday at ten am via ticketmaster dot com. We
got a pair of tickets for you here today, or
a pair of tickets Sea Monster Energy AMA Supercross January
thirty first, and ourg Stadium tickets are on sale now
at ticketmaster dot com. If you know the answer is
to simple question, and you will know it because you've
been listening to the show this hour. Very specifically, we
talked about this earlier seven one, three, two, one, two, five,

(02:26:42):
seven ninety with the Texans underwhelming performance yesterday offensively and
subsequent loss that vaulted Drake May's Patriots into the AFC
Championship Game. And the note was passed around all the
people that cover the NFL, people on the old twitters,
the broadcast, et cetera, to recognize, how as AC put it,

(02:27:06):
little parody there is in the NFL because it marked
the blank number of years consecutively that we have seen
the AFC Title Game include at least one of these
two teams, the Patriots or the Chiefs. How many consecutive
seasons has the AFC Title Game featured one or two
of those teams at least one, it's a nauseat two

(02:27:29):
of those teams? How many consecutive seasons as that happened
with the Patriots, Mike Vrabel, Drake May, Christian Gonzalez and
Carlton Davis extending that another consecutive year. What's the number
how many straight years for the Chiefs or Patriots to
make a visit to the AFC Title Game?

Speaker 1 (02:27:48):
If you know the answer to.

Speaker 3 (02:27:49):
That question, seven one three to one two, five, seven ninety.
In case you missed it over this weekend, the Cubs
were busy introducing Knox Regmann dad.

Speaker 1 (02:28:00):
To the Chicago faithful.

Speaker 2 (02:28:02):
They also, because it's the last team he played for,
were one of the teams to receive the news from
Ryan Presley and he's retired. Ryan Presley called it a career,
put out a nice statement thinking a lot of people,
including his family's wife, Kats, kids, and of course the
fans here in Houston, that certainly turned him in from
a very good relief pitcher into an absolutely elite postseason closer.

(02:28:28):
If a question is posed about the greatest postseason closers
of this era, and you want to include this era,
have Mariana River included, You're more than welcome to say him.
If you don't think this era includes him, than your
answers Ryan Presley. Ryan Presley as Astro's closer in the
postseason was insane with his success from twenty twenty through

(02:28:51):
twenty twenty three as the Astros closer. He gave up
a run or runs in one game each year of
his postseason. Each game of that postseason. Say it again.

Speaker 3 (02:29:05):
No matter how many games he pitched in any one
postseason for the Astros those four years, he only allowed
runs in one of them seven games in twenty twenty
shut out baseball and all but one of them, and
they won that game by five. The following year, in
twenty twenty one, he pitched nine times, He allowed a
run in one of them, and he got the save
in that game. They beat Boston on their way to
the World Series. The following year, in twenty twenty two,

(02:29:28):
he pitched ten times and they won the World Series
when he gave up zero earned runs in ten appearances.
The Astros went eleven and two. That postseason. He pitched
in all but three games and was insane, totally brilliant,
and almost untouchable. He only gave up four hits in

(02:29:50):
those ten appearances in saving six of their eleven wins,
and the following year he gave up no runs in
his five appearances. Unfortunately, they were unable to win the
ALCS against the Rangers that year, but that four year stretch,
essentially he was untouchable, and from an Astros perspective, he's

(02:30:10):
basically the best postseason reliever in team history for a
team that now has awesome postseason history, partially due to
Ryan Presley.

Speaker 2 (02:30:19):
Yeah, he was there on the mound for the final
out for.

Speaker 1 (02:30:25):
The last the Trey Mancini hug. Yeah, that one.

Speaker 3 (02:30:29):
What are you doing, dude, Cubs go get Presley, Cubs
go get Tucker.

Speaker 2 (02:30:34):
Cubs now have Bregman and they haven't won since twenty sixteen.
I don't know that any of them will be what
they thought. This is probably their best chance. Presley was
at the end of his career, did not pitch well.
Tucker probably was only going to be there one year,
and now definitively was only there one year and five.

Speaker 1 (02:30:52):
Years with Alex.

Speaker 2 (02:30:53):
How anti climactic was Alex Bregman the Red Sox In hindsight, Yeah,
he was really good until he got hurt and then
they didn't do anything and he left. When you offer
the player lad he's out of the ale, they offer
him an opportunity to opt out.

Speaker 1 (02:31:08):
Your taking your chances. Yep.

Speaker 3 (02:31:10):
Forty million is what he could have made with the
Red Sox. He'll technically make less this season, but he
only had eighty million guaranteed over the next two years
with the Red Sox. He got one hundred and seventy
five with some deferrals guaranteed from the Cubs over five seasons.
Pretty easy decision. Cubs have just as much chance to
win as the Red Sox. I think the Red Sox
have been okay this offseason.

Speaker 2 (02:31:31):
They continue to add, but maybe not what people thought
they would add, and how they handled last offseason now
having neither Devers or Bregmann, but they're not paying either
of them either, so that money can be used in
a different way. Yeah, it's still by all accounts, and
I know there have been some big fish, some dominoes
if you will, it's still been a pretty I think

(02:31:52):
slow off season.

Speaker 3 (02:31:56):
Well, who the best player available on the mound is
from er Valdez Ye, the best offensive player available is
probably Cody Bellinger.

Speaker 2 (02:32:06):
Me. I don't think Kyle Tucker still considered a better
offensive option than Cody Bellinger and an everyday lineup. No,
I definitely do. But he's not available. Oh no, I know,
but he just now signed like five minutes ago. I
just I'm saying normally.

Speaker 3 (02:32:21):
I don't think anybody think that nobody would prefer to have,
prefer to have Cody Bellinger. I don't think he's a
really good player, but Tucker's better. I mean that's pretty clear.
Better fielder too.

Speaker 1 (02:32:32):
He had a bad year by the way fielding in Chicago.
He had a bad year in Chicago.

Speaker 3 (02:32:37):
Well, he got hurt and played through it and put
up some disaster numbers because of it or partially because
of it, not the only.

Speaker 2 (02:32:43):
I hadn't been the same since he left Houston, and
he hadn't been the same that last year in Houston.

Speaker 3 (02:32:47):
There's been a ton of money made by players who
left the best years of Astros baseball, and the baseball
accomplishments have been limited. What George's team just did this
past year is the most one.

Speaker 1 (02:33:01):
Again, very few teams do. Maybe you shouldn't leave Houston.
They won after he left. Who the Astros?

Speaker 2 (02:33:10):
No, I know, I'm saying players that leave Houston, they
don't ever win again. They're not trying to win anymore. Oh,
they could trying to get paid. Yes, that's all it's about, right, Yes,
tell us for the love of the game.

Speaker 3 (02:33:18):
They want a chance to win. They've gone to teams
with a look who they've signed with other than Carlos
who playing in the Al Central. There is still a
chance to win, and they went to the playoffs twice
against the Astros. But you have a chance to win
in Toronto, You have a chance to win in Boston.
I think Verlander thought they had a chance to win
In New York. Garrett Cole has a chance to win
it with the Yankees.

Speaker 2 (02:33:38):
They's so funny because they finally did what I thought
they were gonna do all these years talking about the
Blue Jays. They finally like realized their potential. It took
them forever and have continued to spend. Yeah, that's what
you would want a team that just came up to
the Dodgers in the World Series to do spend money
like the Dodgers are doing, ruining baseball.

Speaker 3 (02:34:00):
We did our best today, but new it's not a
one day thing. Not to mention we have an entire
offseason of it. But there are some questions that remain
unanswered with your Houston Texans, a long off season to
discuss it. We'll hear from Nick Cassio as the week continues,
so we'll talk on Wednesday from Demiico Ryans the rest
of the locker room c J.

Speaker 1 (02:34:17):
Stroud.

Speaker 3 (02:34:18):
Both yesterday and today, a very disappointing and familiar end
to Houston Texans football season. In the Demico Ryans C J. Stroud,
Will Anderson Junior era, they made the playoffs, they won
their wild card game, and they did not have a
good day of football in the divisional round, all on
the road and all in games that were won by
a margin. They wasn't very close in any of those

(02:34:41):
three games. So progress still something they've been unable to
truly achieve since their first year when they had unreal
progress from the Lovey Smith era. I don't think they
need that much progress moving forward, but would be nice
to advance, as Ac said, for the first time in
team history, after now seven appearances in the divisional round
and no appearances in the championship round. That's for teams

(02:35:04):
that have Drake May and Jared Stidham and Sam Darnold
and Matt Stafford gross Next Sunday, AFC first, NFC second,
and then we'll know who gets to go, which NFC
West team gets to go back to Santa Clara for
a game, and will Jared Stidham start a second game
in the twenty twenty six postseason.

Speaker 1 (02:35:24):
We begin previewing championship weekend. Who's gonna win tonight? Uh, Indiana?
I agree by more than seven and a half.

Speaker 7 (02:35:34):
It's fine the A team on Sports Talk seven ninety