February 5, 2025 • 11 mins
Zak Keefer from The Athletic joins The A-Team, ahead of Sunday's Super Bowl. He talks about what the Texans can expect from new offensive coordinator Nick Caley. Plus, what we can expect to see from CJ Stroud in future seasons. Also, he has a different take on Sunday's game.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You got Adam Wexler and Adam Clanton joined now by
(00:02):
Zach Kiefer of the Athletic. The Athletic will debut its
new Daily Game Connections Sports edition coming up on February ninth,
that is Sunday, And Zach, I mentioned our listeners earlier,
I was hopeful they were familiar with your work, having
spent so much time covering this AFC South in Indianapolis
and have had and you've had the chance to continue
covering the Texans on occasion over the course of your
(00:24):
including of their last game. So rather than right to
the game on Sunday, I'm curious in kind of seeing
how things played out for the Texans in Kansas City
as it all came to a close. And you were
also at the beginning of the season with looking at
c J. Stroud and the Colts to open things up
from where they were at the beginning of the season
to where the Texans finished the season and to the future.
(00:46):
What is your outlook on the CJ. Stroud led Texans
in the future.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Yeah, that's a good question, and I don't want to
overstate it. It felt a little disappointing in Kansas City
the way it ended for CJ style, Demico Ryans and
the Texans, and look, they won the division again. They
won ten games again. There's nothing in wong with that.
They are the class of the AFC South, There's no
doubt about that. Part of the reason is the other
(01:13):
teams are dumpster fires. The Jaguars are hiring a new coach.
The Titans had the number one pick. I've written extensively
about the Colts issues over the last decade, so that's
no fault of the Houston Texans. But they are the
class of the division. But the next step is the
hardest step, the step that is getting in that class
with the Kansas City Chiefs, the Baltimore Ravens and the
Buffalo Bills, and they're trying to get there. So were
(01:36):
the Los Angeles Chargers. There were a couple of other teams,
but it wasn't stunning that Bobby Slook was shown the
door at the end of the season because of the
way the offensive regressed, especially the passing game late in
the year. And there's a lot of context to that,
right the offensive line regress. Chris Draftser lost his job.
We'll see what Nick Cayley's gonna do. But you know
(01:58):
the Texans. The rebuild happened so quickly, and CJ. Stroud
was so good early on. The expectations maybe got ahead
of them a little bit, but they have such a
good foundation. Causario's built a really good roster. I love
the young secondary. Obviously Stroud is terrific. They've got great
pieces and it's not hard to figure out what pieces
(02:18):
to add right like, they need interior line help. I
think they need some more weapons besides Nico Collins. So
the future remains bright. But the next step that's going
to be really hard is the Bills and the Ravens
haven't quite gotten past the Kansas City hup, and they've
been trying for five years.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Curious if anything over the course of time you spent
New Orleans, or even the weeks leading up to the
Super Bowl have given you any insight or any familiarity
you might have already had with what people think of
Nick Kyley as the incoming OC one of many will
be calling plays for the first time, but going out
and saying it wasn't good enough, firing Bobby Slowick, landing
on Nick Cayley, anything of significance you know already or
(02:57):
feel like will happen because of Nick's hiring.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Yeah, I was talking to some people at dinner last
night about that very topic. Really really good things that
I've heard about Nick Cayley. Look, and there's a reason
that coaches, really smart coaches like Damiko Ryans keep hiring
coaches from Sean mcvay's staff. You know, you look at
Zach Taylor's success in Cincinnati, he got to a Super Bowl,
Kevin o'connell'son Terrisfic. I can go on and on with
(03:23):
all these examples. The only coaches that maybe don't flourish
as much or on the other side of the ball.
But you know, there's a reason that Sean mcvay's staff
keeps getting poached. Working with Sean McVay, he is such
a benefit in this league. He is such a coaching savant.
From those people that I talked to, and if I'm
not mistaking Kaylee within New England before that, So that's
(03:45):
such a good dichotomy. Right, So you start out in
New England, which is a very very different place and
it's run very differently than how Sean McVay runs it
out in LA. So really bright guy was going to
be an offensive coordinator. At some point, it's the Texans
coached at the right time. And sometimes these hard decisions
to move on from a Bobby Slok who was getting
head coaching interviews as recently as twelve month ago. You know,
(04:07):
those are the hard decisions to make. But sometimes you
look back after seasons have progressed and say, oh, I'm
really glad we did that. They've got some moves to make.
Sario's got some work to do to fix a couple
of those issues I just addressed. But I think Tayley
is a very bright young coach and his fresh ideas
are going to spark something with that offense and Stroud
(04:28):
moving forward.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
We're talking to Zach Keefer of The Athletic here on
Sports Talk seven to ninety and Space City Home Network.
A couple questions. First of all, what was for dinner
last night? And secondly, when you look at when you
look at that decision that has to be made, you know,
for an offensive coordinator, and then you go about improving
what needs to be improved, like the offensive line for
the Texans. What would you say your opinion is of
(04:53):
Nick Cassario and how he's done. And it's not a
brief tenure, but it hadn't been there here that long either.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Yeah, a good question to answer. The first one we
went to a spot called Herbs, saying it was unbelievable.
I can't even tell you what I had because we
kind of disordered everything on the menu and just kind
of jumped in like and had bites from you know, oysters, gumbo, shrimp, everything.
It was like, imagine New Orleans on a plate. That's
what we had. It was great, and it's kind of
(05:22):
hard to judge the nick and Stereo era so far,
you know, from Afar for me, because we were talking
about this a dinner as well last night. Like David
Cooley was the coach, Lovely Smith was the coach. You
kind of block those out because everything's changed now that
the Demico Riots is there and he's what you know.
Twenty and fourteen in two years, two division titles, two
playoff wins at home, which is significant. Those are not
(05:44):
easy to come by, and they sort of run into
the buzz saw on the division around the teams that
are just further along, right, the Ravens last year, the
Chiefs this year. That everybody's still chasing the Chiefs, so
there's no shame of listening to them in January, But
I do think the detections are not that far away
because their issues are easier to address than some others. Right,
(06:05):
you have a left tackle, which is really really hard
to find. You've got the quarterback on a rookie deal,
one of the hardest things to find in sports. You've
got a number one receiver and Nico Collins. Those are
really really hard things to find, especially for a team
that's not going to be drafted in the top ten.
You've got to add some pieces to the line. You've
got to get better up front, right. That is so
(06:26):
key for CJ. Straus development moving forward. You've got to
get the line right. You can do that in free
agency if you spend some money, you can go out
and find and pay interior offensive linemen. They need to
do that. I think that's pretty obvious. The offensive line,
the way it regressed and the way CJ was running
for his life for the better part of the last season,
that's a concern. I don't want to bring his name up,
(06:48):
but I covered a quarterback in Indianapolis who was running
for his life the first half of his career, and
he could have been a Hall of Famer and he
retired early. You guys know what happened there, So don't
let that happen again in Houston. Go get some good
offense of lineman fixed that unit and CJ talked about
this at the end of the season. It was really interesting.
He said, you know, he learned more from this season
than he did last because you learn more from the
(07:10):
harder moments. So I think he's made of the right stuff.
He's unbelievably talented. He's a very grounded kid. I think
he's going to be better moving forward. Because you know,
everybody had the arrow going really really high this year
for the Houston Texas. They were I want to say,
the fourth or fifth or sixth highest you know, favorite
to go to the Super Bowl from the AFC in
(07:31):
the entire league, right from either conference. They think the
fourth or fifth best odds to win the super Bowl
from either conference. That was a little too fast, a
little too soon. So I think this year and the
lessons from the latter half of the season will be
good for them. The humbling that came with it. Fix
that line. I really loved what I saw from the defense.
I think they have one of the best young cornerback
(07:51):
duos in the league. Dimico has put a stamp on
that unit. Don't want to overlook Matt Burke as well.
But they're not as far away as the other team
because those other teams are going to have to find
really really hard things. And by that I mean the
left tackle or a quarterback or the number one receiver.
The Texans have all that. They just got to find
the complimentary pieces. And it's amazing how much further you
(08:12):
can go when you get those things shirt up.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Let me see if I can get you one quick
question to close up the AFC South so we can
shift a little bit of Super Bowl. In twenty twenty six,
the starting quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts will be Anthony Richardson.
True or false.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
I'm gonna say false. Now that's to be determined. Obviously
he's the guy going into twenty twenty five. But there's
a lot of concerns in the city. There's a lot
of concerns in the building about what they saw this year,
and he was benched and he came back and then
they folded late, which they do just about every season.
(08:51):
I don't know, I don't know. I think that's a
wait and see sort of thing. But the other underlying
thought that's running through my mind right now is is
he can't on the field. And Chris Baaler said that
the general mantors said that at the end of the
season that that's one of the biggest concerns is he
hasn't put together a full season. It's been a variety
of injuries, and you know, at this point, he's the
same quarterback he wasn't Florida, right, just a dismal completion
(09:13):
percentage and he just cannot consistently make throws between zero
and fifteen yards, and you have to do that in
this league. You know, those are the easy ones and
then they get harder as we go deep, deep down
the field. And that's one of the things that jumped
out about Stroud early on, and I wrote about another
rookie quarterback had a lot of success this year in
Jade Daniels, Like, you've got to make the easy ones early,
(09:35):
and Richardson's not doing that. So you know, that's a
total guest on our part. That's total speculation. But there's
not a whole lot to think that he can be
consistent enough to be the guy long term. I would
love to be wrong, but we'll.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Have to find out real quickly on the game. Where
will America's national nightmare end? Or will the Chiefs three
pete this weekend?
Speaker 2 (09:56):
I mean, I'm an idiot for picking against the Chiefs, right,
I mean year and I felt like, well, what are
you doing? You're paying to guess read in Mahomes like
you're an idiot. But look, I mean, I don't think
I'm that crazy. I don't know where you guys stand.
But the Eagles have the better roster, They're deeper, they're
more complete, they have the best offensive player in the game,
and Takuon Barkley. You know, I can hear the Mahomes argument,
(10:18):
one of the best of all time. All that, I
get it. Barkley can turn this game in an instant,
and he can turn it one or two or three times.
He could just burst and he can run for sixty
yard touchdowns. And that's something the Chiefs, you know, That's
that's one of the small weaknesses they have. They are
not the best run defense. And the Bills, if they
would have given the ball to their guy on the
(10:39):
last drive, I think they would have instead of having
their quarterback run. I think they would have had a
chance to win, I think they would have got it done.
So I think the Eagles are going to pound it.
I think it's the better team. I'm going with Philly
in this one. And yes, to answer your question, America's
national nightmares over the Chiefs do not three p and
there's a new champ this year.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Oh, you are beloved by one of the hosts on
this program for saying that very very thing, and I
like you as well. Zach, really appreciate your time.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Thank for having you guys again.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Zach Kiefer from The Athletic covering the Super Bowl. The
Athletic Dave us this new Daily Game Connection Sports edition
coming up on February ninth,
You got Adam Wexler and Adam Clanton joined now by
(00:02):
Zach Kiefer of the Athletic. The Athletic will debut its
new Daily Game Connections Sports edition coming up on February ninth,
that is Sunday, And Zach, I mentioned our listeners earlier,
I was hopeful they were familiar with your work, having
spent so much time covering this AFC South in Indianapolis
and have had and you've had the chance to continue
covering the Texans on occasion over the course of your
(00:24):
including of their last game. So rather than right to
the game on Sunday, I'm curious in kind of seeing
how things played out for the Texans in Kansas City
as it all came to a close. And you were
also at the beginning of the season with looking at
c J. Stroud and the Colts to open things up
from where they were at the beginning of the season
to where the Texans finished the season and to the future.
(00:46):
What is your outlook on the CJ. Stroud led Texans
in the future.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Yeah, that's a good question, and I don't want to
overstate it. It felt a little disappointing in Kansas City
the way it ended for CJ style, Demico Ryans and
the Texans, and look, they won the division again. They
won ten games again. There's nothing in wong with that.
They are the class of the AFC South, There's no
doubt about that. Part of the reason is the other
(01:13):
teams are dumpster fires. The Jaguars are hiring a new coach.
The Titans had the number one pick. I've written extensively
about the Colts issues over the last decade, so that's
no fault of the Houston Texans. But they are the
class of the division. But the next step is the
hardest step, the step that is getting in that class
with the Kansas City Chiefs, the Baltimore Ravens and the
Buffalo Bills, and they're trying to get there. So were
(01:36):
the Los Angeles Chargers. There were a couple of other teams,
but it wasn't stunning that Bobby Slook was shown the
door at the end of the season because of the
way the offensive regressed, especially the passing game late in
the year. And there's a lot of context to that,
right the offensive line regress. Chris Draftser lost his job.
We'll see what Nick Cayley's gonna do. But you know
(01:58):
the Texans. The rebuild happened so quickly, and CJ. Stroud
was so good early on. The expectations maybe got ahead
of them a little bit, but they have such a
good foundation. Causario's built a really good roster. I love
the young secondary. Obviously Stroud is terrific. They've got great
pieces and it's not hard to figure out what pieces
(02:18):
to add right like, they need interior line help. I
think they need some more weapons besides Nico Collins. So
the future remains bright. But the next step that's going
to be really hard is the Bills and the Ravens
haven't quite gotten past the Kansas City hup, and they've
been trying for five years.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Curious if anything over the course of time you spent
New Orleans, or even the weeks leading up to the
Super Bowl have given you any insight or any familiarity
you might have already had with what people think of
Nick Kyley as the incoming OC one of many will
be calling plays for the first time, but going out
and saying it wasn't good enough, firing Bobby Slowick, landing
on Nick Cayley, anything of significance you know already or
(02:57):
feel like will happen because of Nick's hiring.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Yeah, I was talking to some people at dinner last
night about that very topic. Really really good things that
I've heard about Nick Cayley. Look, and there's a reason
that coaches, really smart coaches like Damiko Ryans keep hiring
coaches from Sean mcvay's staff. You know, you look at
Zach Taylor's success in Cincinnati, he got to a Super Bowl,
Kevin o'connell'son Terrisfic. I can go on and on with
(03:23):
all these examples. The only coaches that maybe don't flourish
as much or on the other side of the ball.
But you know, there's a reason that Sean mcvay's staff
keeps getting poached. Working with Sean McVay, he is such
a benefit in this league. He is such a coaching savant.
From those people that I talked to, and if I'm
not mistaking Kaylee within New England before that, So that's
(03:45):
such a good dichotomy. Right, So you start out in
New England, which is a very very different place and
it's run very differently than how Sean McVay runs it
out in LA. So really bright guy was going to
be an offensive coordinator. At some point, it's the Texans
coached at the right time. And sometimes these hard decisions
to move on from a Bobby Slok who was getting
head coaching interviews as recently as twelve month ago. You know,
(04:07):
those are the hard decisions to make. But sometimes you
look back after seasons have progressed and say, oh, I'm
really glad we did that. They've got some moves to make.
Sario's got some work to do to fix a couple
of those issues I just addressed. But I think Tayley
is a very bright young coach and his fresh ideas
are going to spark something with that offense and Stroud
(04:28):
moving forward.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
We're talking to Zach Keefer of The Athletic here on
Sports Talk seven to ninety and Space City Home Network.
A couple questions. First of all, what was for dinner
last night? And secondly, when you look at when you
look at that decision that has to be made, you know,
for an offensive coordinator, and then you go about improving
what needs to be improved, like the offensive line for
the Texans. What would you say your opinion is of
(04:53):
Nick Cassario and how he's done. And it's not a
brief tenure, but it hadn't been there here that long either.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Yeah, a good question to answer. The first one we
went to a spot called Herbs, saying it was unbelievable.
I can't even tell you what I had because we
kind of disordered everything on the menu and just kind
of jumped in like and had bites from you know, oysters, gumbo, shrimp, everything.
It was like, imagine New Orleans on a plate. That's
what we had. It was great, and it's kind of
(05:22):
hard to judge the nick and Stereo era so far,
you know, from Afar for me, because we were talking
about this a dinner as well last night. Like David
Cooley was the coach, Lovely Smith was the coach. You
kind of block those out because everything's changed now that
the Demico Riots is there and he's what you know.
Twenty and fourteen in two years, two division titles, two
playoff wins at home, which is significant. Those are not
(05:44):
easy to come by, and they sort of run into
the buzz saw on the division around the teams that
are just further along, right, the Ravens last year, the
Chiefs this year. That everybody's still chasing the Chiefs, so
there's no shame of listening to them in January, But
I do think the detections are not that far away
because their issues are easier to address than some others. Right,
(06:05):
you have a left tackle, which is really really hard
to find. You've got the quarterback on a rookie deal,
one of the hardest things to find in sports. You've
got a number one receiver and Nico Collins. Those are
really really hard things to find, especially for a team
that's not going to be drafted in the top ten.
You've got to add some pieces to the line. You've
got to get better up front, right. That is so
(06:26):
key for CJ. Straus development moving forward. You've got to
get the line right. You can do that in free
agency if you spend some money, you can go out
and find and pay interior offensive linemen. They need to
do that. I think that's pretty obvious. The offensive line,
the way it regressed and the way CJ was running
for his life for the better part of the last season,
that's a concern. I don't want to bring his name up,
(06:48):
but I covered a quarterback in Indianapolis who was running
for his life the first half of his career, and
he could have been a Hall of Famer and he
retired early. You guys know what happened there, So don't
let that happen again in Houston. Go get some good
offense of lineman fixed that unit and CJ talked about
this at the end of the season. It was really interesting.
He said, you know, he learned more from this season
than he did last because you learn more from the
(07:10):
harder moments. So I think he's made of the right stuff.
He's unbelievably talented. He's a very grounded kid. I think
he's going to be better moving forward. Because you know,
everybody had the arrow going really really high this year
for the Houston Texas. They were I want to say,
the fourth or fifth or sixth highest you know, favorite
to go to the Super Bowl from the AFC in
(07:31):
the entire league, right from either conference. They think the
fourth or fifth best odds to win the super Bowl
from either conference. That was a little too fast, a
little too soon. So I think this year and the
lessons from the latter half of the season will be
good for them. The humbling that came with it. Fix
that line. I really loved what I saw from the defense.
I think they have one of the best young cornerback
(07:51):
duos in the league. Dimico has put a stamp on
that unit. Don't want to overlook Matt Burke as well.
But they're not as far away as the other team
because those other teams are going to have to find
really really hard things. And by that I mean the
left tackle or a quarterback or the number one receiver.
The Texans have all that. They just got to find
the complimentary pieces. And it's amazing how much further you
(08:12):
can go when you get those things shirt up.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Let me see if I can get you one quick
question to close up the AFC South so we can
shift a little bit of Super Bowl. In twenty twenty six,
the starting quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts will be Anthony Richardson.
True or false.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
I'm gonna say false. Now that's to be determined. Obviously
he's the guy going into twenty twenty five. But there's
a lot of concerns in the city. There's a lot
of concerns in the building about what they saw this year,
and he was benched and he came back and then
they folded late, which they do just about every season.
(08:51):
I don't know, I don't know. I think that's a
wait and see sort of thing. But the other underlying
thought that's running through my mind right now is is
he can't on the field. And Chris Baaler said that
the general mantors said that at the end of the
season that that's one of the biggest concerns is he
hasn't put together a full season. It's been a variety
of injuries, and you know, at this point, he's the
same quarterback he wasn't Florida, right, just a dismal completion
(09:13):
percentage and he just cannot consistently make throws between zero
and fifteen yards, and you have to do that in
this league. You know, those are the easy ones and
then they get harder as we go deep, deep down
the field. And that's one of the things that jumped
out about Stroud early on, and I wrote about another
rookie quarterback had a lot of success this year in
Jade Daniels, Like, you've got to make the easy ones early,
(09:35):
and Richardson's not doing that. So you know, that's a
total guest on our part. That's total speculation. But there's
not a whole lot to think that he can be
consistent enough to be the guy long term. I would
love to be wrong, but we'll.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Have to find out real quickly on the game. Where
will America's national nightmare end? Or will the Chiefs three
pete this weekend?
Speaker 2 (09:56):
I mean, I'm an idiot for picking against the Chiefs, right,
I mean year and I felt like, well, what are
you doing? You're paying to guess read in Mahomes like
you're an idiot. But look, I mean, I don't think
I'm that crazy. I don't know where you guys stand.
But the Eagles have the better roster, They're deeper, they're
more complete, they have the best offensive player in the game,
and Takuon Barkley. You know, I can hear the Mahomes argument,
(10:18):
one of the best of all time. All that, I
get it. Barkley can turn this game in an instant,
and he can turn it one or two or three times.
He could just burst and he can run for sixty
yard touchdowns. And that's something the Chiefs, you know, That's
that's one of the small weaknesses they have. They are
not the best run defense. And the Bills, if they
would have given the ball to their guy on the
(10:39):
last drive, I think they would have instead of having
their quarterback run. I think they would have had a
chance to win, I think they would have got it done.
So I think the Eagles are going to pound it.
I think it's the better team. I'm going with Philly
in this one. And yes, to answer your question, America's
national nightmares over the Chiefs do not three p and
there's a new champ this year.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Oh, you are beloved by one of the hosts on
this program for saying that very very thing, and I
like you as well. Zach, really appreciate your time.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Thank for having you guys again.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Zach Kiefer from The Athletic covering the Super Bowl. The
Athletic Dave us this new Daily Game Connection Sports edition
coming up on February ninth,
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