March 14, 2025 • 47 mins
The first few days of free agency are in the books. So where do the Texans stand? Play-by-play Voice Marc Vandermeer and Radio Sideline Reporter John Harris took stock of the week of moves and more.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello Texans, Welcome to the show Friday Night tgif just
got paid party Hardy?
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Is that?
Speaker 1 (00:06):
What he says, is that Monte who does that Friday Night.
I'm not gonna sing, but we're fired up because it's
been a big football week for your Houston Texans in
the entire NFL. Mark vandermir and John Harris with you
Hyundai Texans Radio Studio Rodeo. I did it last night, Johnny,
by the way, I did the h How did that go? Yeah,
(00:27):
it went really well and lo and behold, I did
not realize. And this is how out of tune I
can be with things. I guess that it was employee
night in the suite and a lot of employees were
in the big suite, and so in the hallways today
I was getting the business from people like, oh, nice
job opening the gate. That was awesome, and yeah, it's
really hard to do. You know, they make it so
(00:48):
you get open the gate just by breathing on it.
You know, it's funny because you opened the gate for
the calves. I did the calf scramble thing for the calves.
Calfs to run out and the kids chase them down,
and you know how that goes. It's not the mutton busting.
That's when the five year olds get abused. I didn't
get abused. But in fact I went back to the
(01:09):
carnival today with young Liam, who's twelve, and we watched
the mutton bust and I said, when you do that now.
He's like, I don't think so, Dad. These those sheep.
When you go to the one at the carnival, you're
sitting so close and you can see how big those
sheep are. They're big animals. It's not like, oh, it's
a little cute dog sheep. No, No, these are biggins anyway,
the calves. So when you open the gate, they come
(01:31):
running out. But it's not like a stampede of bulls.
You know, you just stay out of the way. You'll
be fine. It's not a big deal. But I'm up
on the big video board. It was fun. I gave
them a pregame speech before that, a couple of hours prior,
you know, and all I said was, you're on the
same surface as two Super Bowls as the Texans playoff wins.
He's grabbed naming all the players and Taylor Swift, Beyonce,
(01:54):
think about all the great performers that have been there,
and I said, and you you kids, So that got
them kind of fired up.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
I think it's good. How old are those kids?
Speaker 1 (02:05):
They're teenagers, they're like sixteen, Okay, yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Yeah, I was gonna say how much.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Listen, that's a that's a tough crowd to have to entertain,
so to speak. Trust me, you know, teaching eighth graders
algebra one, that's a tough crowd. It's a tough crowd.
So I'm sure you did great. I saw your pictures
on Instagram. Look like you're having fun, and that's obviously
the most important thing.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
So the kids had fun.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
Yeah, and it was employee night, which apparently you didn't know.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
So that's yeah, yeah, it's fine. But not every employee
goes to employee Yeah. But you know, related to you
teaching eighth graders algebra I was reading that kids today
in school harder than ever to teach because those who
have phones, and that's just about everybody, are so used
to the dopamine hits of social media. Right. Well, this
(02:53):
is a phenomenon that we're becoming very familiar with, and
I think it's gonna it's all gonna come to a
head eventually. I don't know what you do about it,
but it is an issue for adults too. But the
kids who are used to these dopamine hits and then
the phones are really stripped away during the day by
and large, and now you've got them and they're having
withdrawal almost literally. I was reading about this and I thought,
(03:15):
that's me. When it comes to Free Agent news. I'm
having withdrawal as opposed to Monday Tuesday, when it was
just one thing after another, bang bang bang bang bang,
and then it slows down. You're like, wait a minute,
where's my dopamine hit, Nick or any other GM Because
I can get news about the Jaguars and Colts. And
if I like the news like Daniel Jones going to
Indie because I don't think it's going to help them
(03:37):
that much, then it gives me a little dopamine hit.
See that's how it works. I don't know if you
see it the same way.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Oh, I'm the same way.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
I can't tell you how many times during a day,
no matter what I'm doing, I refresh. And I'm honest,
I don't as much as I you know, get pretty
much everything from X or Twitter or even Instagram. I
don't go there as often I guess as I think
maybe my family wants to believe. But during free agency,
(04:06):
I'm just like boom, refresh, refresh, refreshed. After last night's radio,
got home, you know, pretty late for dinner and was like, well,
let's just go grab a bike to eat. So we
went and got a buy to eat, and I'm just
sitting at dinner and i was probably the worst dinner
guest because I'm just like, what happened? And they happened,
who happened, who traded, who did what? And it really
was kind of And it's in a sense because you know,
(04:28):
you do it so often. It's like you're waiting and waiting.
It's like somebody waiting, you know, to be drafted in
the NFL Draft, and you just wait and you're like, cray,
maybe this team I interviewed with this team, Nope, not
that team. Okay, what about this team? I really like them,
They like me. We met at the Senior Bowl that
don't know, didn't happen there. And you get to a
point where you're waiting so long you're just like, ah,
nothing's gonna happen.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
I'm done, forget it. Just don't worry about it.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
I'll just go undrafted whatever, and all of a sudden,
six round there is the call, and you're so happy
and you're going to Philadelphia or wherever you're going, and
you're just pumped about that. You kind of give up
on it, and there's a point on on Friday, I
think at some point where I had I had just
just looking at my my TV as I was doing work,
(05:11):
and I just had basketball game, basketball game, Basketball game,
basketball game. I was like, you know, I'm just gonna
do this on put Twitter to side. I picked it
up maybe like an hour later, refreshed it nothing. I'm like, okay, good.
So we've kind of reached that point where a lot
of the big, the big ticket items are gone, but
it doesn't mean that there aren't still decisions to be made.
(05:32):
Cooper Cup, I don't think it's the Texans, but you
never know. Stepan Diggs is still out there. You know,
there's some big names there still out there. Makuie Becton
literally and figuratively big guy mckaie Beckden still out there.
But it's the same I'm the same Mark. I mean,
it's literally like, okay, what's what's happening? What's going on?
I mean, you're just paying attention to this time of
(05:54):
year so often, trying to figure out what are they
going to do next? And you know, we got to
try transaction notice from the Texas today or release and
you look and you go, dang, that's a lot of movement.
They did a lot of things over the last few days,
include trading for ed Ingram from the Minnesota Vikings. They've
done a lot, but because more than likely in a
(06:18):
lot of people's lives, it's not Daniel Hunter, it's not
Joe Mixon, it's not Steffan Diggs, it doesn't have the
sexiness that it did last year. You didn't have all
that much money to spend, so you kind of had
to go to TJ max and see if you can
find the Peter Malar jacket for thirty bucks. And hopefully
in some cases you might have done that, maybe once,
maybe twice. You get a He'll Figure T shirt for
(06:39):
fifteen instead of paying seventy five for it. So that's
hopefully what they've been able to do. But there's still
some work to do. Is we've talked about and we're
all in some sense waiting, Okay, what's that offensive line
Domino to fall, what's the next one? And I think
that's probably more than likely where I think they're gonna go.
And again, we didn't see this defon Digg's trade coming
(07:01):
and it didn't happen till April third last year.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
I don't believe, so we could be waiting.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
I mean it could be kind of you know, in
this period between free agency in the draft, and we
get to a point where we're thinking about the draft
because we're into April, and all of a sudden, bang,
there's a move by the Texans. So look, Nick's done
it before he's done it again. He's made three of
the most significant trades in team history. So uh, maybe
(07:28):
there's another one coming down to Pike.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
So we'll see.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Johnny right off the bat before we get to the Texans.
Everything happening this week. Cooper Cup off the table signing
with the Seattle Seahawks. Your thoughts on Cooper Cup becoming
a Seahawks and you called this, he said he's from
that part of the country, probably gonna go there. He's
got Darnold to throw them the football, and voila, we
(07:51):
have Cooper Cup off the deck.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Yeah, I could have made some money in Vegas I guess,
but being an employee of NFL team, I guess I
couldn't do that. What it's not surprising, you know. I
kind of come to grips with it the other night,
Mark like it just doesn't feel like it's gonna happen.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
Okay, that's fine. I would have I would have liked
Cooper Cup. I'm a big fan of Cooper Cup.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
I have been for a while, especially since seeing him
at the Senior Bowl a while back. Man, he was
so so good, but the Seahawks had to do something.
But now you got Cooper Cup with Jackson Smith and Jigba,
and that might not be a bad thing for the
Seahawks with those two. With sam Donold, he's got some
good threats like he had in Minnesota. So I kind
of felt like the Texans were out of that. But
(08:33):
that's big news that Cup is going back home. He's
from Washington, his wife is from Washington. And that's why
I said the other night, I really felt like that's
where he was gonna end up. He was gonna end
up in Washington. It made sense. Seattle needed him. They
need a receiver. He's from there. He's gonna get good money.
Seattle's got some money to spend, uh and so yeah,
(08:53):
he's going to Seattle.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Makes sense, you know, since it's Friday night, we have
a little time to stretch out here. I think it's
really notable how far they've come in two years, not
just one year, but two years. I mean two years ago.
At this time they had hired to meet go Ryans,
they had a free agent class going, they had some pieces,
and it was prior to the draft where they got
(09:16):
CJ and Will, etc. And I think that a lot
of especially when you compare it to some other teams
out there who are still building and looking and building,
and they have builds that backfire, never get off the
launching pad the Jets. You know, really, McDaniel with the Dolphins,
in many ways, you've had some regular season real hot flashes,
real great moments. Right. I don't know if I should
(09:38):
call those hot flashes. Anybody's going through the change out
there from the opposite sex would say that's not a
good thing. Mark, that's not a good thing. That a
lot of flash. But they've had some hot moments in
regular seasons and nothing in the postseason. Obviously, they could
have stood to be a lot Hotter in the playoff
game against Kansas City when they were freezing to death
post twenty twenty three. Anyway, look how far they've come
(09:59):
in two year. But let's take it from last year,
because I think this is a good thing. I'm gonna
ask you this, how many starters did they get this week?
Or let's go back to Kirk last week, because I
would call Kirk a starter, right, yes, I would call
And this is a good thing to not necessarily get
too many because you don't want to have to need
too many. We're gonna put a free agent here, in,
(10:21):
a free agent there. You know, when they put it
up on the big board in their meeting room, they
don't want to be like, let's plug all these holes
with free agents. That's not how you really build true success.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
Right.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
They've been able to put a free agent here, free
agent there in the last couple of years, draft choice here,
draft choice there, and look, you've won playoff games each
of the last two years doing this been very good.
They've built it very well relatively when you look at
other teams and how they've tried to build their teams
as they've had high draft choices. Whatever. But let's go
to Kirk, I've got CJ. Gardner Johnson. Possibly when you
(10:55):
look at how they might construct the secondary, I would
think so light, wouldn't you think so?
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Eric Murray spot, I.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
Think Chauncey's definitely got a chance to start for sure. Yep, Okay, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
You know Mario and Sheldon Rankins, they're not sharing the
same last name. Mario Edwards and Sheldon Rankins I would
put as starters at defensive tackle right now, barring something
else happening. Right, So there's.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
One long was settled long was settled depending on how
you look at settled. I mean, I remember when when
North Carolina back in nineteen ninety eight did Vince Carter
and Antoine Jamison.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
They had six guys that played.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
They basically played a six man rotation and they all
were considered starters even though the only five start, but
there were six of.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
Them that really kind of rotated it.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
So that's kind of the way I look at those
defensive lineman Settle, Rankins, Edwards, I think those are your
three starters. Yes, two of them have to be on
the field, but it feels like you've got three starters there,
and Edwards and Rankins is going to be two of
them for sure.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Yeah, so I've got four and maybe one of the
offensive linemen, maybe both when you look at what they
acquire or this week, you know, maybe Ingram starts and
I'm not sure. You know, in fact, we have to
go there before we go anywhere else because yesterday we
had job McLean. I didn't have a chance to talk
much about Ingram here from you on your assessment because
(12:14):
I know once they made that deal, you probably went
to the tape last night. So what are you thinking
with Ingram?
Speaker 3 (12:20):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (12:20):
I remember watching him at LSU and he was pretty
athletically impressive, just like being a gifted athlete. But he's
had some struggles with Minnesota. You know, he started for
the first couple of years, and I think he showed
some promises. Past year was probably his worst year of
all of them. But we've said this many times. You know,
you give a guy a new opportunity in a new
(12:41):
location and you never know how it's gonna go. And look,
last time the Texans made a trade for an offensive
lineman that I can remember, it was for Kendrick Green, who,
by the way, just signed with the Buffalo Bills. Well, Kendrick,
they made that a trade for Kendrick. Either they trade,
I think they betrayed. Maybe it was a waiver claim.
(13:02):
Either way, they get Kendrick and everybody's just, oh, he
was terrible with the Steelers. Steelers people are just bashing him,
you know, the whole thing. And then Kendrick played three
really good games before he ended up getting hurt and
we're like, man, we're seeing something a little different here,
you know. And it was just kind of that change
of scenery. And when we talked to him in you know,
in the off season and we got a chance to
(13:23):
know Kendrick, realized, oh, yeah, okay, kind of see what
this guy is all about. You know, he's feisty, he's tough,
he's not the not the biggest guy. But you know,
over time you start to see some of the things
that kind of ailed Kendrick, and maybe we'll see that
with Ed. But I think just getting a new you know,
a new system, new city, you know, ed getting back
to the South of Man, I think that's gonna be
you know, good for him. So uh, I want to
(13:46):
say he's a De Soto kid. I think that's right.
So uh, god, dang it. Now, now it's gonna drive
me crazy because I looked at it last night and
I was like, I think he's from De Soto, which
that being from the Soto he is. I mean, those
kids said, yeah, he's a from De Soto. They get
some players out of it. That's von Miller's high school.
They all kinds of guy's coming out of there. So
(14:07):
I don't know that ultimately I would say he's a starter.
I think that Laken would probably start over him if
you had to pick and choose, and depending on what
you do with the other position. But you get a
guy to come compete for a job in a city
that gives him a fresh start, you never know what
you're gonna get. So I don't think and I've heard
(14:30):
this probably said by a number of people and reiterated myself.
I don't think they've done anything in free agency where
I go, oh, that precludes them from drafting such and such,
even on the D line, even bringing back Mario, bringing
back Rankins. I still feel like, man, there's a really
good defensive tackle that falls into your lap at twenty five,
or there's a good one that falls in your lap
(14:51):
at fifty eight, or wherever Nick trades to and you
look at it and go, man, this guy's got something
different than what our guys already.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Have on the ross.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Okay, I don't think anything precludes them from doing that now.
I think, like you know, I just mentioned d line,
I would think that's probably one where maybe you could
do that because you do have a ton of depth
there now. But in the secondary maybe again, but still
you know, drafting a young dude that could come in
(15:22):
there and help with the safety position. Even though you've
signed M. J. Stewart, You've traded for CJ. Gardner Johnson,
you still have Jimmy Ward. You're still gonna need young
dudes to step up and play and be part of it.
So ed Ingram gets in a mix Lanke Tomlinson. Does
it make those two the starter? No, it doesn't. It
(15:43):
just puts them in a competition, and there might be
another move coming and maybe that move provides an obvious
starter on the offensive line. But we don't know all that,
but we do feel like there's gonna be competition. So
I do think that what they've done does not even
Christian Kirk, even bringing to Christian Kirk, Justin Watson, Braxton, Barrios,
(16:05):
I still think that if they see a receiver that's
got an elite trait that they like, let's go bring it,
bring another one in. Because the guys that that Nicko
Demikoek drafted, I mean, think about from that standpoint, you know,
just think about the guys that they drafted just the
last couple of years. You know, Blake Fisher's probably gonna
start at right tackle or one of the tackle positions.
(16:26):
Jared Patterson has started for two years at center. Jue
Scruggs has been in and out as a starter at center.
CJ obviously, Will Anderson, Henry Totoa, you know a guy
that you know, twenty two three, we didn't really know
what we had. Yeah, fifth round, Kaylen Bullock, Kamari Lassiter,
those guys drafted last year. I mean, kate'stover kind of
gloss over Kate, and I think Kid's got an opportunity
(16:46):
to really kind of break through. So that's the other thing.
I don't think that what they've done precludes them from
doing anything in the draft and stops them. Hey, no, look,
we're not going to go get a wide receiver because
we got Kirk and Watson. No, I mean, if you
have an opportunity you know, a receiver falls in your hands.
You know, just take for instance, Trey Harris from Ole Miss,
(17:08):
a downfield threat, a really great athlete. He falls in
your hands at fifty eight, man, you might jump all
over that because that's great value at that position, at
a position that you're not.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Completely and totally settled.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
So yeah, I think what they've done has been good,
But to me, it doesn't stop them from doing anything
in the draft at this point. Now if they go
they signed Steph they signed Cooper Cup, Okay, maybe receivers.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
Probably good for now, but they haven't done that.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
You know, if they trade for a starting left tackle, potentially,
I still think they're gonna look it offensive lineman. But
I still think those draft off ins of lineman, I
don't think anything stopping in a way of that. They
got to find the right five guys, for sure. I
shouldn't say it that way. I think the way we
should think about the offens line, they need they the
eight that they have, the top eight linemen. That's the
(17:58):
way they got to look at it, because guys get
banged up. They got to make sure that that eight
that they have not the starting five. There can't be
a drop off from five and then the next three.
There's got to be five and then six, seven, eight,
where it's relatively close together to make it really hard
to see who you've got on that starting off of
the line. There's got to be good competition, and hopefully
they'll be able to find eight guys that they can
(18:19):
step into any point and there's no drop off in
the play.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
I'd be shocked if we don't see two linemen drafted
by them. I shouldn't say shocked, surprised, how about that
surprised from where we sit right now without another move coming,
and I would expect there's probably another move coming, But
you know what I mean with who they have right now,
because what they have right now are guys who can play.
(18:44):
But you still want that higher ceiling. You know, you
might think Lake and Tomlinson if he reaches his full
potential or it gets back to that great Ingram, same
kind of thing, a little bit of a veteran project
if you will, with a lot of time talent, same
kind of thing. But you still need young guys who
haven't even higher ceiling possibly and reliability factor, consistency, and
(19:10):
they're gonna go to the draft to get that and
start it with competition, because it's like a really nice house.
The Texans roster is like a really nice house, but
they're having a master bedroom remodel. And that's the offensive line.
And it's under construction. You know, you got the plastic
sheets up, there's dust. You know, don't go in there
right now. Could look really good later, but you can't
(19:32):
really see exactly what it's gonna look like. So we
got to trust that. You know, the design is there
and it's gonna be executed well and all of that.
I know, every how many analogies have we heard this
week on this radio station? Oh yeah, the offensive line?
It should be like a metaphor and analogy contest, you know,
come up with the best one when because I think
(19:54):
Johnny left tackle. It's it's really hard to say. Let's
just discuss here for a moment. We talked about it
earlier this week. We worded it is the left tackle
in the building. Another way to put it, you know,
more likely to happen Titus or he's not on the
roster yet, you know that kind of thing, and I
think more likely. Gosh, it's it's hard to say. I
(20:17):
would that's a fifty to fifty bet right there. It's
hard to say what's fifty one percent? It really is
difficult because in the absence of Nick Cassiria just coming
out and talking about it openly, we have to guess,
and it's it's hard to say. I mean, am I
right that it's right around fifty to fifty? There could
be a fifty eight, you know, our fifty two forty eight.
(20:39):
I don't know how else to word it. What are
you thinking there?
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Yeah, exactly, because we really don't know. I this is
I feel confident that if Titus cut a little weight,
got his body in a little bit better shape to
where he could get back to the way that he
was moving probably earlier in his career. I think Titus
(21:02):
could play left tackle, I really do. And I think
Blake would survive over there. I think Titus would do
a little bit better job because I think Titus is
just a little bit better athlete. So you have that option.
I think that's the way I like it. You have
that option. Now, is it the best option? I don't
know totally, but I think you're gonna give it some opportunity.
(21:25):
Remember last training camp, we saw Blake Fisher over there
a lot We saw Blake over there at left tackle.
This is no lar I mean in training camp. So
we saw Blake a lot, and there were times it
looked pretty good.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
There were times.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
Where you're like, okay, boy, that was Will Anderson just
gave him a business, so it's gonna happen that way.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
But I think at least you have those couple of options.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
Here's the thing, as as you look at still who's.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
Remaining at tackle, there are more former.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Texans free agents at tackle right now in the free
agency class that you've discarded trade and got rid of
they move on at some point than any other free
agent that's in the tackle class. This tackle free agent
class is basically Cam Robinson, who I wouldn't touch at
the temple, with Pole and a bunch of other guys,
including a lot of guys that have played for the Texans.
(22:13):
Charlie Hack, George Fan, Kendall lamb Uh. Those are the
three off the top of my heads I could think of,
and I'm sure I'm missing you know a few others
at that point. But my point in that is, I
don't know that you'll find the answer in free agency.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
Now a draft.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Okay, all bets are off because with a draft, you
just I'm sorry, with the trade, you just never know.
I mean, Nick could call up I don't know, he
could call up Dallas and maybe make a play for
Tyler Smith and or you know, get him here, make
him left tackle. You know he's probably playing guard now.
(22:48):
I just you know, I'm kind of spitball in there.
But you get the bet me.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
And that is with a trade, you just don't know exactly.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Problem with the trade is problem with the trader is
you get a little desperate. So then you go to
the draft. You look at the draft, and I think
with the draft, what's interesting is the two guys at
the top, actually three guys at the top. All three
of them are kind of being thought as well. You know,
they played tackle, but I think we're gonna move in
the guard. Yet I watch him play and I'm like,
(23:16):
those guys can all play tackle. And that's Kelvin maxfrom Texas,
That's Will Campbell from LSU, that's armand Membu from out
of Missouri. But they are all really good athletes. They're
all all very good movers of people. They pass for
tech very well. Membu is probably the best athlete of
the three. You know, Campbell is probably the best overall player.
(23:38):
But I was studying. I studied Kelvin Banks today. I
spent probably about two hours on him today, and I'm like, man,
if that dude ended up in Houston, he's from Houston.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
He went to Summer creekt High School. I he ended
up in Houston. He's the left tackle.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
And I know it might be a little bit of
a struggle at first, but he's a left tackle. He's
an exceptional player, a really good athlete for a guy
his size. He's got the right demeanor to play that
that spot. You can tell he tries to put guys
in the dirt in the run game too, and so
I like that. So you know, you can give me
any one of those three guys, and I think they
would all play left tackle, even though because they don't
(24:13):
have thirty five inch arms and people are thinking about
them as a guard.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
So you can give me those three guys.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
And even if you thought with Calvin Banks, all right,
well we're gonna orry these guys, We're gonna move them
to guard, and then you get them there and then like, okay,
we think we need to maximize what we've got.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
We move them out to tackle.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
We've seen that have done a lot of times, including
Larmy Tunzel who did it with the Dolphins, start at
guard and then moved out to tackle in the next year.
So that's okay, get the best five on the line together,
playing well together and see where it goes. And that
puts tightest left tackle, great, Blake Fisher left tackle. Great,
if it puts Josh Simmons from Ohio State there.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
As a rookie. Okay, rookies have had to survive over
there left tackle.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
You know what happens. When we went and played the
Bears in twenty twenty two, we were there.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
We two three three three.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
That was after Denver.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
I think it was after Denver. We played in Week three.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
They're playing a fifth round rookie at left tackle, and
I'm thinking we are gonna eat. And we did not
beat Braxton Jones all day long. So you know, you've
got opportunities with rookies to put them over their left
tackle and they could survive.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
You can chip and help with a tight end.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
You know, that's gonna be the charge of Nick Cayley
and Kole Popovich to come up with schemes to make
sure that if it is a rookie. They don't leave
that rookie out there on their own. But rookies have
played pretty well tackle man, they have. We can't give
up on that thought.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
They gotta come up with a plan that It's funny
because I look at it two different ways. You know,
I always want to win the off season because that's
just who I am. I want the team to win
the off season and then win in the regular season,
win everything. Yeah, sometimes you don't win the off season
and you do win in the regular season, and sometimes
you look great in the off season and it doesn't out.
(26:01):
I would love them to come up with a plan
to get everybody confident about it. Get a high approval
rating if you will, you know my political season very much.
Get a high approval rating on the plan. But the
fact is, I think everyone's being properly patient right now.
Not everyone, but most people understand and follow this team
closely understand this is not done. They've learned their lesson
(26:23):
over the years. Don't judge player acquisition season on March fourteenth,
because it ain't over. And like you point out, so
many key moves in the history of this organization have
taken place later and even after training camp in Lariman
Tunzel himself in twenty nineteen. So you got to give
it a minute here. It could be a rookie, it
(26:45):
could be a veteran. We're not thinking about last year.
The Digs trade came from out of nowhere. That's obviously
another position group, and let's discuss that position group for
a moment, because with Kirk Nico. All right, that's a
good start right there. But I feel like even in
the first round, they're not going to go for a receiver.
(27:06):
They're getting a receiver now if they resigned Digs or
a big name or Cooper Cup or whatever. All right, fine,
but we see how injuries make you so thin in
a hurry. And what did we say last year when
they had what we called the Big three with Tank,
Digs and Nico, Well, as long as two of them
are healthy, you'll be okay, that was the thing. As
long as two of them are healthy, you'll feel pretty solid.
(27:28):
But what happened We couldn't keep two of them healthy,
and Eco was out for five games, Digs was out
for half the season. Tank obviously in and out and
then back in and really started to take shape in
year two. My gosh, if you watch and I know
you have the first half of that Chiefs game. You
could see some great plays from Tank. Oh Tank was great, Yeah,
(27:50):
he was really good in that game. You thought, okay,
we're coming around here. You got Tank and Ego going good.
No digs, but these two guys can really pump up
this offense at a key time of year. And then bang,
Tank gets hurt in that horrible play where he was
catching a touchdown pass. So you've got to find a
way to have enough depth, you know, to your point
about the offensive line, Look, you're not gonna have that
(28:10):
a receiver where there's no drop off, you're not gonna
have that. But you have to have real serviceable plus
depth at the receiver position. So that means guys like
Mechi right now, Xavier Hutchinson, you know, we seem to
make plays, but they really got to step up on
a consistent basis. So you feel good about that depth.
But they're not done there. They'll certainly draft somebody relatively high,
(28:32):
doesn't have to be first round, and probably another VET
coming in. But if it's a big name VET that
affects the draft position you would think. But again you
always point out you got Tank in the third round,
Ego in the third round.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
You never know how that's gonna go down. Yeah, And
I like this group of receivers. I know some people
really don't. But I spent a lot of time with
the Meca Buka the last couple of days, just studying
him really closely. I mean, look, these guys I did
a lot of work on in summer, and so I
kind of have in my mind what I'm looking for
and what I've seen, and I don't know that Abuka,
(29:06):
like I should say it this way, Abuka stands out
when I watch him, and and I love him, and
a lot of people, you know, a lot of people
we get stuck in these narratives and so they're like, well,
Buka is a slot receiver. You got Kirk, He's a
slot receiver, And like no, no, no, no, no, no, you
can't go and label dudes, especially come out of college,
what they are? You know, because the last I looked
(29:29):
Mecha Abuka's got the same size and dimensions as or
as close to Justin Jefferson. He's got the same mentions
as DeAndre Hopkins. And even though hop has transitioned into
a slot receiver, it definitely hasn't hasn't been. I should
say that either, because Hop's not really a slot receiver now,
even with the Ravens. He just plays in the slot
(29:49):
a lot. You know, a guy like Edelman, he was
a slot receiver. He didnt knew much outside. You know,
that's a you know, Christian Kirk has played seventy five
percent of his snaps I think last year on the inside.
But a college guy, you never know. And so Abuka
has moved around. He did some sensational things watching him
on tape. I mean sensational. He's got excellent hands, He's
(30:12):
tough as a two dollars steak.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
He blocks on the perimeter in.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
A run game, like if you gave me a Mecca
a Buca like and I know a lot of people
you know, listen to Sean set in the morning. They
do their mock draft injection and they have a Mecca Abuka.
Well before the Tunsil trade, they had a Mecca a
Buka going to Texans, And I was like, hell, yeah,
I think that would work perfectly. I like to fit
Abuka Kirk Nico. Then when Tank comes back in twenty six, like, okay,
(30:35):
I'd like to fit of that.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
I really like to fit of that.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
And even now, even after making the trade for for Laramie, Yeah,
I'd like to see offensive lineman in the first round,
depending on what they do trade wise over the next how.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
Many ever weeks.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Even if you gave me a Mecha a Buka that situation,
I'm like, yeah, hell yeah, because I think he can
do a lot.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
More than just be your quote unquote slot receiver.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
And so from that standpoint, like the narrative of Mecha
Buker kind of ticks me off because you know, well,
he's just our slobery.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
No, he's not. He's not. You can't say that about
anybody in College's just this. He's just that. You have
no idea.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Aj Brown is an Ole miss He played in the
slot one hundred percent of the time. He han't played
in the slot since that big beast has been outside
for Tennessee in Philadelphia. So we just gotta be careful
what the narratives there. But you're right, Mark, I think
the biggest thing to the wide receiver group is one
of John Matchi, Xavier Hutchinson, Jared Wayne. One of those
(31:34):
three guys has got to take a significant step forward.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
Now.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
I felt like I think X made a big step forward.
I feel like he made some key plays in the
playoff game. He's kind of made key plays his first
two years. To me, X is the kind of guy
that you know, he does so much on special teams,
so many the jet sweet gadget play type stuff. You know,
when Bobby's calling plays. I think he could be that guy. Man,
he could be a good three, could be a good four.
(32:01):
But you bring in another receiver and you have X
or Mechi or Jared or whatever one of those guys.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
Now you start feeling pretty good about that group.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
But you still have pieces to add in ways to
go with that group. No sense of panic, but it
is definitely something that you gotta get moving in the right.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Direction, putting together this roster in progress. All right, coming up,
we say goodbye to a Texan. This happened at the
end of our show yesterday. The longest tenured Texan officially gone.
We'll talk about him and some other stuff. Of course,
it's Texans Radio all right. Back to it here on
Texans All Access. Mark Vandermaar and John Harris with you.
(32:39):
And at the end of our show yesterday, news broke
that John Weeks and you knew the Texans already signed
a long snapper in Tucker Addington, but you thought maybe competition,
maybe Weeks is back. Maybe maybe Weeks a forty nine
er signs with San Francisco. He'll be reunited with many
Texans employees. Many names you don't know who worked for
(33:00):
the forty nine ers organization, who used to work for
the Houston Texans. Some you do, like Kyle Shanahan. But
what do you make of it, Johnny, This is a
guy who basically pitched a perfect game since twenty ten.
It was always on target, locked in, total professional. I mean,
we have to celebrate the career of what Weeks did
(33:21):
here as a guy who was here since twenty ten
at a Baylor really loved as a Texans player, did
a ton in the community, Walter Payton Man of the
Year nominee, and did his job superbly. What service to
this organization. And I've always said this, he's like the
plumbing and electricity. You know it's you don't notice it,
(33:42):
You kind of take it for granted until it's out,
until something goes wrong, then wait a minute. So he
was so reliable so many years, and he'll be so cherished,
really as a long snapper. We're saying this about him
that says something.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
Yeah, And you know, it's one of those things where
I'm sort of glad we got off the air last night.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
We finish the im me.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
Literally, as you get off the air, the first thing
you do, okay, check phones, and I look and I
see the news, and I was glad.
Speaker 3 (34:13):
I was glad in the sense that.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
The timing of the announcement was after our show, because
trying to encapsulate that in the last few minutes of
the show it would have been or any part of
the show without much notice would have been really really hard.
You know, his wife, Amanda is tremendous. She's a pillar
in the community. I mean, she's done so much in
(34:35):
this community community with John. And I think that's the
other thing with WEEKSI is just the fact that he's
such a he's such a pillar in the community. And
I think it was Nick Skirfield, our friend, who put
out today that John Weeks is the only Texan to
have played in every Texans playoff game. That's pretty wild,
and I was like, Wow, that's that's pretty amazing. And
(34:56):
he's done so well by this organization. I think the
organization embraced him. He embraced the organization. You know, it's
an opportunity to go try on a new organization with
the forty nine ers and go see, you know, extend
his career. You know, I've had that conversation with him
over the years, you know about you.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
Know, are not in short? Are you ready? Is this it?
Do you have more football in you? You know, keep
playing if you can physically.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
And I think he always had that mindset like I'm
gonna go as long as this body allows me to.
And you know, he didn't see too much drop off
in him as a long snapper for punts, kicks. You know,
he just he's always been so steady. You know, John
mcclaan will get on here and tell you he's a
grace long snapper in.
Speaker 3 (35:44):
The history of the game.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
And you know, I just it's hard to think of
life without him because down on the sidelines, you know,
down in the sidelines, always have to avoid him.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
So I'll tell you this story. Some people know the story.
I don't know if I've told you this. I think
I've told you this.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
Mark.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
So my first game down on the sidelines, first game
was against the Redskins, now the Commanders back in twenty fourteen,
and so down on.
Speaker 3 (36:07):
The sidelines, think thee kind of chaotic.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
There's a lot of things moving, a lot of people
doing a lot of different things. You know, there's a
t big TV cart and there's good room down at NRG.
Some places there's not, but sometimes when all the actions
in one location, you can get a lot of people there.
So I'm moving from one part to the next. And
I knew that John practices snaps, but I was paying
(36:30):
attention to something happened in the game, and I wasn't
paying attention.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
To where I was.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
On the sidelines, And all of a sudden, I felt
this kind of whoosh of air go right by my face.
I mean right by my face. It must have been
six to eight inches away, if not closer. And I realized.
I looked down and there's Weeks He laughing. He's like,
I had to send you a warning shot because you
were getting in the way. So he was practicing his
(36:58):
log snaps, and he's fine. I mean, I'm telling you
that ball is that ball's humming. He hits me, you know,
if I'm turned, he hits me profile like right, and
my nose is broken. It's probably concautious, probably blood everywhere. Well,
that's how good he was. He was just sending a
warning shot across the bow, as he called it, and
(37:18):
fired one to whoever the punter was that Shane at
that time, and Shanee just cackling. He's just laughing. And
so I always knew be careful wherever you are on
the sidelines. And I've stopped I don't know how many
people from getting the same thing happening to them because
they started to walk into the path of a John
Weeks practice snap.
Speaker 3 (37:38):
On the sidelines and I would stop them.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
Videographers, other sideline reporters, you know, TV sidelline reporters. I
just kind of put my arm out like yo, and
they'd stop, like what and then they see the ball
fire and by like oh, okay, thank you, and I'm like, yeah,
you do not want to get hit by a John
Weeks snap.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
So but definitely miss him.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
We'll see him back at the NRG, yeah, because the
forty nine ers will be coming two archiev for the
first time since twenty seventeen. But just man, everything you
wanted a text and everything you wanted in a player,
everything you wanted to teammate, you know.
Speaker 3 (38:10):
John Weeks. Was that so yeah, I'm gonna miss him.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
It's it was wild news to hear, just kind of
I don't know if it's it's hit me, Mark, but
it really hasn't hit me. Probably won't until I see
him in that that that freaking uniform of the forty
nine ers.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
Well, that and not seeing him at training camp, because
oh yeah, he is absolutely such a familiar face as
a player. I thought the funniest moment was Dimiko Ryan's
press conference, his introductory press conference when he was named
head coach, and he took pictures on stage with the
former players and with the current players, and you know,
(38:45):
the current players. He took pictures. Weeks was up there
in the former players. He's like, Weeks, get back up here,
your current and former you know, because he is I mean,
Weeks is in that era with what all those guys.
When you think about him coming in twenty ten, he
was here before. I mean that's a long time ago,
and here for the first playoff season division championship and
(39:05):
then he's here for this Dimico era, and we didn't
know what the Demico era was gonna bring us and
has brought us two wonderful years so far. So uh,
that's great for him. Tucker Addington a lot of pressure,
big shoes.
Speaker 3 (39:16):
To fill a lot of pressure.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
Yeah, we'll see how that goes. And Canemie Fairbairn is
now the longest tenured Texan, longest tenured position player, as
you would call it, is Titus Howard, who was drafted
in twenty nineteen. You know, for a long time we
could say Titus and Laramie, but now we got Titus.
And that's amazing, Johnny, that Titus has been around here
longer than anybody.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
That just shows you how time is flying. It feels
like he just got here. Yeah, it feels like he
just got here. But I remember when he got here.
You know, he's a rookie obviously, and he was engaged.
Titus thing got married and I think he has three
kids now maybe four in the time that he has
been here.
Speaker 3 (39:58):
I think it's three. With time he's going with the tech.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
It's like, holy cow, we've seen this guy go from
you know, young dude coming out of college. It was
pretty polished, even though he was coming out Alabama State,
get married, having kids, have family.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
It's just it's crazy.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
And yeah, you're right, Titus is the longest tenured Texan.
You know, you'd say Laramie and Titus, and then you
would say Eric Murray too, because Eric Murray had shown
up in the COVID year. And although it feels at
times like COVID was just yesterday, it feels like it
was eons ago, and we have i mean nobody from
(40:31):
twenty twenty, you know, I mean nobody from that team now, Titus.
Speaker 3 (40:36):
It's ridiculous. That was just five years ago.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
That's incredible. And this week people were tweeting out there.
You know what you were doing when you heard that,
the world stopped. And everyone remembers when the Rodeo canceled.
The Rodeo Yeah through or however far through it they were,
and that was an utter shock. Wait a minute, the
Rodeo is done. We're done. Early and then the NBA season,
(41:00):
the Rodeo was one thing, and that was huge because
it's local and it's the Rodeo.
Speaker 3 (41:04):
It's so important.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
But when the NBA canceled their season, they were first
to go. Right when they canceled their season, and somebody
posted the video of what was it, the Utah Jazz
playing Somebody Rudy Gobert.
Speaker 3 (41:17):
Gobert, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
And they said, oh that yeah, but they said, the
two teams are out on the floor. Then they went
to the locker rooms and they you're going to cancel
this game and the season's done too. That's incredible, powerful stuff.
And we've made it through that. Let's not have another one. Okay.
Coming up, John Weeks, we love you and I know
we're going to talk about you again sometime soon. Coming up,
(41:42):
what's going on around the league. So, a very notable,
high paid, super high paid player, I mean, the highest
paid non quarterback in NFL history. Story came out about
how professional is he? Look, he's a really good player
that among other things, we'll talk about next year on
Texans Radio. All right, wrapping it up here Friday night,
(42:03):
having fun, Mark Vandermer, John Harris. Texans made their announcement
today of players that they have acquired during the early
part I'll call it the early part of what I
call player acquisition season, team building season, however you want
to put it. Because they put out a big press
release of all the names you've been hearing about, they're
no surprises here. A couple of things left out, probably
(42:24):
because of Tea's crossing and I's dotting and that sort
of thing. Other big news that has happened during this
player acquisition time, among many other stories, Miles Garrett signing
the big deal, highest paid non quarterback in NFL history.
Then a story Johnny comes out in The Athletic about
how he's frequently late to the facility. He's skipped mandatory
team activities on multiple occasions, writes Jason Lloyd. Jason Lloyd
(42:49):
writes for Theathletic dot Com, So what do you make
of this? I'm sure there are a lot of players
like this. You don't hear about it most of the time.
And obviously he's a hell of a player. They wanted
him back. But when I say they, with the Browns,
you never know who's calling the shots. I mean, it's
got to come down to ownership and the Watson deal
(43:10):
signing Garrett, who vocally wanted to be traded, but they
gave him so much money he had to say yes,
kind of like Watson himself. Your thoughts, you know what?
Speaker 2 (43:20):
It's It's interesting because when I saw that come down,
it it struck me because there's been a lot of
talk here in Houston, you know, about about Laramie Tunzel,
and a lot of people are opining about this, that
and the third and they don't know.
Speaker 3 (43:42):
Yeah, they don't have any they don't have any clue.
They don't know. They're not in that locker room. You
and I are in a building, but we're.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
Not a locker room.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
So it's interesting that you know somebody from the Browns talk.
The most notorious player known for being late all the
time was the guy that went to the Hall of Fame,
Derek Thomas.
Speaker 3 (44:04):
Derek Thomas with the Kansas.
Speaker 2 (44:05):
City Chiefs was late to everything, everything in his career.
Speaker 3 (44:11):
Everywhere along the way.
Speaker 2 (44:13):
Then they had to talk to him about being on time,
and he just was notoriously late. Now, he worked hard,
he did what he was supposed to do. He just
showed up late to stuff. And that was that was
always kind of a thorn in the side of Marty Schottenheimer.
But he understood. Marty understood what he had with Derek Thomas.
(44:34):
He knew that guy played hard, he knew he cared
and that he would put in the work, he would
do all those things. And I would imagine that's what
Cleveland looks at with Miles is, yeah, we got to
have this guy. He does work. Yeah, maybe he shows
up late to things. Maybe there's some things that he
doesn't show up to, and maybe we got to make
that more clear to him.
Speaker 3 (44:52):
That's what we want.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
But you know, set the expectation for him and see
if he wants to meet it. But you know, if
you did set that expectation for him and he he's
still not he's still not adhering to it, and then
you give him forty million dollars a year, he's just
gonna continue doing what he's doing.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
So it's a bad example. It's a bad Yeah, for
the rest of the play, I'm gonna so I have
a theory about being late, and I want to see
if you agree with this. This applies to everybody listening
right now. I think being late is an adrenaline addiction.
And I'll explain because I've had many times, especially when
I was working in sales, where I would know that
(45:30):
if I left now, I'll be early. So let's not
push it and be early. Let's try to get something
just done. And I would notice that, oh, now it's
time to go, and I'm kind of pushing it. I
might be late, but what happens is you get a
big adrenaline rush, like now I'm in a hurry. You
know how many times have I done this?
Speaker 3 (45:51):
Now?
Speaker 1 (45:51):
I know not everybody does this, And at this point
in my life, I'm much better about being early, you know,
just get there early or at least on time. But
there have been times in my life where I've been
in that perpetual pushing it. Because if you think about it,
it's easy to get somewhere on time. You just set
your phone to it. These days, set an alarm, leave
(46:13):
at the appropriate time, and you'll get there on time.
But I think people are kind of addicted to this
rush of being in a hurry. I gotta get there. Well,
you could have left five minutes ago, but you didn't.
Why why not? I don't know. Why didn't you get
up five minutes earlier? It's the same thing. Well, five
more minutes of sleep? Is that really gonna help you
that much? Does that really mean that much?
Speaker 3 (46:34):
No?
Speaker 1 (46:35):
I think it becomes a getting late or being late
addiction of sorts. And I probably am not wording this properly.
And maybe other people have thought of this and it's
got an appropriate institutional clinical term. I don't have one
for it. We'll get deeper into this, maybe never, but
I thought I would throw it out there. Okay, Monday,
full show, six o'clock, stay tuned, Area forty five. Next
(46:59):
I'll talk about everything happening with the Texans and in
the NFL, the Cooper Cup deal, all of it happening
next night. You Tyler for producing. Have a great night,
a great weekend everyone, And this podcast or this show
which is also a podcast because it'll be available in
podcast forms soon enough. Go check it out wherever you
get your podcasts, Spotify, on the Odyssey app, the Texans app.
(47:19):
It's all there. Have a great night, Go Texans.
Hello Texans, Welcome to the show Friday Night tgif just
got paid party Hardy?
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Is that?
Speaker 1 (00:06):
What he says, is that Monte who does that Friday Night.
I'm not gonna sing, but we're fired up because it's
been a big football week for your Houston Texans in
the entire NFL. Mark vandermir and John Harris with you
Hyundai Texans Radio Studio Rodeo. I did it last night, Johnny,
by the way, I did the h How did that go? Yeah,
(00:27):
it went really well and lo and behold, I did
not realize. And this is how out of tune I
can be with things. I guess that it was employee
night in the suite and a lot of employees were
in the big suite, and so in the hallways today
I was getting the business from people like, oh, nice
job opening the gate. That was awesome, and yeah, it's
really hard to do. You know, they make it so
(00:48):
you get open the gate just by breathing on it.
You know, it's funny because you opened the gate for
the calves. I did the calf scramble thing for the calves.
Calfs to run out and the kids chase them down,
and you know how that goes. It's not the mutton busting.
That's when the five year olds get abused. I didn't
get abused. But in fact I went back to the
(01:09):
carnival today with young Liam, who's twelve, and we watched
the mutton bust and I said, when you do that now.
He's like, I don't think so, Dad. These those sheep.
When you go to the one at the carnival, you're
sitting so close and you can see how big those
sheep are. They're big animals. It's not like, oh, it's
a little cute dog sheep. No, No, these are biggins anyway,
the calves. So when you open the gate, they come
(01:31):
running out. But it's not like a stampede of bulls.
You know, you just stay out of the way. You'll
be fine. It's not a big deal. But I'm up
on the big video board. It was fun. I gave
them a pregame speech before that, a couple of hours prior,
you know, and all I said was, you're on the
same surface as two Super Bowls as the Texans playoff wins.
He's grabbed naming all the players and Taylor Swift, Beyonce,
(01:54):
think about all the great performers that have been there,
and I said, and you you kids, So that got
them kind of fired up.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
I think it's good. How old are those kids?
Speaker 1 (02:05):
They're teenagers, they're like sixteen, Okay, yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Yeah, I was gonna say how much.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Listen, that's a that's a tough crowd to have to entertain,
so to speak. Trust me, you know, teaching eighth graders
algebra one, that's a tough crowd. It's a tough crowd.
So I'm sure you did great. I saw your pictures
on Instagram. Look like you're having fun, and that's obviously
the most important thing.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
So the kids had fun.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
Yeah, and it was employee night, which apparently you didn't know.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
So that's yeah, yeah, it's fine. But not every employee
goes to employee Yeah. But you know, related to you
teaching eighth graders algebra I was reading that kids today
in school harder than ever to teach because those who
have phones, and that's just about everybody, are so used
to the dopamine hits of social media. Right. Well, this
(02:53):
is a phenomenon that we're becoming very familiar with, and
I think it's gonna it's all gonna come to a
head eventually. I don't know what you do about it,
but it is an issue for adults too. But the
kids who are used to these dopamine hits and then
the phones are really stripped away during the day by
and large, and now you've got them and they're having
withdrawal almost literally. I was reading about this and I thought,
(03:15):
that's me. When it comes to Free Agent news. I'm
having withdrawal as opposed to Monday Tuesday, when it was
just one thing after another, bang bang bang bang bang,
and then it slows down. You're like, wait a minute,
where's my dopamine hit, Nick or any other GM Because
I can get news about the Jaguars and Colts. And
if I like the news like Daniel Jones going to
Indie because I don't think it's going to help them
(03:37):
that much, then it gives me a little dopamine hit.
See that's how it works. I don't know if you
see it the same way.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Oh, I'm the same way.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
I can't tell you how many times during a day,
no matter what I'm doing, I refresh. And I'm honest,
I don't as much as I you know, get pretty
much everything from X or Twitter or even Instagram. I
don't go there as often I guess as I think
maybe my family wants to believe. But during free agency,
(04:06):
I'm just like boom, refresh, refresh, refreshed. After last night's radio,
got home, you know, pretty late for dinner and was like, well,
let's just go grab a bike to eat. So we
went and got a buy to eat, and I'm just
sitting at dinner and i was probably the worst dinner
guest because I'm just like, what happened? And they happened,
who happened, who traded, who did what? And it really
was kind of And it's in a sense because you know,
(04:28):
you do it so often. It's like you're waiting and waiting.
It's like somebody waiting, you know, to be drafted in
the NFL Draft, and you just wait and you're like, cray,
maybe this team I interviewed with this team, Nope, not
that team. Okay, what about this team? I really like them,
They like me. We met at the Senior Bowl that
don't know, didn't happen there. And you get to a
point where you're waiting so long you're just like, ah,
nothing's gonna happen.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
I'm done, forget it. Just don't worry about it.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
I'll just go undrafted whatever, and all of a sudden,
six round there is the call, and you're so happy
and you're going to Philadelphia or wherever you're going, and
you're just pumped about that. You kind of give up
on it, and there's a point on on Friday, I
think at some point where I had I had just
just looking at my my TV as I was doing work,
(05:11):
and I just had basketball game, basketball game, Basketball game,
basketball game. I was like, you know, I'm just gonna
do this on put Twitter to side. I picked it
up maybe like an hour later, refreshed it nothing. I'm like, okay, good.
So we've kind of reached that point where a lot
of the big, the big ticket items are gone, but
it doesn't mean that there aren't still decisions to be made.
(05:32):
Cooper Cup, I don't think it's the Texans, but you
never know. Stepan Diggs is still out there. You know,
there's some big names there still out there. Makuie Becton
literally and figuratively big guy mckaie Beckden still out there.
But it's the same I'm the same Mark. I mean,
it's literally like, okay, what's what's happening? What's going on?
I mean, you're just paying attention to this time of
(05:54):
year so often, trying to figure out what are they
going to do next? And you know, we got to
try transaction notice from the Texas today or release and
you look and you go, dang, that's a lot of movement.
They did a lot of things over the last few days,
include trading for ed Ingram from the Minnesota Vikings. They've
done a lot, but because more than likely in a
(06:18):
lot of people's lives, it's not Daniel Hunter, it's not
Joe Mixon, it's not Steffan Diggs, it doesn't have the
sexiness that it did last year. You didn't have all
that much money to spend, so you kind of had
to go to TJ max and see if you can
find the Peter Malar jacket for thirty bucks. And hopefully
in some cases you might have done that, maybe once,
maybe twice. You get a He'll Figure T shirt for
(06:39):
fifteen instead of paying seventy five for it. So that's
hopefully what they've been able to do. But there's still
some work to do. Is we've talked about and we're
all in some sense waiting, Okay, what's that offensive line
Domino to fall, what's the next one? And I think
that's probably more than likely where I think they're gonna go.
And again, we didn't see this defon Digg's trade coming
(07:01):
and it didn't happen till April third last year.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
I don't believe, so we could be waiting.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
I mean it could be kind of you know, in
this period between free agency in the draft, and we
get to a point where we're thinking about the draft
because we're into April, and all of a sudden, bang,
there's a move by the Texans. So look, Nick's done
it before he's done it again. He's made three of
the most significant trades in team history. So uh, maybe
(07:28):
there's another one coming down to Pike.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
So we'll see.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Johnny right off the bat before we get to the Texans.
Everything happening this week. Cooper Cup off the table signing
with the Seattle Seahawks. Your thoughts on Cooper Cup becoming
a Seahawks and you called this, he said he's from
that part of the country, probably gonna go there. He's
got Darnold to throw them the football, and voila, we
(07:51):
have Cooper Cup off the deck.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Yeah, I could have made some money in Vegas I guess,
but being an employee of NFL team, I guess I
couldn't do that. What it's not surprising, you know. I
kind of come to grips with it the other night,
Mark like it just doesn't feel like it's gonna happen.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
Okay, that's fine. I would have I would have liked
Cooper Cup. I'm a big fan of Cooper Cup.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
I have been for a while, especially since seeing him
at the Senior Bowl a while back. Man, he was
so so good, but the Seahawks had to do something.
But now you got Cooper Cup with Jackson Smith and Jigba,
and that might not be a bad thing for the
Seahawks with those two. With sam Donold, he's got some
good threats like he had in Minnesota. So I kind
of felt like the Texans were out of that. But
(08:33):
that's big news that Cup is going back home. He's
from Washington, his wife is from Washington. And that's why
I said the other night, I really felt like that's
where he was gonna end up. He was gonna end
up in Washington. It made sense. Seattle needed him. They
need a receiver. He's from there. He's gonna get good money.
Seattle's got some money to spend, uh and so yeah,
(08:53):
he's going to Seattle.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Makes sense, you know, since it's Friday night, we have
a little time to stretch out here. I think it's
really notable how far they've come in two years, not
just one year, but two years. I mean two years ago.
At this time they had hired to meet go Ryans,
they had a free agent class going, they had some pieces,
and it was prior to the draft where they got
(09:16):
CJ and Will, etc. And I think that a lot
of especially when you compare it to some other teams
out there who are still building and looking and building,
and they have builds that backfire, never get off the
launching pad the Jets. You know, really, McDaniel with the Dolphins,
in many ways, you've had some regular season real hot flashes,
real great moments. Right. I don't know if I should
(09:38):
call those hot flashes. Anybody's going through the change out
there from the opposite sex would say that's not a
good thing. Mark, that's not a good thing. That a
lot of flash. But they've had some hot moments in
regular seasons and nothing in the postseason. Obviously, they could
have stood to be a lot Hotter in the playoff
game against Kansas City when they were freezing to death
post twenty twenty three. Anyway, look how far they've come
(09:59):
in two year. But let's take it from last year,
because I think this is a good thing. I'm gonna
ask you this, how many starters did they get this week?
Or let's go back to Kirk last week, because I
would call Kirk a starter, right, yes, I would call
And this is a good thing to not necessarily get
too many because you don't want to have to need
too many. We're gonna put a free agent here, in,
(10:21):
a free agent there. You know, when they put it
up on the big board in their meeting room, they
don't want to be like, let's plug all these holes
with free agents. That's not how you really build true success.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
Right.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
They've been able to put a free agent here, free
agent there in the last couple of years, draft choice here,
draft choice there, and look, you've won playoff games each
of the last two years doing this been very good.
They've built it very well relatively when you look at
other teams and how they've tried to build their teams
as they've had high draft choices. Whatever. But let's go
to Kirk, I've got CJ. Gardner Johnson. Possibly when you
(10:55):
look at how they might construct the secondary, I would
think so light, wouldn't you think so?
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Eric Murray spot, I.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
Think Chauncey's definitely got a chance to start for sure. Yep, Okay, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
You know Mario and Sheldon Rankins, they're not sharing the
same last name. Mario Edwards and Sheldon Rankins I would
put as starters at defensive tackle right now, barring something
else happening. Right, So there's.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
One long was settled long was settled depending on how
you look at settled. I mean, I remember when when
North Carolina back in nineteen ninety eight did Vince Carter
and Antoine Jamison.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
They had six guys that played.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
They basically played a six man rotation and they all
were considered starters even though the only five start, but
there were six of.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
Them that really kind of rotated it.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
So that's kind of the way I look at those
defensive lineman Settle, Rankins, Edwards, I think those are your
three starters. Yes, two of them have to be on
the field, but it feels like you've got three starters there,
and Edwards and Rankins is going to be two of
them for sure.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Yeah, so I've got four and maybe one of the
offensive linemen, maybe both when you look at what they
acquire or this week, you know, maybe Ingram starts and
I'm not sure. You know, in fact, we have to
go there before we go anywhere else because yesterday we
had job McLean. I didn't have a chance to talk
much about Ingram here from you on your assessment because
(12:14):
I know once they made that deal, you probably went
to the tape last night. So what are you thinking
with Ingram?
Speaker 3 (12:20):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (12:20):
I remember watching him at LSU and he was pretty
athletically impressive, just like being a gifted athlete. But he's
had some struggles with Minnesota. You know, he started for
the first couple of years, and I think he showed
some promises. Past year was probably his worst year of
all of them. But we've said this many times. You know,
you give a guy a new opportunity in a new
(12:41):
location and you never know how it's gonna go. And look,
last time the Texans made a trade for an offensive
lineman that I can remember, it was for Kendrick Green, who,
by the way, just signed with the Buffalo Bills. Well, Kendrick,
they made that a trade for Kendrick. Either they trade,
I think they betrayed. Maybe it was a waiver claim.
(13:02):
Either way, they get Kendrick and everybody's just, oh, he
was terrible with the Steelers. Steelers people are just bashing him,
you know, the whole thing. And then Kendrick played three
really good games before he ended up getting hurt and
we're like, man, we're seeing something a little different here,
you know. And it was just kind of that change
of scenery. And when we talked to him in you know,
in the off season and we got a chance to
(13:23):
know Kendrick, realized, oh, yeah, okay, kind of see what
this guy is all about. You know, he's feisty, he's tough,
he's not the not the biggest guy. But you know,
over time you start to see some of the things
that kind of ailed Kendrick, and maybe we'll see that
with Ed. But I think just getting a new you know,
a new system, new city, you know, ed getting back
to the South of Man, I think that's gonna be
you know, good for him. So uh, I want to
(13:46):
say he's a De Soto kid. I think that's right.
So uh, god, dang it. Now, now it's gonna drive
me crazy because I looked at it last night and
I was like, I think he's from De Soto, which
that being from the Soto he is. I mean, those
kids said, yeah, he's a from De Soto. They get
some players out of it. That's von Miller's high school.
They all kinds of guy's coming out of there. So
(14:07):
I don't know that ultimately I would say he's a starter.
I think that Laken would probably start over him if
you had to pick and choose, and depending on what
you do with the other position. But you get a
guy to come compete for a job in a city
that gives him a fresh start, you never know what
you're gonna get. So I don't think and I've heard
(14:30):
this probably said by a number of people and reiterated myself.
I don't think they've done anything in free agency where
I go, oh, that precludes them from drafting such and such,
even on the D line, even bringing back Mario, bringing
back Rankins. I still feel like, man, there's a really
good defensive tackle that falls into your lap at twenty five,
or there's a good one that falls in your lap
(14:51):
at fifty eight, or wherever Nick trades to and you
look at it and go, man, this guy's got something
different than what our guys already.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Have on the ross.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Okay, I don't think anything precludes them from doing that now.
I think, like you know, I just mentioned d line,
I would think that's probably one where maybe you could
do that because you do have a ton of depth
there now. But in the secondary maybe again, but still
you know, drafting a young dude that could come in
(15:22):
there and help with the safety position. Even though you've
signed M. J. Stewart, You've traded for CJ. Gardner Johnson,
you still have Jimmy Ward. You're still gonna need young
dudes to step up and play and be part of it.
So ed Ingram gets in a mix Lanke Tomlinson. Does
it make those two the starter? No, it doesn't. It
(15:43):
just puts them in a competition, and there might be
another move coming and maybe that move provides an obvious
starter on the offensive line. But we don't know all that,
but we do feel like there's gonna be competition. So
I do think that what they've done does not even
Christian Kirk, even bringing to Christian Kirk, Justin Watson, Braxton, Barrios,
(16:05):
I still think that if they see a receiver that's
got an elite trait that they like, let's go bring it,
bring another one in. Because the guys that that Nicko
Demikoek drafted, I mean, think about from that standpoint, you know,
just think about the guys that they drafted just the
last couple of years. You know, Blake Fisher's probably gonna
start at right tackle or one of the tackle positions.
(16:26):
Jared Patterson has started for two years at center. Jue
Scruggs has been in and out as a starter at center.
CJ obviously, Will Anderson, Henry Totoa, you know a guy
that you know, twenty two three, we didn't really know
what we had. Yeah, fifth round, Kaylen Bullock, Kamari Lassiter,
those guys drafted last year. I mean, kate'stover kind of
gloss over Kate, and I think Kid's got an opportunity
(16:46):
to really kind of break through. So that's the other thing.
I don't think that what they've done precludes them from
doing anything in the draft and stops them. Hey, no, look,
we're not going to go get a wide receiver because
we got Kirk and Watson. No, I mean, if you
have an opportunity you know, a receiver falls in your hands.
You know, just take for instance, Trey Harris from Ole Miss,
(17:08):
a downfield threat, a really great athlete. He falls in
your hands at fifty eight, man, you might jump all
over that because that's great value at that position, at
a position that you're not.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Completely and totally settled.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
So yeah, I think what they've done has been good,
But to me, it doesn't stop them from doing anything
in the draft at this point. Now if they go
they signed Steph they signed Cooper Cup, Okay, maybe receivers.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
Probably good for now, but they haven't done that.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
You know, if they trade for a starting left tackle, potentially,
I still think they're gonna look it offensive lineman. But
I still think those draft off ins of lineman, I
don't think anything stopping in a way of that. They
got to find the right five guys, for sure. I
shouldn't say it that way. I think the way we
should think about the offens line, they need they the
eight that they have, the top eight linemen. That's the
(17:58):
way they got to look at it, because guys get
banged up. They got to make sure that that eight
that they have not the starting five. There can't be
a drop off from five and then the next three.
There's got to be five and then six, seven, eight,
where it's relatively close together to make it really hard
to see who you've got on that starting off of
the line. There's got to be good competition, and hopefully
they'll be able to find eight guys that they can
(18:19):
step into any point and there's no drop off in
the play.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
I'd be shocked if we don't see two linemen drafted
by them. I shouldn't say shocked, surprised, how about that
surprised from where we sit right now without another move coming,
and I would expect there's probably another move coming, But
you know what I mean with who they have right now,
because what they have right now are guys who can play.
(18:44):
But you still want that higher ceiling. You know, you
might think Lake and Tomlinson if he reaches his full
potential or it gets back to that great Ingram, same
kind of thing, a little bit of a veteran project
if you will, with a lot of time talent, same
kind of thing. But you still need young guys who
haven't even higher ceiling possibly and reliability factor, consistency, and
(19:10):
they're gonna go to the draft to get that and
start it with competition, because it's like a really nice house.
The Texans roster is like a really nice house, but
they're having a master bedroom remodel. And that's the offensive line.
And it's under construction. You know, you got the plastic
sheets up, there's dust. You know, don't go in there
right now. Could look really good later, but you can't
(19:32):
really see exactly what it's gonna look like. So we
got to trust that. You know, the design is there
and it's gonna be executed well and all of that.
I know, every how many analogies have we heard this
week on this radio station? Oh yeah, the offensive line?
It should be like a metaphor and analogy contest, you know,
come up with the best one when because I think
(19:54):
Johnny left tackle. It's it's really hard to say. Let's
just discuss here for a moment. We talked about it
earlier this week. We worded it is the left tackle
in the building. Another way to put it, you know,
more likely to happen Titus or he's not on the
roster yet, you know that kind of thing, and I
think more likely. Gosh, it's it's hard to say. I
(20:17):
would that's a fifty to fifty bet right there. It's
hard to say what's fifty one percent? It really is
difficult because in the absence of Nick Cassiria just coming
out and talking about it openly, we have to guess,
and it's it's hard to say. I mean, am I
right that it's right around fifty to fifty? There could
be a fifty eight, you know, our fifty two forty eight.
(20:39):
I don't know how else to word it. What are
you thinking there?
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Yeah, exactly, because we really don't know. I this is
I feel confident that if Titus cut a little weight,
got his body in a little bit better shape to
where he could get back to the way that he
was moving probably earlier in his career. I think Titus
(21:02):
could play left tackle, I really do. And I think
Blake would survive over there. I think Titus would do
a little bit better job because I think Titus is
just a little bit better athlete. So you have that option.
I think that's the way I like it. You have
that option. Now, is it the best option? I don't
know totally, but I think you're gonna give it some opportunity.
(21:25):
Remember last training camp, we saw Blake Fisher over there
a lot We saw Blake over there at left tackle.
This is no lar I mean in training camp. So
we saw Blake a lot, and there were times it
looked pretty good.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
There were times.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
Where you're like, okay, boy, that was Will Anderson just
gave him a business, so it's gonna happen that way.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
But I think at least you have those couple of options.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
Here's the thing, as as you look at still who's.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
Remaining at tackle, there are more former.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Texans free agents at tackle right now in the free
agency class that you've discarded trade and got rid of
they move on at some point than any other free
agent that's in the tackle class. This tackle free agent
class is basically Cam Robinson, who I wouldn't touch at
the temple, with Pole and a bunch of other guys,
including a lot of guys that have played for the Texans.
(22:13):
Charlie Hack, George Fan, Kendall lamb Uh. Those are the
three off the top of my heads I could think of,
and I'm sure I'm missing you know a few others
at that point. But my point in that is, I
don't know that you'll find the answer in free agency.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
Now a draft.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Okay, all bets are off because with a draft, you
just I'm sorry, with the trade, you just never know.
I mean, Nick could call up I don't know, he
could call up Dallas and maybe make a play for
Tyler Smith and or you know, get him here, make
him left tackle. You know he's probably playing guard now.
(22:48):
I just you know, I'm kind of spitball in there.
But you get the bet me.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
And that is with a trade, you just don't know exactly.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Problem with the trade is problem with the trader is
you get a little desperate. So then you go to
the draft. You look at the draft, and I think
with the draft, what's interesting is the two guys at
the top, actually three guys at the top. All three
of them are kind of being thought as well. You know,
they played tackle, but I think we're gonna move in
the guard. Yet I watch him play and I'm like,
(23:16):
those guys can all play tackle. And that's Kelvin maxfrom Texas,
That's Will Campbell from LSU, that's armand Membu from out
of Missouri. But they are all really good athletes. They're
all all very good movers of people. They pass for
tech very well. Membu is probably the best athlete of
the three. You know, Campbell is probably the best overall player.
(23:38):
But I was studying. I studied Kelvin Banks today. I
spent probably about two hours on him today, and I'm like, man,
if that dude ended up in Houston, he's from Houston.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
He went to Summer creekt High School. I he ended
up in Houston. He's the left tackle.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
And I know it might be a little bit of
a struggle at first, but he's a left tackle. He's
an exceptional player, a really good athlete for a guy
his size. He's got the right demeanor to play that
that spot. You can tell he tries to put guys
in the dirt in the run game too, and so
I like that. So you know, you can give me
any one of those three guys, and I think they
would all play left tackle, even though because they don't
(24:13):
have thirty five inch arms and people are thinking about
them as a guard.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
So you can give me those three guys.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
And even if you thought with Calvin Banks, all right,
well we're gonna orry these guys, We're gonna move them
to guard, and then you get them there and then like, okay,
we think we need to maximize what we've got.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
We move them out to tackle.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
We've seen that have done a lot of times, including
Larmy Tunzel who did it with the Dolphins, start at
guard and then moved out to tackle in the next year.
So that's okay, get the best five on the line together,
playing well together and see where it goes. And that
puts tightest left tackle, great, Blake Fisher left tackle. Great,
if it puts Josh Simmons from Ohio State there.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
As a rookie. Okay, rookies have had to survive over
there left tackle.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
You know what happens. When we went and played the
Bears in twenty twenty two, we were there.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
We two three three three.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
That was after Denver.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
I think it was after Denver. We played in Week three.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
They're playing a fifth round rookie at left tackle, and
I'm thinking we are gonna eat. And we did not
beat Braxton Jones all day long. So you know, you've
got opportunities with rookies to put them over their left
tackle and they could survive.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
You can chip and help with a tight end.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
You know, that's gonna be the charge of Nick Cayley
and Kole Popovich to come up with schemes to make
sure that if it is a rookie. They don't leave
that rookie out there on their own. But rookies have
played pretty well tackle man, they have. We can't give
up on that thought.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
They gotta come up with a plan that It's funny
because I look at it two different ways. You know,
I always want to win the off season because that's
just who I am. I want the team to win
the off season and then win in the regular season,
win everything. Yeah, sometimes you don't win the off season
and you do win in the regular season, and sometimes
you look great in the off season and it doesn't out.
(26:01):
I would love them to come up with a plan
to get everybody confident about it. Get a high approval
rating if you will, you know my political season very much.
Get a high approval rating on the plan. But the
fact is, I think everyone's being properly patient right now.
Not everyone, but most people understand and follow this team
closely understand this is not done. They've learned their lesson
(26:23):
over the years. Don't judge player acquisition season on March fourteenth,
because it ain't over. And like you point out, so
many key moves in the history of this organization have
taken place later and even after training camp in Lariman
Tunzel himself in twenty nineteen. So you got to give
it a minute here. It could be a rookie, it
(26:45):
could be a veteran. We're not thinking about last year.
The Digs trade came from out of nowhere. That's obviously
another position group, and let's discuss that position group for
a moment, because with Kirk Nico. All right, that's a
good start right there. But I feel like even in
the first round, they're not going to go for a receiver.
(27:06):
They're getting a receiver now if they resigned Digs or
a big name or Cooper Cup or whatever. All right, fine,
but we see how injuries make you so thin in
a hurry. And what did we say last year when
they had what we called the Big three with Tank,
Digs and Nico, Well, as long as two of them
are healthy, you'll be okay, that was the thing. As
long as two of them are healthy, you'll feel pretty solid.
(27:28):
But what happened We couldn't keep two of them healthy,
and Eco was out for five games, Digs was out
for half the season. Tank obviously in and out and
then back in and really started to take shape in
year two. My gosh, if you watch and I know
you have the first half of that Chiefs game. You
could see some great plays from Tank. Oh Tank was great, Yeah,
(27:50):
he was really good in that game. You thought, okay,
we're coming around here. You got Tank and Ego going good.
No digs, but these two guys can really pump up
this offense at a key time of year. And then bang,
Tank gets hurt in that horrible play where he was
catching a touchdown pass. So you've got to find a
way to have enough depth, you know, to your point
about the offensive line, Look, you're not gonna have that
(28:10):
a receiver where there's no drop off, you're not gonna
have that. But you have to have real serviceable plus
depth at the receiver position. So that means guys like
Mechi right now, Xavier Hutchinson, you know, we seem to
make plays, but they really got to step up on
a consistent basis. So you feel good about that depth.
But they're not done there. They'll certainly draft somebody relatively high,
(28:32):
doesn't have to be first round, and probably another VET
coming in. But if it's a big name VET that
affects the draft position you would think. But again you
always point out you got Tank in the third round,
Ego in the third round.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
You never know how that's gonna go down. Yeah, And
I like this group of receivers. I know some people
really don't. But I spent a lot of time with
the Meca Buka the last couple of days, just studying
him really closely. I mean, look, these guys I did
a lot of work on in summer, and so I
kind of have in my mind what I'm looking for
and what I've seen, and I don't know that Abuka,
(29:06):
like I should say it this way, Abuka stands out
when I watch him, and and I love him, and
a lot of people, you know, a lot of people
we get stuck in these narratives and so they're like, well,
Buka is a slot receiver. You got Kirk, He's a
slot receiver, And like no, no, no, no, no, no, you
can't go and label dudes, especially come out of college,
what they are? You know, because the last I looked
(29:29):
Mecha Abuka's got the same size and dimensions as or
as close to Justin Jefferson. He's got the same mentions
as DeAndre Hopkins. And even though hop has transitioned into
a slot receiver, it definitely hasn't hasn't been. I should
say that either, because Hop's not really a slot receiver now,
even with the Ravens. He just plays in the slot
(29:49):
a lot. You know, a guy like Edelman, he was
a slot receiver. He didnt knew much outside. You know,
that's a you know, Christian Kirk has played seventy five
percent of his snaps I think last year on the inside.
But a college guy, you never know. And so Abuka
has moved around. He did some sensational things watching him
on tape. I mean sensational. He's got excellent hands, He's
(30:12):
tough as a two dollars steak.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
He blocks on the perimeter in.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
A run game, like if you gave me a Mecca
a Buca like and I know a lot of people
you know, listen to Sean set in the morning. They
do their mock draft injection and they have a Mecca Abuka.
Well before the Tunsil trade, they had a Mecca a
Buka going to Texans, And I was like, hell, yeah,
I think that would work perfectly. I like to fit
Abuka Kirk Nico. Then when Tank comes back in twenty six, like, okay,
(30:35):
I'd like to fit of that.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
I really like to fit of that.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
And even now, even after making the trade for for Laramie, Yeah,
I'd like to see offensive lineman in the first round,
depending on what they do trade wise over the next how.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
Many ever weeks.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Even if you gave me a Mecha a Buka that situation,
I'm like, yeah, hell yeah, because I think he can
do a lot.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
More than just be your quote unquote slot receiver.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
And so from that standpoint, like the narrative of Mecha
Buker kind of ticks me off because you know, well,
he's just our slobery.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
No, he's not. He's not. You can't say that about
anybody in College's just this. He's just that. You have
no idea.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Aj Brown is an Ole miss He played in the
slot one hundred percent of the time. He han't played
in the slot since that big beast has been outside
for Tennessee in Philadelphia. So we just gotta be careful
what the narratives there. But you're right, Mark, I think
the biggest thing to the wide receiver group is one
of John Matchi, Xavier Hutchinson, Jared Wayne. One of those
(31:34):
three guys has got to take a significant step forward.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
Now.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
I felt like I think X made a big step forward.
I feel like he made some key plays in the
playoff game. He's kind of made key plays his first
two years. To me, X is the kind of guy
that you know, he does so much on special teams,
so many the jet sweet gadget play type stuff. You know,
when Bobby's calling plays. I think he could be that guy. Man,
he could be a good three, could be a good four.
(32:01):
But you bring in another receiver and you have X
or Mechi or Jared or whatever one of those guys.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
Now you start feeling pretty good about that group.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
But you still have pieces to add in ways to
go with that group. No sense of panic, but it
is definitely something that you gotta get moving in the right.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Direction, putting together this roster in progress. All right, coming up,
we say goodbye to a Texan. This happened at the
end of our show yesterday. The longest tenured Texan officially gone.
We'll talk about him and some other stuff. Of course,
it's Texans Radio all right. Back to it here on
Texans All Access. Mark Vandermaar and John Harris with you.
(32:39):
And at the end of our show yesterday, news broke
that John Weeks and you knew the Texans already signed
a long snapper in Tucker Addington, but you thought maybe competition,
maybe Weeks is back. Maybe maybe Weeks a forty nine
er signs with San Francisco. He'll be reunited with many
Texans employees. Many names you don't know who worked for
(33:00):
the forty nine ers organization, who used to work for
the Houston Texans. Some you do, like Kyle Shanahan. But
what do you make of it, Johnny, This is a
guy who basically pitched a perfect game since twenty ten.
It was always on target, locked in, total professional. I mean,
we have to celebrate the career of what Weeks did
(33:21):
here as a guy who was here since twenty ten
at a Baylor really loved as a Texans player, did
a ton in the community, Walter Payton Man of the
Year nominee, and did his job superbly. What service to
this organization. And I've always said this, he's like the
plumbing and electricity. You know it's you don't notice it,
(33:42):
You kind of take it for granted until it's out,
until something goes wrong, then wait a minute. So he
was so reliable so many years, and he'll be so cherished,
really as a long snapper. We're saying this about him
that says something.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
Yeah, And you know, it's one of those things where
I'm sort of glad we got off the air last night.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
We finish the im me.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
Literally, as you get off the air, the first thing
you do, okay, check phones, and I look and I
see the news, and I was glad.
Speaker 3 (34:13):
I was glad in the sense that.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
The timing of the announcement was after our show, because
trying to encapsulate that in the last few minutes of
the show it would have been or any part of
the show without much notice would have been really really hard.
You know, his wife, Amanda is tremendous. She's a pillar
in the community. I mean, she's done so much in
(34:35):
this community community with John. And I think that's the
other thing with WEEKSI is just the fact that he's
such a he's such a pillar in the community. And
I think it was Nick Skirfield, our friend, who put
out today that John Weeks is the only Texan to
have played in every Texans playoff game. That's pretty wild,
and I was like, Wow, that's that's pretty amazing. And
(34:56):
he's done so well by this organization. I think the
organization embraced him. He embraced the organization. You know, it's
an opportunity to go try on a new organization with
the forty nine ers and go see, you know, extend
his career. You know, I've had that conversation with him
over the years, you know about you.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
Know, are not in short? Are you ready? Is this it?
Do you have more football in you? You know, keep
playing if you can physically.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
And I think he always had that mindset like I'm
gonna go as long as this body allows me to.
And you know, he didn't see too much drop off
in him as a long snapper for punts, kicks. You know,
he just he's always been so steady. You know, John
mcclaan will get on here and tell you he's a
grace long snapper in.
Speaker 3 (35:44):
The history of the game.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
And you know, I just it's hard to think of
life without him because down on the sidelines, you know,
down in the sidelines, always have to avoid him.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
So I'll tell you this story. Some people know the story.
I don't know if I've told you this. I think
I've told you this.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
Mark.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
So my first game down on the sidelines, first game
was against the Redskins, now the Commanders back in twenty fourteen,
and so down on.
Speaker 3 (36:07):
The sidelines, think thee kind of chaotic.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
There's a lot of things moving, a lot of people
doing a lot of different things. You know, there's a
t big TV cart and there's good room down at NRG.
Some places there's not, but sometimes when all the actions
in one location, you can get a lot of people there.
So I'm moving from one part to the next. And
I knew that John practices snaps, but I was paying
(36:30):
attention to something happened in the game, and I wasn't
paying attention.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
To where I was.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
On the sidelines, And all of a sudden, I felt
this kind of whoosh of air go right by my face.
I mean right by my face. It must have been
six to eight inches away, if not closer. And I realized.
I looked down and there's Weeks He laughing. He's like,
I had to send you a warning shot because you
were getting in the way. So he was practicing his
(36:58):
log snaps, and he's fine. I mean, I'm telling you
that ball is that ball's humming. He hits me, you know,
if I'm turned, he hits me profile like right, and
my nose is broken. It's probably concautious, probably blood everywhere. Well,
that's how good he was. He was just sending a
warning shot across the bow, as he called it, and
(37:18):
fired one to whoever the punter was that Shane at
that time, and Shanee just cackling. He's just laughing. And
so I always knew be careful wherever you are on
the sidelines. And I've stopped I don't know how many
people from getting the same thing happening to them because
they started to walk into the path of a John
Weeks practice snap.
Speaker 3 (37:38):
On the sidelines and I would stop them.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
Videographers, other sideline reporters, you know, TV sidelline reporters. I
just kind of put my arm out like yo, and
they'd stop, like what and then they see the ball
fire and by like oh, okay, thank you, and I'm like, yeah,
you do not want to get hit by a John
Weeks snap.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
So but definitely miss him.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
We'll see him back at the NRG, yeah, because the
forty nine ers will be coming two archiev for the
first time since twenty seventeen. But just man, everything you
wanted a text and everything you wanted in a player,
everything you wanted to teammate, you know.
Speaker 3 (38:10):
John Weeks. Was that so yeah, I'm gonna miss him.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
It's it was wild news to hear, just kind of
I don't know if it's it's hit me, Mark, but
it really hasn't hit me. Probably won't until I see
him in that that that freaking uniform of the forty
nine ers.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
Well, that and not seeing him at training camp, because
oh yeah, he is absolutely such a familiar face as
a player. I thought the funniest moment was Dimiko Ryan's
press conference, his introductory press conference when he was named
head coach, and he took pictures on stage with the
former players and with the current players, and you know,
(38:45):
the current players. He took pictures. Weeks was up there
in the former players. He's like, Weeks, get back up here,
your current and former you know, because he is I mean,
Weeks is in that era with what all those guys.
When you think about him coming in twenty ten, he
was here before. I mean that's a long time ago,
and here for the first playoff season division championship and
(39:05):
then he's here for this Dimico era, and we didn't
know what the Demico era was gonna bring us and
has brought us two wonderful years so far. So uh,
that's great for him. Tucker Addington a lot of pressure,
big shoes.
Speaker 3 (39:16):
To fill a lot of pressure.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
Yeah, we'll see how that goes. And Canemie Fairbairn is
now the longest tenured Texan, longest tenured position player, as
you would call it, is Titus Howard, who was drafted
in twenty nineteen. You know, for a long time we
could say Titus and Laramie, but now we got Titus.
And that's amazing, Johnny, that Titus has been around here
longer than anybody.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
That just shows you how time is flying. It feels
like he just got here. Yeah, it feels like he
just got here. But I remember when he got here.
You know, he's a rookie obviously, and he was engaged.
Titus thing got married and I think he has three
kids now maybe four in the time that he has
been here.
Speaker 3 (39:58):
I think it's three. With time he's going with the tech.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
It's like, holy cow, we've seen this guy go from
you know, young dude coming out of college. It was
pretty polished, even though he was coming out Alabama State,
get married, having kids, have family.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
It's just it's crazy.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
And yeah, you're right, Titus is the longest tenured Texan.
You know, you'd say Laramie and Titus, and then you
would say Eric Murray too, because Eric Murray had shown
up in the COVID year. And although it feels at
times like COVID was just yesterday, it feels like it
was eons ago, and we have i mean nobody from
(40:31):
twenty twenty, you know, I mean nobody from that team now, Titus.
Speaker 3 (40:36):
It's ridiculous. That was just five years ago.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
That's incredible. And this week people were tweeting out there.
You know what you were doing when you heard that,
the world stopped. And everyone remembers when the Rodeo canceled.
The Rodeo Yeah through or however far through it they were,
and that was an utter shock. Wait a minute, the
Rodeo is done. We're done. Early and then the NBA season,
(41:00):
the Rodeo was one thing, and that was huge because
it's local and it's the Rodeo.
Speaker 3 (41:04):
It's so important.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
But when the NBA canceled their season, they were first
to go. Right when they canceled their season, and somebody
posted the video of what was it, the Utah Jazz
playing Somebody Rudy Gobert.
Speaker 3 (41:17):
Gobert, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
And they said, oh that yeah, but they said, the
two teams are out on the floor. Then they went
to the locker rooms and they you're going to cancel
this game and the season's done too. That's incredible, powerful stuff.
And we've made it through that. Let's not have another one. Okay.
Coming up, John Weeks, we love you and I know
we're going to talk about you again sometime soon. Coming up,
(41:42):
what's going on around the league. So, a very notable,
high paid, super high paid player, I mean, the highest
paid non quarterback in NFL history. Story came out about
how professional is he? Look, he's a really good player
that among other things, we'll talk about next year on
Texans Radio. All right, wrapping it up here Friday night,
(42:03):
having fun, Mark Vandermer, John Harris. Texans made their announcement
today of players that they have acquired during the early
part I'll call it the early part of what I
call player acquisition season, team building season, however you want
to put it. Because they put out a big press
release of all the names you've been hearing about, they're
no surprises here. A couple of things left out, probably
(42:24):
because of Tea's crossing and I's dotting and that sort
of thing. Other big news that has happened during this
player acquisition time, among many other stories, Miles Garrett signing
the big deal, highest paid non quarterback in NFL history.
Then a story Johnny comes out in The Athletic about
how he's frequently late to the facility. He's skipped mandatory
team activities on multiple occasions, writes Jason Lloyd. Jason Lloyd
(42:49):
writes for Theathletic dot Com, So what do you make
of this? I'm sure there are a lot of players
like this. You don't hear about it most of the time.
And obviously he's a hell of a player. They wanted
him back. But when I say they, with the Browns,
you never know who's calling the shots. I mean, it's
got to come down to ownership and the Watson deal
(43:10):
signing Garrett, who vocally wanted to be traded, but they
gave him so much money he had to say yes,
kind of like Watson himself. Your thoughts, you know what?
Speaker 2 (43:20):
It's It's interesting because when I saw that come down,
it it struck me because there's been a lot of
talk here in Houston, you know, about about Laramie Tunzel,
and a lot of people are opining about this, that
and the third and they don't know.
Speaker 3 (43:42):
Yeah, they don't have any they don't have any clue.
They don't know. They're not in that locker room. You
and I are in a building, but we're.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
Not a locker room.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
So it's interesting that you know somebody from the Browns talk.
The most notorious player known for being late all the
time was the guy that went to the Hall of Fame,
Derek Thomas.
Speaker 3 (44:04):
Derek Thomas with the Kansas.
Speaker 2 (44:05):
City Chiefs was late to everything, everything in his career.
Speaker 3 (44:11):
Everywhere along the way.
Speaker 2 (44:13):
Then they had to talk to him about being on time,
and he just was notoriously late. Now, he worked hard,
he did what he was supposed to do. He just
showed up late to stuff. And that was that was
always kind of a thorn in the side of Marty Schottenheimer.
But he understood. Marty understood what he had with Derek Thomas.
(44:34):
He knew that guy played hard, he knew he cared
and that he would put in the work, he would
do all those things. And I would imagine that's what
Cleveland looks at with Miles is, yeah, we got to
have this guy. He does work. Yeah, maybe he shows
up late to things. Maybe there's some things that he
doesn't show up to, and maybe we got to make
that more clear to him.
Speaker 3 (44:52):
That's what we want.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
But you know, set the expectation for him and see
if he wants to meet it. But you know, if
you did set that expectation for him and he he's
still not he's still not adhering to it, and then
you give him forty million dollars a year, he's just
gonna continue doing what he's doing.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
So it's a bad example. It's a bad Yeah, for
the rest of the play, I'm gonna so I have
a theory about being late, and I want to see
if you agree with this. This applies to everybody listening
right now. I think being late is an adrenaline addiction.
And I'll explain because I've had many times, especially when
I was working in sales, where I would know that
(45:30):
if I left now, I'll be early. So let's not
push it and be early. Let's try to get something
just done. And I would notice that, oh, now it's
time to go, and I'm kind of pushing it. I
might be late, but what happens is you get a
big adrenaline rush, like now I'm in a hurry. You
know how many times have I done this?
Speaker 3 (45:51):
Now?
Speaker 1 (45:51):
I know not everybody does this, And at this point
in my life, I'm much better about being early, you know,
just get there early or at least on time. But
there have been times in my life where I've been
in that perpetual pushing it. Because if you think about it,
it's easy to get somewhere on time. You just set
your phone to it. These days, set an alarm, leave
(46:13):
at the appropriate time, and you'll get there on time.
But I think people are kind of addicted to this
rush of being in a hurry. I gotta get there. Well,
you could have left five minutes ago, but you didn't.
Why why not? I don't know. Why didn't you get
up five minutes earlier? It's the same thing. Well, five
more minutes of sleep? Is that really gonna help you
that much? Does that really mean that much?
Speaker 3 (46:34):
No?
Speaker 1 (46:35):
I think it becomes a getting late or being late
addiction of sorts. And I probably am not wording this properly.
And maybe other people have thought of this and it's
got an appropriate institutional clinical term. I don't have one
for it. We'll get deeper into this, maybe never, but
I thought I would throw it out there. Okay, Monday,
full show, six o'clock, stay tuned, Area forty five. Next
(46:59):
I'll talk about everything happening with the Texans and in
the NFL, the Cooper Cup deal, all of it happening
next night. You Tyler for producing. Have a great night,
a great weekend everyone, And this podcast or this show
which is also a podcast because it'll be available in
podcast forms soon enough. Go check it out wherever you
get your podcasts, Spotify, on the Odyssey app, the Texans app.
(47:19):
It's all there. Have a great night, Go Texans.
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.