August 12, 2024 • 11 mins
KPRC reporter Aaron Wilson joins Next Up after the Houston Texans earned their first 2024 preseason win in Friday's 20-12 victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers. Starters on both sides of the ball played in the opening snaps. Quarterback C.J. Stroud threw a pass to wide receiver Tank Dell for a 34-yard touchdown, creating an "inspirational moment" for Dell, who returned to the end zone after breaking his fibula last season and being wounded as a victim of a mass shooting in Florida, Wilson said. Despite the final score, the Texans "were down three starters" on the offensive line, and their absence was noticeable as the line "didn't get enough push." When the Texans are fully healthy, there is substantial depth in the wide receiver and running back rooms. However, not everybody will make the roster following training camp, creating a "complicated picture." Besides the established starters, who will support the running back and wide receiver position groups as Week One of the NFL season approaches?
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Texans back on the practice field yesterday. Off today, I
should say last night, off today. Haven't heard from our
guy this week. Let's kick things off. A lot has
happened since the last time we heard from our Texans insider,
the great Aaron Wilson. We follow him on social at
Aaron Wilson Underscore NFL. Welcome back to Houston, mister Wilson,
(00:20):
you've been going for a while. Texans played a game
at what is formerly Hines Field for many of us
who will remain as such, and they took the practice
field yesterday. Let us start with your overall reaction from
the game on Friday night. As the starters, we got our.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
First glimpse, all right, yet encouraged by the timing between CJ.
Stroud and Tank Dell. The way DJ was able to
throw him open, anticipate the defense, really the way he
sees the game outstanding, of course what we expect from him,
but just nice to see them click like that and
per Tank inspirational moment because he's overcome a lot to
(01:02):
get back in the end zone. He's worked very hard.
I don't know if I could really state in words
what it took for him to come back from a
broken leg, then to be a victim of a shooting
flesh wound through his leg, and then to make it
back and obviously just as good as ever, if not better.
And then on defense dominant Daniel Hunter. Really this Steelers
(01:25):
are overmatched. Can't block that guy, and it's gonna be
very interesting. Some people call him the Cyborgs. He's all
share after the King, so that he's the new Transformer
or you've got the Terminator. Will Anderson Junior. You've got
a lot of nicknames. Usually when you have a good defense, guys,
you have some nicknames you like, the good kind of nicknames.
(01:48):
So these are good nicknames, not like you know, like
slappy or something like that. These are, you know, strong nicknames.
So I like that. And there were some other things
I thought they were good, like hate over keeps showing up.
As Zimika Ryant said yesterday, doesn't play like a rookie.
Calen Bullock another good rookie. The interception didn't count the
(02:09):
way out of bounds, but look at the range. How
far he ahead to travel? So uh, he forced a fumble.
Of course in the Hall of Fame game, that was
answering kind of a question people had about him was
his tackling, and he told me he was very determined
to show hey, I like to hit, and so that
was good to see. I thought they didn't get enough
push on the offensive line. It looked a lot different
(02:31):
yesterday when Laramie Tunsol was in his first practice. Damian
Pierce breaks off a long run. So I don't think
you put it all on Damien what happened because no
one ran the ball very effectively against the Steelers. Maybe
the Steelers have a good defense, maybe they're pretty stout
and the way they coached things, but where the holes?
So that was an issue and they were down three starters.
Titus Howard as a minor knee injury. Check Mason has
(02:54):
an arm injury and it's not practicing neither practice yesterday,
and then the Laramie, of course missed the game because
that was his ramp up time to They took care
of him. They wanted him to be ready from the
Arthur Scop knee surgeon and offseason. I think they did
a great job medically of easing him along to now.
He looked great out there to play without pain. Played
(03:16):
in pain all last year, so makee see a different
Learnmi Tumsel this season and then roster move coming down
today Souther he is pain good undrafted defensive line from
a Jain tech and pulled his hamstring. They brought him back.
They didn't do an injury settlement because they wanted to
be able to resign him under the rules, and now
he's rejoining the team this morning.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Well, that was gonna be my question, Aaron. You talked
about the run game not performing great and not having
a lot of irregular offensive linemen in there. How do
we figure out this running back depth chart? I mean,
I think we all believe that it's gonna be Joe
Mixon wanted and Damian Pierce likely running back too. But
you know what, Cam Akers is fighting for a play
for a roster spot. Ogable, he's still hanging around. You
(04:01):
are Jordan the draft pick, Like, how can we get
a good read on who's going to be that number
three back and who's going to be you know, on
the practice squad. If you know we can't see some
good running wanes in the preseason.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Well, right, it's harder to decipher. But I think he
has to go off of who's making plays and who
has special teams abilities. So it's a push pull between
I feel like cam Akers is a more elusive runner
than all of the backs with the exception of Mixing,
and you know, he certainly can play, doesn't have a
lot of special teams background, whereas Darry Algabal is one
(04:33):
of their better special teams guys can even kick in
a pinch, So that's a tough call to me.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Darry.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
You know, he's scored a touchdown, he's showing enough and
maybe he wants it being the third back and that's
not a bad outcome for them. But Akers has certainly
given him a run for his money. And you know,
if you're just going off of who plays the skill
position better catching running, I think it has to be
a But this is the X factors, the special teams,
(05:03):
and you only get so many spots for a guy
that can do more than one thing. So that's a
debate that they'll have to have, and you know, maybe
that costs someone else's job. You know, we get on
the bubble you're talking about, well, we're going to keep
this guy the only plays special teams, so he's not
a play any linebacker for us in all likelihood, like
a wit. You know, there's just a lot of debates.
(05:26):
You have to have Mike Ford, not one of your
better cover corners, great special teams player that they signed
to a pretty good contract. I think the Cantare has
already shown though that, you know, money is not the
you know, the object when it comes to the moves.
I mean, if everyone's talked about cutting Robert Woods the
whole off season, well maybe that's not a good idea,
you know, Robert, you know, four catches for forty two
(05:49):
yards looks pretty good out there, you know. So that's
an interesting decision they'll have to make. And it's complicated
a receiver and running back. They're Hutchinson and Ben Skolnick
and Woods have all had better preseason games and John
Mitch you the third who's had a few drops in
(06:09):
practice and have one against the Steelers. So complicated picture
at running back and wide receiver. Very intriguing. This is
more of the interesting decisions that we'll see that they
make here at the end of the month.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Talking with Aaron Wilson, our Texans inside of here at
seven ninety heavily connected around the league, giving us a
peak behind the curtain. What's going on over at the
Houston Methis training center off Kirby, as well as reacting
to the twenty to twelve victory for the Texans over
the Pittsburgh Steelers on Friday night, talking more defensively, saw
(06:43):
the same thing that you saw. Will Anderson Jr. Did
not play in the game on Friday. Obviously, Danil Hunter,
he's clearly one of the best players in the edge
in the league. The guys on the interior a lot
of conversation. Gordon was worried, and I shared that nervousness
about the interior of this defense. It was clear to
me Demiko's philosophy years We're just going to throw a
(07:06):
multitude of bodies for what we like in talent on
the interior. People keep talking about Mario Edwards Junior. People
around the team. Rio showed up, played extremely well on Friday,
has been playing well in the practices. Are we undervaluing
what Mario Atwis Junior is going to mean to the
interior of this team in twenty.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Four Aaron and He's sure as a bargain if you
look at his contract compared to Nico Autrey. He is
a very inexpensive starter and he can hold that spot down.
He's shown that before that he can play. And one
of the comments that Rod Right, their defensive line coach,
(07:47):
made was, you know, it's finally time for him in
this scheme because he's been bouncing around, but that this
defense really suits him. So there's a versatile guy. They
really prized versatility, and I think he's pretty tough, he's
pretty strong, and he can get off a block and
he finds the ball pretty well. He's probably not elite
(08:07):
and anything, but he's very good at pretty much everything
you want from a defensive linement. And you know that's football.
You have two Pro Bowl guys, You're not going to
have five Pro Bowl guys. This isn't the Steel Curtain
in the old days or what the Eagles have with
Red and White and Jerrel Brown those guys. I mean,
that's just unrealistic in today's cap era. So when you
(08:29):
find a bargain, I mean that as a compliment. I
think that you just have to be happy as an
organization because you've done a good job with the pro
scouting personnel with understanding who the player is watching the tape,
and then the coaching staff having the right plan and
you know you had something. Unfortunately happen with Autrey with
the suspension. He says that, you know, he didn't know
(08:52):
that he had taken a bad substance. The league doesn't care.
They're very strict about that. You're responsible for whatever goes
in your body. And so they'll be missing him for
those six games. But they're really fortunate to have Mario
Edwards and they're very happy about that.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
All right, lastly, we'll get you out here from an
injury standpoint, if you would quickly. I saw Lamby Tones
a return to practice. Joe Mixon's name came up, Christian
Harris's name comes up. So from a starter we're not
getting into the second preseason game this Saturday, first game
over at NRG for the season versus the Giants. Where
are we at from starters that had been out not
(09:27):
named lamby Tonzel on the practice field yesterday and into tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
I'm not sure if Joe Mixon plays or not. You know,
he was limited, so he's gonna have to have a
really full practice on Tuesday for them probably to put
him out there against the Giants. So if the week
goes well, they can consider it. If not, you say, well,
we don't need to see Joe Mixon. I think that's
possibly the way they will go. We'll see. Kamary Lassiter
(09:54):
is out with an ankle injury. It's not serious in
terms of like he'll not in danger of missing the
first game. Titus Howard has a modern knee injury. Shaq
Mason is in kind of an arm braced looking sling thing,
and so that's not long term either. They could be
ready for the first game, wouldn't surprise me if he
was not doing a whole lot else the rest of
(10:16):
the preseason. And then Christian Harris left practice early. I
think he's got a flare up of the CAF injury.
It was his first day back and it just had
some issues with it. So they're being precautionary and took
him out of the practice. We'll see if he can
do anything else. I was told originally that it was
gonna be later in the preseason and like late late
(10:37):
then he would get back on the practice field. So
the backups, you know, like Noah Brown shoulder, he can
put Torano calf, Charlie hag Planter fusiitis, Jeff Okuda's shoulder.
So they have some other guys in depth, key depth
that it are also not able to practice. I think
Noah Brown is getting close to returning, so we'll see
if he can get back out there this week. I
(10:58):
think he's going to be the fourth receiver as long
as he's healthy. So yeah, that's the kind of the
injury line up. Nothing really that I would call big news.
Probably one of the more you know ones that looked
like it was really bad initially teaking Quatreano making some
progress from the strength cast. Looked like it was a
knee at first and just a no cap injury, but
(11:21):
a pretty good one there. And then we'll see if
Charlie Heck's flit common down.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
My man, Aaron Wilson, we appreciate your time recapping Texans
over Steelers Friday, as well as the fourteenth camp practice yesterday.
You're already following him Houston and those of you streaming
from all over the world. He is at Aaron Wilson
underscore NFL. Mister Wilson, Well appreciate it and look forward
to seeing you over in the press box on Saturday afternoon.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Sir, Thank you, It's sure good seeing all right.
Texans back on the practice field yesterday. Off today, I
should say last night, off today. Haven't heard from our
guy this week. Let's kick things off. A lot has
happened since the last time we heard from our Texans insider,
the great Aaron Wilson. We follow him on social at
Aaron Wilson Underscore NFL. Welcome back to Houston, mister Wilson,
(00:20):
you've been going for a while. Texans played a game
at what is formerly Hines Field for many of us
who will remain as such, and they took the practice
field yesterday. Let us start with your overall reaction from
the game on Friday night. As the starters, we got our.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
First glimpse, all right, yet encouraged by the timing between CJ.
Stroud and Tank Dell. The way DJ was able to
throw him open, anticipate the defense, really the way he
sees the game outstanding, of course what we expect from him,
but just nice to see them click like that and
per Tank inspirational moment because he's overcome a lot to
(01:02):
get back in the end zone. He's worked very hard.
I don't know if I could really state in words
what it took for him to come back from a
broken leg, then to be a victim of a shooting
flesh wound through his leg, and then to make it
back and obviously just as good as ever, if not better.
And then on defense dominant Daniel Hunter. Really this Steelers
(01:25):
are overmatched. Can't block that guy, and it's gonna be
very interesting. Some people call him the Cyborgs. He's all
share after the King, so that he's the new Transformer
or you've got the Terminator. Will Anderson Junior. You've got
a lot of nicknames. Usually when you have a good defense, guys,
you have some nicknames you like, the good kind of nicknames.
(01:48):
So these are good nicknames, not like you know, like
slappy or something like that. These are, you know, strong nicknames.
So I like that. And there were some other things
I thought they were good, like hate over keeps showing up.
As Zimika Ryant said yesterday, doesn't play like a rookie.
Calen Bullock another good rookie. The interception didn't count the
(02:09):
way out of bounds, but look at the range. How
far he ahead to travel? So uh, he forced a fumble.
Of course in the Hall of Fame game, that was
answering kind of a question people had about him was
his tackling, and he told me he was very determined
to show hey, I like to hit, and so that
was good to see. I thought they didn't get enough
push on the offensive line. It looked a lot different
(02:31):
yesterday when Laramie Tunsol was in his first practice. Damian
Pierce breaks off a long run. So I don't think
you put it all on Damien what happened because no
one ran the ball very effectively against the Steelers. Maybe
the Steelers have a good defense, maybe they're pretty stout
and the way they coached things, but where the holes?
So that was an issue and they were down three starters.
Titus Howard as a minor knee injury. Check Mason has
(02:54):
an arm injury and it's not practicing neither practice yesterday,
and then the Laramie, of course missed the game because
that was his ramp up time to They took care
of him. They wanted him to be ready from the
Arthur Scop knee surgeon and offseason. I think they did
a great job medically of easing him along to now.
He looked great out there to play without pain. Played
(03:16):
in pain all last year, so makee see a different
Learnmi Tumsel this season and then roster move coming down
today Souther he is pain good undrafted defensive line from
a Jain tech and pulled his hamstring. They brought him back.
They didn't do an injury settlement because they wanted to
be able to resign him under the rules, and now
he's rejoining the team this morning.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Well, that was gonna be my question, Aaron. You talked
about the run game not performing great and not having
a lot of irregular offensive linemen in there. How do
we figure out this running back depth chart? I mean,
I think we all believe that it's gonna be Joe
Mixon wanted and Damian Pierce likely running back too. But
you know what, Cam Akers is fighting for a play
for a roster spot. Ogable, he's still hanging around. You
(04:01):
are Jordan the draft pick, Like, how can we get
a good read on who's going to be that number
three back and who's going to be you know, on
the practice squad. If you know we can't see some
good running wanes in the preseason.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Well, right, it's harder to decipher. But I think he
has to go off of who's making plays and who
has special teams abilities. So it's a push pull between
I feel like cam Akers is a more elusive runner
than all of the backs with the exception of Mixing,
and you know, he certainly can play, doesn't have a
lot of special teams background, whereas Darry Algabal is one
(04:33):
of their better special teams guys can even kick in
a pinch, So that's a tough call to me.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Darry.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
You know, he's scored a touchdown, he's showing enough and
maybe he wants it being the third back and that's
not a bad outcome for them. But Akers has certainly
given him a run for his money. And you know,
if you're just going off of who plays the skill
position better catching running, I think it has to be
a But this is the X factors, the special teams,
(05:03):
and you only get so many spots for a guy
that can do more than one thing. So that's a
debate that they'll have to have, and you know, maybe
that costs someone else's job. You know, we get on
the bubble you're talking about, well, we're going to keep
this guy the only plays special teams, so he's not
a play any linebacker for us in all likelihood, like
a wit. You know, there's just a lot of debates.
(05:26):
You have to have Mike Ford, not one of your
better cover corners, great special teams player that they signed
to a pretty good contract. I think the Cantare has
already shown though that, you know, money is not the
you know, the object when it comes to the moves.
I mean, if everyone's talked about cutting Robert Woods the
whole off season, well maybe that's not a good idea,
you know, Robert, you know, four catches for forty two
(05:49):
yards looks pretty good out there, you know. So that's
an interesting decision they'll have to make. And it's complicated
a receiver and running back. They're Hutchinson and Ben Skolnick
and Woods have all had better preseason games and John
Mitch you the third who's had a few drops in
(06:09):
practice and have one against the Steelers. So complicated picture
at running back and wide receiver. Very intriguing. This is
more of the interesting decisions that we'll see that they
make here at the end of the month.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Talking with Aaron Wilson, our Texans inside of here at
seven ninety heavily connected around the league, giving us a
peak behind the curtain. What's going on over at the
Houston Methis training center off Kirby, as well as reacting
to the twenty to twelve victory for the Texans over
the Pittsburgh Steelers on Friday night, talking more defensively, saw
(06:43):
the same thing that you saw. Will Anderson Jr. Did
not play in the game on Friday. Obviously, Danil Hunter,
he's clearly one of the best players in the edge
in the league. The guys on the interior a lot
of conversation. Gordon was worried, and I shared that nervousness
about the interior of this defense. It was clear to
me Demiko's philosophy years We're just going to throw a
(07:06):
multitude of bodies for what we like in talent on
the interior. People keep talking about Mario Edwards Junior. People
around the team. Rio showed up, played extremely well on Friday,
has been playing well in the practices. Are we undervaluing
what Mario Atwis Junior is going to mean to the
interior of this team in twenty.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Four Aaron and He's sure as a bargain if you
look at his contract compared to Nico Autrey. He is
a very inexpensive starter and he can hold that spot down.
He's shown that before that he can play. And one
of the comments that Rod Right, their defensive line coach,
(07:47):
made was, you know, it's finally time for him in
this scheme because he's been bouncing around, but that this
defense really suits him. So there's a versatile guy. They
really prized versatility, and I think he's pretty tough, he's
pretty strong, and he can get off a block and
he finds the ball pretty well. He's probably not elite
(08:07):
and anything, but he's very good at pretty much everything
you want from a defensive linement. And you know that's football.
You have two Pro Bowl guys, You're not going to
have five Pro Bowl guys. This isn't the Steel Curtain
in the old days or what the Eagles have with
Red and White and Jerrel Brown those guys. I mean,
that's just unrealistic in today's cap era. So when you
(08:29):
find a bargain, I mean that as a compliment. I
think that you just have to be happy as an
organization because you've done a good job with the pro
scouting personnel with understanding who the player is watching the tape,
and then the coaching staff having the right plan and
you know you had something. Unfortunately happen with Autrey with
the suspension. He says that, you know, he didn't know
(08:52):
that he had taken a bad substance. The league doesn't care.
They're very strict about that. You're responsible for whatever goes
in your body. And so they'll be missing him for
those six games. But they're really fortunate to have Mario
Edwards and they're very happy about that.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
All right, lastly, we'll get you out here from an
injury standpoint, if you would quickly. I saw Lamby Tones
a return to practice. Joe Mixon's name came up, Christian
Harris's name comes up. So from a starter we're not
getting into the second preseason game this Saturday, first game
over at NRG for the season versus the Giants. Where
are we at from starters that had been out not
(09:27):
named lamby Tonzel on the practice field yesterday and into tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
I'm not sure if Joe Mixon plays or not. You know,
he was limited, so he's gonna have to have a
really full practice on Tuesday for them probably to put
him out there against the Giants. So if the week
goes well, they can consider it. If not, you say, well,
we don't need to see Joe Mixon. I think that's
possibly the way they will go. We'll see. Kamary Lassiter
(09:54):
is out with an ankle injury. It's not serious in
terms of like he'll not in danger of missing the
first game. Titus Howard has a modern knee injury. Shaq
Mason is in kind of an arm braced looking sling thing,
and so that's not long term either. They could be
ready for the first game, wouldn't surprise me if he
was not doing a whole lot else the rest of
(10:16):
the preseason. And then Christian Harris left practice early. I
think he's got a flare up of the CAF injury.
It was his first day back and it just had
some issues with it. So they're being precautionary and took
him out of the practice. We'll see if he can
do anything else. I was told originally that it was
gonna be later in the preseason and like late late
(10:37):
then he would get back on the practice field. So
the backups, you know, like Noah Brown shoulder, he can
put Torano calf, Charlie hag Planter fusiitis, Jeff Okuda's shoulder.
So they have some other guys in depth, key depth
that it are also not able to practice. I think
Noah Brown is getting close to returning, so we'll see
if he can get back out there this week. I
(10:58):
think he's going to be the fourth receiver as long
as he's healthy. So yeah, that's the kind of the
injury line up. Nothing really that I would call big news.
Probably one of the more you know ones that looked
like it was really bad initially teaking Quatreano making some
progress from the strength cast. Looked like it was a
knee at first and just a no cap injury, but
(11:21):
a pretty good one there. And then we'll see if
Charlie Heck's flit common down.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
My man, Aaron Wilson, we appreciate your time recapping Texans
over Steelers Friday, as well as the fourteenth camp practice yesterday.
You're already following him Houston and those of you streaming
from all over the world. He is at Aaron Wilson
underscore NFL. Mister Wilson, Well appreciate it and look forward
to seeing you over in the press box on Saturday afternoon.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Sir, Thank you, It's sure good seeing all right.
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