With all the heightened expectations for the Texans this season, how would you rank their position groups as the preseason's end approaches? Payne and Pendergast talked about it here.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00It looks like it's going to come off. They lit this time last year, they were busy canceling
00:04joint practices, right? The saints because of all the injuries. They're so banged up.
00:07Yeah. And they've, they've got, I mean, they've got a handful of guys that are dealing with
00:11bumps and bruises. I probably the, I guess the most concerning one is Christian Harris.
00:16Cause it seems like everybody else that's on the list of guys every day that, that are
00:20not practicing or at least working out on the field next to the practice.
00:23Yeah. Whereas Christian Harris has rarely been out there. It's rarely been out there.
00:28I guess Will Anderson is the other concern just because now it's a, it's another ankle
00:32injury and you wonder, okay, I, I really hope this doesn't be become some kind of chronic
00:37deal. Correct. If he has just naturally floppy ankles. Yeah. Yep. Shin angle and all that.
00:43Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So a game is at noon on Saturday against the Rams. A lot of guys vying
00:50for trying to survive here in the NFL. Right. And the Rams don't traditionally play their
00:55starters much in the preseason, the third preseason game, especially I'm curious what
00:59they'll do.
01:00I can't imagine the Texans are going to play theirs. I wish they would start. I wish the
01:04offensive line would, I really, they need to have some success. You know, D'Amico D'Amico
01:09had to venture into coach speak the other day when he talked about the running game
01:12and he was saying that he's a, he doesn't want to draw any judgments off of just two
01:15runs. Yeah. Talk about the first string guys. Yeah. Well, the first string guys were actually
01:19in there for four runs and not a single one of them looked good. Damien Pierce did didn't
01:24make the right decision quickly enough a couple of times, but the blocking was not good. Not
01:29just with the offensive line. It was the whole committee. I think there was at least one,
01:33there was one play where it was either a wide receiver or Cade Stover that made the wrong
01:37decision.
01:38And I think it was a wide receiver that left the defensive back unblocked fullback whiffed
01:42completely and totally didn't touch a single soul on one play. Linebackers were running
01:48free. It was ugly. It was really, it was bad blocking. And this is not a team that was
01:52running the ball. Well, last year I would like to see, I feel like, listen, dude, if
01:56you guys want to, if you guys want to be lead pipe carrying and mofos, then get out there
02:01and do it versus the Rams backups. At what point do we start to point to the coaching
02:05of the offensive line? I'll do it right now. I just like Bobby Sloak hasn't yet proven
02:10that he can put together a, or Chris Strauss, but I would go with Bobby Sloak as the offensive
02:15coordinator. He was the passing game coordinator in San Francisco. He hasn't yet demonstrated
02:20whether it's his fault or not. He hasn't yet demonstrated that he can put together
02:24a good rushing attack. So there's a lot of stuff I saw in that game that Joe Mixon wouldn't
02:31fix. Joe Mixon would have looked better. There are a couple of plays where Joe Mixon, I think
02:36like when they were backed up in the end zone, I think Joe Mixon would have taken a better
02:39line than Damien Pierce did.
02:41There was another shotgun run that I think Mixon would have done a better job of, but
02:47there's just way too much bad blocking out there for the starters. Like I don't, I don't
02:51watch that game and think like, Oh yeah, no reason to put them out there in harm's way
02:55in the third preseason game. I think they got to play the Colts. The next game after
02:58this is the Colts and they got to, yeah. Who, according to ESPN's rankings that we're about
03:06to dive into right now, Mike clay is the writer for ESPN. He does this every year. He does
03:11the positional rankings one through 32 of every position group in the NFL quarterback,
03:16running back receiver, tight end O line on the offensive side and on the defensive side.
03:21He does interior D line edge off ball linebackers, corners and safeties. So you've got 10 positions
03:28in and then he ranks the overall roster. The Texans overall roster ranks 11th according
03:33to Mike clay, which sounds about right. I feel like they're getting discussed like a
03:37team whose roster is more like fifth or sixth. Um, but that's probably because of CJ Stroud.
03:42You know, the quarterback tends to skew the overall impressions of a team and maybe, maybe
03:49raise the level of what people feel about a team beyond what the actual talent level
03:54or production level is. But Indianapolis has the best interior defensive line according
03:59to these rankings, to your point. So that that's yeah. As of right now, that's problematic.
04:04Deuce grugs and Kenyon green have shown some good things this camp, but it's an overall
04:07effort with all five guys. Add in the fullback, add in everybody else. These rankings, this
04:13is what I wanted to touch on first because they're fine at quarterback. They're rated
04:17eighth at quarterback. Their receiver room is the best in the league. They're going to
04:21be able to zip the ball all over the place. Their offensive line is rated 28th on this.
04:29Their defensive line interior is rated 29th on this. Yeah. I'm not as worried about the
04:35line interior. I think part of it, the same way Sheldon Rankins and Malik Collins, even
04:38when you look at PFF last year and other things, I feel like people weren't accounting for
04:44the scheme and there's, there's certain things that might look like a defensive tackle. Isn't
04:49doing a good job versus the run in this scheme where it's, it's actually okay because they're
04:54going to get, they're going to get washed out or hit out of their gap sometimes because
04:58they're just jetting up field. That's when it's on the linebackers to fill in behind
05:02them. And I think that fully Faticassi and Mario Edwards are going to be just fine in
05:06that regard with the offensive line. Part of it is okay. People are, you know, Kenyon
05:11green hasn't played well historically, but I do think he's a different guy right now.
05:16Juice Scruggs is complete and total unknown right now. And they're going to take their
05:20lumps early. And unfortunately they face either unfortunately or fortunately, depending on
05:25how it works out, they're going to face Grover Stewart and DeForest Buckner in that first
05:30game were both studs, like big physical dudes that know what the hell they're doing there.
05:36If they didn't play for the Colts, they'd be one of my favorite defensive line duos,
05:41but now I despise them. Yeah, of course. Yeah. So I like, as far as blaming Chris Strauss
05:47or Bobby Slowick, I, there's just some, there's some things that they do that I don't, I can't
05:53tell if it's the way the offensive line is being coached and this is their strategy,
05:56but there's times where guys aren't all executed. It doesn't look like they're all executing
06:00the same scheme. So somebody's, somebody's off the page. Like everybody's zone outside
06:06zone blocking except for one offensive lineman. And there's some things that might be explained
06:11with scheme there, or it might be the guys are making mental errors. So I just don't
06:15know. Some of the young guys have really sloppy footwork and it really did. It comes back
06:20to bite them, but they're young. So I can't put that on Chris Strauss or just yet.
06:25Can you get to a Superbowl with the 28th best offensive line and 29th best interior
06:30defensive line? I feel like that ranking is unfair partly because I think they're going
06:34to be just fine in past protection. I guess this is an ongoing, yeah, this is an ongoing
06:40theme with the Texans for whatever reason and good years and bad word. The past blocking
06:45has been way better than the run blocking. So I'm not, I'm not overly concerned about
06:50the past protection. I thought the young guys had some really good shots of, of past protecting
06:55versus good defensive lineman in that game the other night. You know, Blake Fisher is
06:59still a work in progress. He got, he had some really good reps. He also got spun moved to
07:04hell on one play by Brian Burns. He did. So no, I think that ranking is too low. I think
07:10if you factor in both the run and the past, they're probably middle of the road right
07:14now. Yeah. Cause I think there's other positions like
07:18they're 19th at running back. I think you can get to a Superbowl having the 19th best
07:22running back room. The, the last five Superbowl winners have all had running back rooms that
07:26probably ranked it. Isaiah Pacheco has been winning you super bowls lately. Yeah. And
07:30I think that's also, that's probably, it's a matter of depth more so than anything else.
07:34It's I think Joe Mixon people aren't overly impressed by that acquisition by the Texans,
07:39but he's much more solid, independable potential for perhaps being in a new scheme with a different
07:45quarterback might give them a little bit of a extra boost, but it's who do you have behind
07:49him? Like, realistically, we got to take our blinders off a little bit here. We, as
07:53a fan base are getting excited about a guy who's coming off of his second Achilles tendon
07:58tear and can make can makers who wasn't that good after his first Achilles tendon tear.
08:02So I like he showed all of those bursts of athleticism that we've seen. He showed them
08:08when he was in Minnesota last year, but he still averaged 3.4 yards per carry. Yeah.
08:13So I I'm, I'm hopeful that it does turn out and man, they can really capture something
08:19with him, but it's all unproven people or Damian Pierce who hasn't been good since really
08:25before the last few games that he played in 2022, because he was getting around. He was
08:31at putting out some pretty pedestrian performances the last few games before he was the end.
08:35Yeah. Yeah. And his rookie year. Yeah, man, there was a video online. I'll get to it later,
08:41but there was a video that surfaced of all of Damian's good runs from his rookie year.
08:44Yeah. I've been watching him a lot. It was the Jaguars one. I think that you had sent
08:49me one. Well, this was a cutup of like 20. Yeah. It made me sad. So anyways, we'll, we'll
08:55get to that later in this ranking on ESPN, this positional group ranking the things that
09:00are not surprising Texans eighth, a quarterback. That's about right. I think for CJ coming
09:05off his rookie year, I know a lot of Texan fans would be like, he should be 50.
09:08That's the whole room for one thing. Wide receiver. Their first, no surprise there,
09:15which sounds weird to say for a Texans team that their first among wide receiver rooms
09:19and then the edge rushing room is fourth. Will Anderson, Danielle Hunter, top five that,
09:24that feels about right. I guess the thing that would be concerning for the Texans and
09:27where if you, if you're buying into these rankings being somewhat accurate, Seth, is
09:32that literally every other position group is outside the top 15.
09:36Yeah. You know, everything else is hovering around the middle of the road or in the bottom
09:41part of the lane. You're running back. I mentioned 19th tight end 16th. I mentioned the old line
09:45and D line 28th and 29th. That's the most concerning thing. Although I'm with you. I
09:49think, I think they got short change. Their linebackers 21st man of Christian Harris doesn't
09:55get healthy. 21st might be generous right now with that line.
09:57Yeah. I think there's a few of these that are like, which is happens this time of year.
10:03I think some of it's based maybe a little too heavily on last year's team that my clay
10:08is not at every training camp. Right, right, right, right. Yeah. And I don't know, like
10:12I was surprised that the linebackers were ranked as low as they were. Part of that I
10:15think is that if you're looking at the team's base defense, then, okay, it's a four, three,
10:20you're looking at the Sam linebacker, Henry Toto didn't play really well last year. So
10:24there's no reason for anybody outside of Houston to think about, I think Henry Toto has made
10:29a lot of progress camp. Yeah. But, um, I think Christian Harris is another guy that
10:36if you don't, if you look at his season in totality last year, it's not that impressive.
10:40People that didn't watch the Texans every week. Don't realize that no, his, he was Christian
10:45Harris was a completely different player in the second half of the season. He doubled
10:49his production in a lot of regards. Uh, like, like actually doubled it in terms of TFLs
10:55total tackles, all of that. He was a much different player in the second half of the
10:58season. So I think they're ranked too low there. I, yeah. Are you, if Henry Toto has
11:03to play 50 snaps in the opener against the Colts, how are you feeling about, um, because
11:10they don't, they're just not in that. My, my point about the four, three was that they
11:13don't play the four actual four, three all that much. I guess. Let me clarify. If Christian
11:18Harris, sorry about that. Yeah. Then I'm nervous. Yeah. Yeah. If, uh, it's, it's much different
11:25I'm optimistic that he's an improved player athletically. He's just not nearly the same
11:29thing as Christian Harris. Right. Um, so yeah, that's, that's a, we'll see. I thought cornerbacks
11:35being ranked 18th. That's an interesting one because again, I think they're, they're looking
11:39at Kamari Lassiter is an unproven commodity. I'm pretty bullish on Kamari last me too.
11:43So I think that right now they should be the way I expect Kamari Lassiter to play ranked
11:49higher than that. But then there's also the conundrum of, all right, we saw some of those
11:55backup cornerbacks like Mike Ford who led up a huge, a huge reception downfield for
12:00Daniel Jones in that game. Um, Mike Ford has had a rough training camp. I mean, he's out
12:05there playing in the second quarter after the starters go out. So depth that cornerback
12:10is not as, as deep as I would like it to be. Yeah. I think, I think that if there's positions
12:16on this team where I feel like the 53, they take into the season, um, the, where the guys
12:25are on other teams right now at these positions, I feel like cornerback depth at cornerback
12:30and depth on the offensive line or two of them for me, where I feel like ultimately
12:33the 53 that they settle on heading into the Colts game in week one, that those guys are
12:38on somebody else's squad right now.
12:40I think too, Sean, the, I think where it's valid that there's been a lot of commotion
12:45about the Texans based on the improvement last year. And then the roster as it's currently
12:50constructed is that the positions that matter the most are any position that involves the
12:56quarterback on offense or defense. So if you look at the wide receivers, you look at the
13:01edge rushers, you look at the quarterback himself, and then you look at the starting
13:05cornerbacks. Those I feel really, really good about. And beyond that, you gotta, you gotta
13:12have a broad roster of blue collar dudes that are good players, solid players.
13:18So if you go position group by position group, it can kind of give you a misleading thought
13:23of just how, how strong a team actually can be. Yeah, you're right. Like those positions
13:27and when you're talking about should be waiting, those are the teams. Those are the positions
13:30that are the highest paid positions in the league because they're the most important.
13:34They have the biggest impact in the game, in the positions where the, they have the
13:39biggest impact in the game. I feel really good about all those. Yeah. And I think that's
13:43probably why for, you know, when you got 10 position groups in this exercise that Mike
13:46clay is doing here on ESPN and seven of them, you're 15th or lower, but your roster is still
13:5211th, I think is reflective of that. Well, that would include the offensive tackles in
13:55that. Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say, yeah, I would throw Laramie into that, that, that,
13:58that pot.
13:59You were just there. The other one of the highest paid position groups, cause it's about
14:02protecting the quarterback. So Laramie in past protection more so in the run game is
14:07really good. But some of the issues that we saw in the game on last week, the preseason
14:14game, I look, I'm optimistic about Blake Fisher. I think he's making really good progress,
14:19but as a run blocker, Laramie Tunsil is still much better than him. And just in terms of
14:23understanding sometimes just like the simplest and easiest way you see with young players
14:27ever, this is universal across sports, so much wasted movement, you know, and they get
14:33in their own way sometimes by just hyper-reacting or overreacting to one thing. So then they
14:38can't react to a counter. That's a little bit where Blake Fisher and some of the young
14:42offensive linemen are right now. They're just taking steps that are too big. The veterans
14:47know economy of motion is really helpful. And you take the, you're just taking the smallest
14:54necessary step. And that's something that Laramie does really well. It even in the run
14:58game, even though he's not a road grader, but there are some of these whiffs in mental
15:02players.
15:03You're not going to see with him. It's interesting question. Just based on the conversation we're
15:06having, Seth and I are talking, if you're just getting in your car, ESPN ranked all
15:10the positional groups in the NFL one through 32. And the Texans are faring really well
15:15at a few of them, quarterback receiver edge rusher. And then they're kind of middle of
15:19the pack or even bottom of the league. And in the other seven overall roster, 11th random
15:24question, text page is this team's roster better than, and I'm assuming they just mean
15:29talent wise, better than the two Texans teams in 2011 and 2012. It first made the play.
15:37The total roster. I'm going to say, I'll say the same thing that Andre Johnson had said
15:41in this side, I felt like in those really competitive teams and on some of the bill
15:46O'Brien's competitive teams, they were very top heavy. I think this is maybe, I think
15:54it's as talented at top level talent, especially if you include the quarterback position. I
16:00think, I think most people that are, I think, I think Matt shop would agree that CJ Stroud
16:04ceiling is higher than first ceiling was. Yeah. So I would say they are more talented
16:10at the top end and much, much deeper throughout. So yeah, I think on paper right now, as we
16:17sit here in August where everything has been meaningless, I think they've got the potential
16:21to be a better overall roster than those. It's funny. They're, they're, they're kind
16:24of like a bizarro version in this exercise. If you're rating all the position groups,
16:29they're not a, not a perfect flip bizarro version of each other, but like the 2011 Texans,
16:35I think Matt shop in this exercise is probably like a, you know, like 12 to 14 or 15 quarterback.
16:41Whereas CJ is eighth running back. They're probably near the top of the league with Arian
16:44Foster offensive line, offensive line. That was a top five offensive line. They're 28th
16:49in this exercise. That was the interior defensive line was depending on how you categorize JJ
16:54Y, you know, like it was, they ran a three, four, you know, so depending on how you categorize
17:00a three, four defense in this exercise, are your edge guys really more like the Connor
17:04Barwins of the world or Brooks Reed as opposed to JJ and JJ was just JJ for the duration
17:10of the season was a rookie that was showing promise, but not necessarily doing a whole
17:15lot. Yeah. He, he kicked it in. But if you look at, okay, as an edge rusher, Brooks Reed
17:21or Connor Barwin versus will Anderson and Daniel Hunter, right. I think they've got
17:26a bit like Connor was very good as a versatile three, four outside linebacker where you could
17:31pass rusher. It could, could actually be relied upon in coverage way more than most outside
17:35linebackers, but he wasn't the menacing pass rusher that Daniel Hunter is.
17:40I would take will Anderson over Brooks Reed. So I think, yeah, I think that again, when
17:45you get to the marquee positions, the, the 2000, this squad right here is better. And
17:52then I do think just by virtue of maybe special teams play, you can see the depth of the roster
17:58and they've done a good job. Nick's done a good job with that over the last few years
18:01of getting a pretty deep roster in terms of having guys that are capable of playing special
18:06teams. Yeah. Let's let's relive some of the magic from Saturday real quick. Cause I've
18:11got an observation on the Texans and the effect they're having on their opponents here in
18:16the preseason. Let's let's relive the magic of Jalen Petrie getting a pick six Jones fakes
18:21to give on second at eight pumps and he's going to be sacked. No, he gets rid of it
18:25last moment. It's picked off for a touchdown. Petrie to the end zone, pick six short range.
18:33There's your guy. Vandy must've been talking to Petrie before the game. Yeah. And then
18:39we have this just a series or two later Jones in the gut. He's got time and he airs it out
18:45deep down the right side. And Stingley has a pick inside the five yard line. Derek Stingley
18:51jr. With the interception. There was no way he was going to be denied the pass intended
18:56for Jalen Hyatt. That, that catch that still, it was, it was one of those things where you
19:01gotta credit Daniel Jones partly for it. Uh, you know, put it right on the, and yet
19:05it is, it was still an impressive feat pulling it off that the hands catch aspect to it,
19:11that it was away from Stingley's body and not intended for him. Jones was like, I thought
19:16I felt like he was, uh, maybe, maybe he was kind of just fixated on Derrick Stingley's
19:22hazel eyes or something because he picks six in the early drive too. Yeah. So it was a,
19:32yeah, it was both a bad pass, but also a brilliant interception. So you and I had talked before
19:36the Pittsburgh game, you'd brought this up several times about how it's going to be cool
19:41to watch the Texans have an impact on one of the more interesting quarterback battles
19:45in the NFL. Right? Like, and we didn't see Russell Wilson in that game. We only saw Justin
19:49fields for like a quarter and a half and fields did a couple of good things. Pittsburgh people
19:53got all hot and bothered and up and really hyped about some of the completions that he
19:58had. There were people that were optimistic about that performance. Just some of the articles
20:03you sent me. I bet Steelers fans, smart ones were not probably, but this just in every
20:10fan base has dumb fans. Um, it actually may be this quarterback room in New York that
20:17the Texans in the short term at least have had a bigger impact on in terms of the impressions.
20:22This is a manual Ocho of FS one yesterday. I'm not a huge Ocho guy, but I loved this
20:28analogy about Daniel Jones. And again, this is all on the heels of the Texans making him
20:32look like he looked his first couple of years in the league this weekend. This is a fantastic
20:38analogy basically calling Daniel Jones a zero. How can you start Daniel Jones? You are betraying
20:44your running back, your tackles, your guards, your receivers, your defensive linemen, your
20:49outside backers, your defensive ends, your cornerbacks, your safeties, your inside backers.
20:53You are betraying the entire organization when you make Daniel Jones a starter, because
20:57all of their work is void by starting Daniel Jones. That's like adding all of the numbers
21:02into a calculator and then hitting times zero, you will end up at zero. So it does not matter
21:09how much you keep hitting plus, plus, plus, plus, uh, Thomas plus Dexter Lawrence, uh,
21:16plus, okay. It doesn't matter how many times you continue to hit plus, because at the end
21:20of the day, you have to hit times Daniel Jones and that will equal zero.
21:25You know what? That's really good. I like that because, uh, you know, you hear sometimes
21:30about people being like, well, they're force multipliers, a guy that a player that makes
21:34everybody else around him. He's a force multiplier. You can use that same term and say, yeah,
21:40he's a force multiplier. You're multiplying by zero. Daniel Jones is a force multiplier.
21:45Yes. What's the factor? Zero. That's the word I couldn't think of. That's the word
21:50I can text line. Tell me if I was right or not. I can't remember. I was just going to
21:54say integer. I stopped helping my kid with math about like fourth grade. I was like,
21:57I don't remember any of this crap. That was algebra. Y'all do this differently these days.
22:02I don't know.