The Texans did not do themselves many favors in Sunday's loss to the Minnesota Vikings. But offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik made a few curious decisions that proved costly. In The Loop discusses that here.
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00:00John Guinness rocks off early when it comes to Laramie Tunsil in particular, but the penalties
00:05in general. And I think the law firm of Lopez, Figg, and Attatula have come to a decision.
00:13Lopez, Attatula, and Figg is what I said. I like the punch of Figg at the end. Lopez,
00:17Attatula, and Figg. It's one of two decisions, right? It's just straight off the top,
00:23Tunsil gets benched, or it's Laramie Tunsil, you are taking every single snap. We're taking away
00:29your veteran days. You don't get to relax no more. You got to put in work to get yourself
00:33together. You're taking all the snaps. I mean, that'll hurt for development of your other guys,
00:38but hey man, you need to get in all the work possible, all those luxuries. Hey, maybe even
00:43strip you of your captaincy. I know that that's tough because that was voted on by the players,
00:46but as of right now, you're not exhibiting the qualities of a captain, right? So those are the
00:51two options that we have put up, and I'm sure you can determine which one was put up by myself and
00:56which one was put up by John Lopez after our conversation. I came in hot, Figgie. Yeah,
01:01yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that fire. I'm just sick and tired of it, as people like to say,
01:07and some people, just real quick, and we'll get into this off, because it does tie in with the
01:10offense. Some people, like our lovely program director, I don't think he's ever been called
01:15lovely, Parker came in during the break and was saying, well, no, kind of what you're talking
01:20about, and also, well, he just, and some texters are saying this, well, he just appreciates sitting
01:24out. Okay, well, if he says, you know, no big deal, then you have your answer. You have your
01:30answer about Laramie Tunstall and how he really works and what drives him. We'll get back to this,
01:37because I've just been all night, all morning, and then when I saw his quote, I was like,
01:42all right, I'm going in on this cat. I mean, he can squish me like a grape if he wants to.
01:48He can get mad if he wants. I hope he does get mad. I hope he does get mad, because maybe that's
01:51what needs to get him going. So we transitioned from that to an offense in general that was a
01:59little lackluster. We set this up as a possibility for, this game proved as a test for your Texans,
02:06particularly offensively, and that test did not seem like it was passed on offense. Now, of course,
02:10a large part of this was you had a lot of penalties that put them in bad situations,
02:14but also you had stuff like this. Split back, CJ in the gun, CJ with pressure, out to the right,
02:20he's going to be sacked by Pankeiko, back in the 18-yard line. Yep, and that basically does it.
02:27Yep. You just want to get the halftime now. Let the clock run out and just go in and press the
02:32restart button. Yeah, and that highlighted for me one of the issues that we've seen with Bobby
02:39Slowick, but I think, look, man, there's an acknowledgement Bobby Slowick is very talented
02:44at what he does. He's a fantastic young coordinator that a lot of people have some interest in for
02:52bigger and better things, but with that being the case, I feel like we need a Bobby Slowick
02:56conversation because one of the things that obviously happened, I made the decision and the
02:59smart one, I believe, to come up to the studio and watch the game with the five fellows that do
03:03pre- and post-game here because I would rather sit and watch a game around some former players and
03:08get some of their perspectives. One of the things that jumped off the screen and leapt out of Clint
03:12Sterner's heart was blocking schemes doesn't make sense, right? Very often, quite a few times,
03:20you had the likes of Cade Stover or Dalton Schultz one-up with a defensive end. Oftentimes,
03:25their best defensive end, Jonathan Grennard, you're familiar with him, and it went just the
03:31way that you would expect a second-year tight end or just generally dudes that are not like
03:36maulers at tight end like their Rob Gronkowski up here with defensive ends, and it kept happening,
03:41again, with the same thing we're talking about with the pass blocking, or not pass blocking,
03:45with the penalties. It kept happening over the course of the game, which made it more evident
03:50that this was not just, hey, a problem in setting protection like I had been concerned about last
03:55week. This was a decision on how they decided to block, and it pointed to there might be some
04:01issues when it comes to Bobby Slowick and his inexperience that are showing themselves against
04:05more experienced defensive coordinators. Yeah, the offensive line scheme,
04:11the blocking scheme with the tight ends at fullback and everything, it really doesn't have
04:17a lot to do. It has some, of course, with Chris Strasser, the offensive line coach. That's Bobby
04:22Slowick's scheme. The scheme is Bobby Slowick's, how they're going to block things up. Strasser
04:27is more the nuts and bolts, let's do this, fix it one way or another. Although, hey, Chris Strasser,
04:32you're- No, he's not off the hook.
04:34Your tackles are jumping off sides and not lining up right.
04:37Yes, exactly. Bobby Slowick bought the groceries of this scheme. He's the guy that bought the
04:44groceries. The reason I think we have to have this conversation and are having this conversation
04:48about this offense is not just they got blown up, but he has- I mean, come on, Bob. You spent $188
04:57million on the offensive line. You got $188 million invested in the offensive line.
05:03Oh, okay, how about a receiver? Okay, we'll get you Stephon Diggs. Okay, how about extending
05:08Nico so he's happy? Okay, we'll extend Nico. All right, how about a running back, a really big-time
05:13badass running back? You got it. Well, to be fair, you know, injured in this-
05:17Well, sure.
05:18Not available person.
05:18Sure, but we got you Joe Mixon, buddy. So he's got $188 million on the offensive line,
05:24Stephon Diggs, Nico Collins extended, Joe Mixon. So yes, Bobby Slowick, you got all the groceries.
05:32It's your scheme. Let's make it work.
05:35Yeah, and I mean, one of the things that we talked about on Friday is I felt like
05:39quick game would have been really helpful in trying to neutralize that pass rush. And when
05:44they did deploy it, it felt like it was useful, right? You were able to get guys out in space,
05:48Nico Collins out in space. I know that there was one that was thrown to Xavier Hutchinson that he
05:54ultimately didn't catch, but I felt like there was things like that that I don't know was fully
05:58utilized early enough. Now, to be fair, in that point as well, you had the defensive
06:02end just getting their hands up and not batting balls down that kind of negated some of those
06:07things. But all of that still stemmed from, in my estimation, starting at the foundation,
06:12your offensive line, whether it was through penalties or just like not being set up to
06:17pass block, right, where you have a possession where Dalton Schultz is on the left side
06:20blocking Jonathan Granada by his lonesome. And then you have three linemen almost
06:25stuck on a defensive tackle. It feels like the way that you went about the primary game
06:30planning of this was set up incorrectly, and so you did not give yourself the maximum height
06:35in the course of it. Yeah, you're absolutely right. And when you couple what they did on
06:40the offensive line and the pre-snap penalties with what you just mentioned, that's how you get
06:4513 out of 14 third downs where third and seven are longer. Now, that is certainly understandable
06:52that you're going to struggle, but 13 out of 14, that points to Bobby too. You got to have
06:56something. Now, listen, the other thing that they did in game is they, they moved, they,
07:03they moved to find Gilmore with Nico Collins. I don't know if Nico Collins is going to be the,
07:08the number one wide receiver all year long, but the Vikings thought he was.
07:12So that's how Stefan digs got 10 catches and that's how, but you have to be able to
07:17exploit that when you see it in game. Oh, wow. You know, they're, they're traveling Stefan a lot,
07:21not, not exclusively, but a lot with Nico Collins. That's how you got to make the adjustment. If
07:26you're, if you're Bobby Slovak. Yeah. And I, in the course of this, I do wonder if something
07:30that's going to pop up more over time is some play action. I know that there's some people
07:35that are like, Oh, the run game. Isn't all that good. Now over time, we found that, Hey man, the,
07:39the, the use of play action is going to be useful regardless of if you run the ball effectively or
07:43not, because what it does is it frees those linebackers for a split second. And especially
07:48with the wide receiving core that you have given CJ Stroud an opportunity to just have a, have a
07:52little bit of a split second, a little bit of space in that middle of the field. And I just
07:56wonder if that could have been utilized more. And now that I'm just going into full speculation,
08:00second guessing, but one thing that did become, I felt was at least very evident without getting
08:05too far into the X's and O's of it was there was a disparity when it came to the coaching
08:09acumen, or maybe just like on this day, without talking about the full strength of it,
08:15earned him some looks when it comes to, Hey man, come back around and being a head coach again.
08:19And I think that that was an interesting juxtaposition to Bobby Slowick who had,
08:23who was golden boy this past coaching search, even though he ultimately decided to come back.
08:27And I imagine that some of these, some of this is the reasons why he wants more opportunity to
08:31work on it. However, it's going to need to show itself over the course of the season that you
08:35are working on getting better, make no mistake about it. As much as this was a frustrating game.
08:40And we've, you know, we're, we're really just kind of getting into the frustrations.
08:44The Vikings are the real deal. And Brian, Brian Flores is the real deal, but that's no excuse.
08:50If you think you're the real deal, that's again, this is, these are the waters that you are now
08:54playing. Yes, exactly. Like we have moved from the waiting part of the pool to six feet deep,
08:59right. Can you swim? And we're seeing the various ways in which the Texans can swim a little,
09:04they swim like me, right? Like I will be alive. I'm not moving around too fast, right? Like,
09:09don't, you will never confuse me with Michael Phelps, but right now, as of this moment,
09:13right. It is, it is, it is just, just enough to tread water, just enough to keep yourself full.
09:18And that's a great analogy. And let's not mistake. Let's not forget this either. When you talk about
09:22scheme and blocking schemes and all that CJ Stroud is on pace to be sacked 56 times this year.
09:28Let me say that again. 56 times he's on pace to be, that is not good.
09:33That is not good. That is how you get a quarterback hurt or beat up.
09:38So, yeah, I, I think that those are the things, those are things that we're starting to see when
09:42it comes to Bobby Slowick. And I do want to see that gets in there and not only want to needs to,
09:48yeah, it needs to, again, for the level of team, the caliber of team that you anticipate this being
09:53those things against defenses of this caliber, you need to be able to set your protection
09:58to have a baseline for what you're doing. You need to be able to see the defense.
10:02And even though they pose challenges, you need to be able to find ways to get those things
10:06executed. And unfortunately, as of right now, you haven't done that. But yeah, Bobby, we,
10:12we want to see it. And that's on top of the fact that, and look, I don't know how much this was
10:16going to happen anyways. We know the running game, especially run blocking has not been
10:20up to the stack, up to the task or up to the level that we would hope. But there was frequently,
10:25frequently times where the Texans were getting hit behind the line of scrimmage or at the line
10:30of scrimmage to no game to no end, right? The Texans ground game struggle to create space
10:35from scrimmage eight of 11 design runs. All carriers were contacted behind the
10:40line of scrimmage in this game. Not too much. Yeah. Not, not, not what you want.