The Houston Texans won their second AFC South title in a row. Payne and Pendergast react to the good news here.
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00:00Texans win yesterday. Colts lose yesterday. AFC South champs, Brian. Yeah. As a once,
00:06as a once average coach stated, following a Brock Osweiler led Texans team, clinching
00:12a division AFC South champs. Second year in a row, but it was this a lot of Texans victories
00:18this year have been a little bit unsatisfying. You just have to hard not think about this
00:24or that. Yesterday I could make a book case for yesterday's when being unsatisfying because
00:31the offense actually didn't do much at all. Right. And yet I think, and I, I've tried
00:36to been checked the vibes of the fan base and whatnot, and I don't know about how you
00:40feel about it from the post game show where you get a lot of calls. I think for me and
00:45maybe other people feel this way. I watched yesterday's performance and I thought, you
00:49know what? All right. The offense is what it is, but if maybe this can be one of those
00:55teams, like the lovey Smith bears, where you ride an opportunistic defense that forces
00:59turnovers and just, just is a different type of football team. But every now and then it
01:05works in the playoff. That's going to have to be what it is. There's no choice. That's
01:08if you're, if you're going to, if you choose to be optimistic, that's the only route you
01:12can take now. Yeah. Yeah. They'll give you optimistic as far as where, how far can they
01:16go in the playoffs? I think that that defense look, man, they're extremely awesome. Good
01:20job. The defensive player of the week to you yesterday for me is we talked about all week.
01:27One of the big tests was going to be okay. Kalen Bullock has been awesome for a rookie.
01:31He's really got to start playing like a veteran safety and man, that's exactly what he did
01:36yesterday. I, aside from the PBU, that could have been a pick. And then on the next series,
01:41kind of dooping dooping to a, with a similar look a defensively, he's able to pounce on
01:49that and get a near pick six and HN is fast HN. But then in the second half, the Texans
01:55were playing single high the whole time. And like with your rookie safety back there and
02:00they did a great job. They, they limited the explosive longest for the dolphins yesterday
02:05was 21 yards. So for me, okay. You're, you're still down as these Elshire, but you've got,
02:11you've also got Kalen Bullock it's safety. That's playing more like a veteran safety.
02:15Yeah. And you got Christian Harris back yesterday and Christian Harris played. I think I haven't
02:20seen the snap counts yet. It felt, it felt like he was out there a lot. Cause he was
02:22around the ball, he was around the ball a lot. And he, he took out one of the sideline
02:27crew at one point with such speed that I thought for sure that guy was, was gone. Kudos to
02:33him. Whoever you are, he popped right up and got back in the game. He's got to shake off
02:36the rust somehow. If you lose a random sideline guy in the process, the two things yesterday
02:41were just caught my eye and it took my attention away from the action was one a Chan like a,
02:49like a fighter jet coming in out of nowhere to tackle Bullock. I saw his Bullock. Maybe
02:53I don't know how it looked on TV, but from above you could see how fast he was moving.
03:02That was fast. And then Christian Harris on that play where he was flying to the side,
03:06he was moving so fast to the sideline that I ignored the action on the field. And I saw
03:11him take out the sideline crew. Yeah, man. He looked good. He looked good yesterday.
03:17That was a microcosm of what the Texan season has been. It's there. You're absolutely right,
03:21Seth. They're going to go as far as the defense and the specialty special teams were excellent.
03:25Yes. I'm not just talking about the fake punt, like over like coverage teams, Kymie Fairbairn,
03:31Tommy Townsend, like top to bottom special teams were excellent yesterday. The one, the
03:35one, the last or so I'll put on there is okay. If you could just stay on sides on that field
03:40goal attempt. Oh, MJ. Yeah. MJ Stewart. And he's done a Stewart, more penalties on special
03:45teams. He had the false start on the fake punt a couple of weeks ago. Yeah. When they
03:49were kind of lining up to, yeah. So, but other than that, uh, it, well, yeah. And MJ Stewart
03:53had that illegal blocking defensive blocking where it was yesterday. No, no, no, no. That
03:58was Eric Murray. Excuse me. MJ Stewart. I apologize. We're not going to give you all
04:03the penalties that I heard that MJ Stewart was responsible for all kinds of, um, so there's,
04:09yeah, there's a lot of storylines with this. Obviously the biggest one is that the Texans
04:12are AFC South champs. They will be going to the postseason again at worst case. They're
04:16the four seed. Um, they picked up a game on the Steelers yesterday who are the three seed
04:20right now. And as you've pointed out, Seth, the Steelers play a hellacious schedule down
04:25the stretch. Well, I say they play a hellacious schedule. They play the same teams. The Texans
04:28do practically. They play the chiefs and the Ravens also. And then round Robin that we've
04:32got coming up over the next few days. So there, so division champs, um, let's, let's give
04:38the, the obviously not just the defense kudos, but D'Amico Ryan's man, two, two division
04:44championships in his first two years. This has been a harder year. I think probably maybe
04:48in press conferences and things like that, just because the offense has been so underwhelming.
04:53They're doing this kind of the flip of what everybody thought it was going to be at a
04:5730,000 foot level before the season when they traded for digs and brought in Joe Mixon,
05:01the thought was, man, this is going to be an incredible offensive fireworks display.
05:05I mean, whatever happens with the defense happens with the defense. It's been the opposite
05:09of that. If it's possible to have fireworks on defense, they've had fireworks on defense
05:13this year, including yesterday, they had three sacks. They came at one of them was just a
05:19shove out of bounds of Tua. But the other two sacks were massive in the Anderson strip
05:24sack fumble. And then the Daniel Hunter sack on the second to last drive that made it second
05:30in 25 and squelch that drive. Yeah. The, the, the dolphins got one more bite at the
05:35apple, but Derek Stingley extinguished that on the very first play. And that's the other
05:39big story, man. Stingly he's not on any of those charts for defensive player of the year
05:43right now, any of the odds boards, but he, I've, you'd have a hard time finding a cornerback
05:47who's playing better football. I would imagine. Yeah. And when you look at the stats of how
05:52many times he was targeted, how many yards he, he allowed, it was like one of the better
05:56performances this season by any defense. Yeah. I love that all three interceptions
06:01yesterday, they were targeting Tyreek hill and Tyreek hill, you know, and definitely,
06:07definitely on the second one, you know, Tyreek hill might be wondering to himself,
06:10maybe I was wrong about Pat Mahomes, not being, having his good ball placement is
06:14to a tongue of eye. There's that there's that. Well, no, the second one, I would say the first
06:18one, because the second one, he had the ball and he had the box. When I was going to say
06:21the second one, I think Tyreek hill thought he was catching that call. Yeah. He had it.
06:26Yeah. Stingly. So he's strong. He's not, he's not a big dude, but he's strong man. He's just
06:34got such, but he tracks the ball so well. He's he should be every fan's dream because
06:40the thing that drives fans the craziest is when a defensive back doesn't turn and look for the
06:45ball. And the simple answer for why defensive backs don't do that more easily is because it's
06:50really, really hard. Stingly makes it look like he's the intended receiver. It's incredible. It's
06:55really like he knows exactly where it's coming down. And a lot of times he just has a better
06:59feel for it than the receiver himself. We had him on the post-game show yesterday. He's not
07:03only talking, he was as talkative yesterday morning or yesterday afternoon in the post-game
07:09show. As I've ever heard him. Yeah. A little chatty cat. He was, he was chat. Take that
07:13championship belt. You're chatting. Kathy. Yeah. Here's some other antiquated references for you,
07:17Derek Stingly. He, this is what jumped out at me and maybe we'll get this audio for later in the
07:23show. I asked him to take us through each of the interceptions. I don't know if you had a
07:27chance to hear it or not, Seth. I asked him to take us through each of the interceptions
07:31and the level, the degree of detail to which he went in reading how Tyreek Hill was lined up.
07:37Yeah. What they were, what he was expecting in that particular situation, the leverage,
07:42like he's describing it. And I was like, man, this dude is a, he is an intellectual cornerback.
07:48Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's really super smart. One thing about Stingly and cause
07:52he's quiet and he's not going to, you know, throw up a bunch of Instagrams showing how hard he's
07:58working and everything, you know, you and I know from being out of practice every morning,
08:02he's out there beforehand and then he's out there whether it's 103 degrees and he's, he's out there
08:08with a receiver or two every single day working on stuff at the end of practice.
08:13Yup. Yup. He, he was, he was very impressive with us in the post game and then he was touting
08:18Caitlin Bullock for pro bowls and rookie of the year. And I'm like, well, what about you,
08:21man? You're having a good year. He's like, oh, my footwork and this and that. And I'm like,
08:25oh, you that now I know why they love you so much over there.
08:27Yeah. And, and Caleb Bullock, honestly, that that's, he's been a revelation. I, you know,
08:33I forget a lot of times that Kamari Lassiter and Caleb Bullock are rookies, even as I'm Kamari
08:39Lassiter, less so, but Caleb Bullock, all those things where for a safety it's, it's, you can play
08:45really, really well by the book. But the thing that makes you a really good safety is anticipating
08:51where the soft spots are going to be, where somebody might've made a mistake understanding.
08:55And I feel like he's really starting to get a feel for that stuff. And on those,
09:00both those plays inside of two minutes in the first half, kudos to D'Amico and Matt Burke for
09:07really all day, shifting the coverages, changing it at the snap, but then Cailin understanding and
09:13being aware of where the opportunity was without taking any extra risks to do it. That was a,
09:18that was a great performance out of Cailin Bullock. It was a great performance out of
09:21Bullock and the defense as a whole. And you're absolutely right. The dolphins were supposed to
09:24be the team that was confusing everybody with all the eye candy. The Texans, I thought did a really
09:28good job of saying, Oh, we'll confuse the hell out of you. They bid on no eye candy, no eye candy,
09:33man. They didn't like, Oh yeah. Let me see your ID before I bite on that. Nope. Nope. I'm not
09:39taking you to that dance. We've we've, we've not talked, we've not talked about the offense at all
09:46in the open here. I promise you that we will. Cause I know there's people out there frustrated
09:49with it. They did what they needed to do yesterday with the room service opportunities that they got.
09:54They scored points. I will say this, you know, the dolphins running the ball on first down so much
10:00and getting into second and nine. I'm like, dang, this feels really good. Oh yeah. That's how it
10:04feels when other teams are going against the Texans all the time. I'm like, man, every time
10:09they're running the football, it feels like a gift from the heavens. Right? Yeah. And the,
10:13the dolphins haven't been running the ball well. And yeah, that's one of the other big stories
10:17yesterday was obviously you got tight as Howard at left guard. You've got Blake Fisher at right
10:22tackle. And now I was pleased early on to see that the Texans didn't have to give Blake Fisher
10:28a whole lot of help. I mean, there were, and through the first three quarters he played
10:33really well. That sack that he gave up, he didn't give up that sack that chop Robinson got, he had
10:38done a good job blocking them, you know, and then CJ escapes the pocket and then chop Robinson gets
10:43it on the scramble drill. Then in the fourth quarter, I think the, the holding call I believe
10:48was in the fourth quarter or at least late in the third quarter. And then he allowed that sack
10:53on chop Robinson and I didn't realize it until watching on the TV copy. I'm pretty sure that
10:59chop Robinson was offsides on that. It was, I mean, yeah, he got, he got a big jump. He got
11:03at least a full step into the backfield and not so that's Blake Fisher did well for what my
11:10expectations were happy with Blake Fisher this morning. He had a couple of plays. The biggest
11:14guy I was worried about versus him was Kaleah Campbell because he's so strong and Blake Fisher
11:20still kind of looks like a teenager. And I thought he held up pretty well versus Kaleah Campbell.